Ranking higher on Google as a local business: how it really works

When someone types "hairdresser Breda" or "physio Nijmegen East", Google shows two things: a map with three businesses, and the ordinary results below it. You want to be in both. This is what that takes, in order of importance.

1. A Google Business Profile

Free, and the most important thing you can do. It is the map with your opening hours, photos and reviews. Fill in everything: category, address or service area, opening hours, photos of your business and your work. Without a profile you are never on the map, however good your site is.

2. Reviews, and keep asking

Google looks at the number, the score and how recent they are. Ask every happy customer for a review, preferably with a photo and with your town in it. Reply to every review, also the bad ones.

3. A site with the right words

Google has to be able to read on your site what you do and where. Not hidden, just in the text: your trade, your town, your neighbourhood, your services. A separate page per service helps; a separate page per town only if you really have something to say about it. Hundreds of empty pages with just a different town name backfire: Google recognises it and punishes it.

4. Speed and phones

Google measures how fast your site loads on a phone and whether it works well there. A slow site sinks. Test it yourself with Google's free PageSpeed test; anything above 90 is good.

5. Patience and consistency

A new site needs weeks to months to climb. Whoever gets a review every month and puts something new on the site once a quarter climbs steadily. Whoever promises you will be "number one within a week" is selling hot air.

What Scrollvio does

Every site we build is set up for the search terms of your trade and town, fast, and good on a phone. The Business Profile and the reviews are up to you; we explain how.