Strategy
What businesses need local SEO the most (and which ones don't)
The short answer
Local SEO pays most for businesses whose customers search by place and need the service soon: trades and home services, clinics and allied health, lawyers and accountants, mechanics, vets, dentists, cleaners, removalists, and anyone with a service area or a shopfront. It pays least for businesses that sell nationally online, that get all their work from referrals and want no more, or that serve a single large client. The test is simple: do people type your service and a suburb into Google? If yes, you need it.
Local SEO is sold to everyone, which is how a lot of businesses end up paying for something they did not need. The honest answer to “do I need local SEO” depends on one question: when your customers look for what you do, do they type a place? This article sorts Australian businesses by how much local search matters to them, so you can tell which group you are in before anyone sends you a quote.
The one test
Open Google and type your service and your suburb: “electrician Geelong”, “physio Chermside”, “dog groomer Mornington”. If a map and local results appear, your customers search this way and local SEO is the game you are in. If Google shows national brands and online shops instead, you are in a different game.
Businesses that need it most
Trades and home services. Plumbers, electricians, roofers, pest control, locksmiths, air conditioning, cleaners, gardeners, removalists. Customers search by suburb, often urgently, and call the first good result. These are the businesses our own local sites serve, and the pattern is the same in every Australian city: the page that answers “what do I do right now” in the right suburb gets the job.
Clinics and allied health. Physios, dentists, chiropractors, podiatrists, psychologists, GPs. People search by suburb and by condition, and they compare three options. Suburb pages plus condition pages plus clear booking.
Professional practices with local clients. Accountants, conveyancers, family lawyers, mortgage brokers, financial planners. The searches are smaller than for trades but worth far more each, and most practices have almost no local pages.
Places people go to. Cafés, restaurants, gyms and studios, salons, mechanics, vets, childcare. The map pack does a lot of the work here, which means the Google profile and the reviews matter as much as the website; the website still wins the written-out searches (“gym with classes Brunswick”) and gives the profile something to link to.
Anything with a service area and no shopfront. The service-area business is the group that benefits most from the website side, because the profile alone cannot reach across the city. We have written a full guide to ranking a service-area business in multiple suburbs.
Businesses that get less from it
National online sellers. No place in the search, no local result. The right job is ecommerce SEO.
Businesses with one or two large clients. A contractor who works only for a builder, a consultancy with three corporate accounts. The work comes from relationships, not search.
Businesses that are full and want to stay that way. Not a joke: some tradies have a two-month waiting list from referrals and want no more enquiries. Local SEO would waste their money, and a good agency says so.
Businesses about to move or change name. Local SEO builds on the name, the area and the listings. Fix the move first, then build.
The honest middle
Most small businesses sit between the groups: they get some work from Google by accident and would get more on purpose. For them the question is not whether but how much. A sole trader in a town of 30,000 people needs a service page, a few area pages, the listings and a fast site, and little else; a business in a capital city with ten competitors on every search needs the whole program in phases. Our pricing is sized by city for exactly that reason.
How to tell quickly
Three checks, ten minutes, no tools needed:
- Type your service plus your suburb into Google on your phone. Local results? You are in the market.
- Look at who is on page one. Big brands and directories only, with no businesses like yours? Harder, slower. Businesses like yours with ordinary websites? Open.
- Look at your own site. One “Services” page and no suburb pages? That is the gap, and it is the cheapest one to close.
If the answer is yes to the first and the third, the free local audit will tell you, in writing, what the businesses above you are doing that you are not, and what it would take.
Questions people ask
Does a sole trader need local SEO?
If customers search for the trade and a place, yes, and a sole trader often has the most to gain because the competitors are other sole traders with bad websites. A Starter plan sized to the town is usually enough.
I get all my work from word of mouth. Do I need it?
Only if you want more work, or want to choose the work. Referrals are the best leads there are; search is the way to fill the gaps and to stop depending on one or two sources.
Does an online shop need local SEO?
Usually not, unless it has a physical store or offers local pickup or delivery. An online shop needs ecommerce SEO, which is a different job.
What about a business in a small town with no competitors?
It still needs to be found. With no competition, a small plan (service page, a few area pages, listings) is often all it takes to own the town's searches for years.
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