Local SEO: getting found in your town on Google

“Hairdresser Bordeaux”, “emergency plumber”, “restaurant open Sunday”: for this kind of search, Google shows a map and a few businesses before the usual results. Being there is what local search is all about.

Yet many businesses leave this spot empty. In France, 47% of very small and small-to-medium businesses say they are listed for free in an online directory, Google profile included (France Num Barometer, DGE, 2026). So more than half are not.

Google’s three criteria

Google says it ranks local results by three criteria.

• Relevance: does the profile match what is being searched for? The more complete and precise it is, the better Google can make the connection.
• Distance: how far the business is from the person searching. If they don’t share their location, Google uses what it knows of it. There is nothing you can do about it, except give an exact address.
• Prominence: how well known the business is. Google counts in it, among other things, the number of websites that link to you, the number of reviews received and the ratings. It adds that the more reviews and good ratings you get, the better you rank.

Google also states that a better place in the local ranking can be neither requested nor bought.

A complete, accurate profile

It all starts with the business profile: claim it if it already exists, create it otherwise, then verify it, which proves to Google that you have the right to manage it. Then fill in everything that applies to you:

• the address, if you receive customers;
• the opening hours, special hours included;
• the primary category, then up to nine additional categories;
• the attributes: terrace, wheelchair access, parking, Wi-Fi;
• a description, up to 750 characters, with no link;
• photos and videos of the place, the team, the work.

Categories deserve a closer look. Google asks you to choose as few as possible, the most precise, and that they describe the business itself: its services and amenities are entered elsewhere. A hair salon chooses “Hair salon”; coloring is a service, Wi-Fi an attribute. A bakery that also makes pastries can add that category, if it really is a trade it practices.

The representation guidelines

Google publishes precise guidelines, and a profile that breaks them can be suspended.

• The name is the one on the storefront, the website, the documents, as customers know it. No slogan, no keyword, no town added: “Plomberie Martin” is fine, “Plomberie Martin cheap emergency Lyon” isn’t.
• The address is exact. A PO box, a registered-office service or a virtual office aren’t accepted.
• Businesses that travel to customers (plumber, gardener, home hairdresser) hide their address if they don’t receive customers, and define a service area. Google advises generally limiting it to about two hours’ drive.
• The phone is a number you control directly, preferably local, and never premium-rate.
• The website properly represents the business. Google refuses addresses that redirect elsewhere, including a social media page used as a mere relay.

The same name, address and phone everywhere

Google builds a profile from several sources: what you enter, what users suggest, data licensed from third parties, and public web content, including the business’s official website.

If these sources contradict each other, Google has to choose, and it doesn’t always choose yours. SEO professionals call this “NAP” consistency, for name, address, phone. Google doesn’t use the term, but its guidelines point the same way: the profile’s name must be that of the storefront and the website.

So do the rounds once: website, profile, directories, social media pages, booking platform. The same name, the same address written the same way, the same number, the same opening hours. And when something changes, change it everywhere on the same day.

Reviews: ask for them, reply to them, never buy them

Google provides a link and a QR code to give to your customers so they can leave a review. Slip it into a thank-you email, onto the receipt, onto a table tent at the counter.

Reply to reviews, good and bad. Google advises short, useful replies, without an advertising tone. Faced with criticism, apologize when it is justified, say what you can do, and never disclose personal information about the customer. Our tips for replying to reviews go further.

What is forbidden, on the other hand:

• offering a discount, a product or a service in exchange for a review, under Google Maps rules;
• soliciting only satisfied customers, or discouraging negative reviews;
• having reviews written by your employees, your relatives, or against a competitor.

In France, the law goes further than Google. For the DGCCRF, publishing or having fake reviews published is a misleading commercial practice, punishable by two years in prison and a €300,000 fine (DGCCRF, 2024).

And the website, in all this?

You often read that having a website lifts the Google profile. Google doesn’t say so: in its help on local ranking, it cites the number of sites that link to your business, that is, other people’s sites. It does say, however, that it draws on your official website to build the profile.

So the website has three roles. It gives Google a source that comes from you. It reassures those who compare before calling. And it can itself appear in the classic results, provided it carries the trade and the town in its title, as Google’s starter guide advises, and the address as text in the page. To link the two properly, read how to link the Google profile and the website.

In short: local SEO rests on a complete profile that follows the guidelines, identical information everywhere, and real reviews you reply to. Distance can’t be corrected; everything else can be worked on.