When someone in Chicago searches for a plumber, a dentist or a lunch spot, Google often shows a map with a short list of businesses. Local SEO is the work of making your business a strong candidate for that list, mostly through your Google Business Profile and the details that match it across the web. This guide explains how Google says it chooses, what you control, and what no one can buy.
Marketing Company Chicago is an independent referral service, not a marketing agency. When you send the form, your details go to an independent marketing agency that prepares any proposal and does any work.
How Google chooses local results
Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity. Relevance is how well a profile matches what someone is searching for, which is why Google advises complete and detailed business information. Distance is how far the business is from the person searching. Google also says plainly that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
In a city of 77 community areas, distance matters. A business on the Near North Side is closer to some searchers than a business in Hyde Park, and nothing changes that. What a business can do is keep its profile complete and accurate and earn genuine reviews.
What your Google Business Profile needs
- Your real name. Google says your name should reflect your business’s real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website and stationery and as known to customers. No extra keywords or neighborhood names added to it.
- The right categories. Google asks you to use as few categories as possible to describe your core business, choose the most specific one that fits, and not use categories solely as keywords.
- One profile per location. Google says not to create more than one page for each location of your business.
- Complete details. Hours, phone, website, services and photos filled in and kept current.
- Your address, plus service areas. See below.
Keep your address and add service areas
Some advice online tells owners to remove their address to look bigger or to cover more of the city. Do not do that. If you serve customers at your address and also travel to them, Google lets you enter both your address and your service area. Keep the real address and add the community areas or suburbs you travel to.
About virtual offices
Google says a service-area business cannot list a virtual office unless that office is staffed during business hours. Google’s guidelines also say P.O. boxes or mailboxes located at remote locations are not acceptable.
Reviews: what Google and the FTC allow
Reviews sit on your profile and customers read them, so they are part of local SEO. The rules are strict. Google’s Maps policy does not allow reviews that have been paid for, content posted from multiple accounts by or at the request of one person, offering incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods in exchange for a review, or discouraging negative reviews and selectively asking only happy customers. Google says fake engagement will be removed.
The FTC’s Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule adds federal rules: no fake reviews, no incentives tied to a particular sentiment, no undisclosed reviews by officers or managers, and no suppressing reviews through threats or false accusations. The approach that satisfies both is simple: ask every customer for an honest review, and offer nothing for it.
Local pages on your website
Your website supports your profile. A page for each service, and a page for an area only where you have something real to say about it, helps Google understand what you do and where. Avoid near-identical pages for every neighborhood; Google’s spam policies call pages aimed at regions that funnel visitors to one page doorway abuse. The Chicago web design guide covers the pages a site needs.
What a local SEO proposal should include
- A review of your profile today: name, categories, address, service areas, hours, photos.
- Any duplicate or outdated listings, and how they will be fixed.
- How your name, address and phone will be made consistent on your site and elsewhere.
- A plan for asking customers for honest reviews, inside Google’s and the FTC’s rules.
- Which service and area pages the site needs.
- What you will see each month, and that you stay the profile’s owner.
Want your Google profile and local pages looked at? Tell us what you need and an independent marketing agency can contact you.
For a step-by-step list you can work through yourself, see the Google Business Profile checklist. For the whole-site side of search, read what an SEO company Chicago owners hire should do.
Questions people ask
Can I pay Google to show my business higher on Maps?
No. Google says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
Should I remove my address and become a service-area business?
No. Keep your real address. If you also travel to customers, Google lets you add a service area alongside it.
Can I add ‘Chicago’ or a neighborhood to my business name on Google?
Only if it is part of your real-world name. Google says the name should match what you use on your storefront, website and stationery, without extra keywords.
Can I offer a discount for a Google review?
No. Google’s Maps policy bans incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods in exchange for reviews.
How can I do local SEO myself?
Start with a complete, accurate profile, the most specific category, consistent details on your website, and honest reviews from real customers. The checklist article walks through it.