To get your website on page 1 of Google, pick searches you can realistically win, give each one a page that answers it better than anyone else, and give Google reasons to trust you: a complete Google Business Profile, reviews, and mentions from other sites. For a local business, that’s usually enough to reach page 1 for your service and your town within a few months.
What you can’t do is get there overnight, or for every search. Here’s how to aim at the right ones.
Pick the searches you can win
“Plumber” is a search you’ll never win. Neither is “website design”. Thousands of businesses compete for those, and Google shows national companies with years of reputation.
“Emergency plumber Dolgellau” is different. Far fewer businesses compete for it, and the people searching it are ready to ring someone today.
Write down the searches your customers actually use. They’re usually:
- Service plus town: “electrician Porthmadog”, “dog groomer Barmouth”
- Service plus “near me”: Google handles these using the searcher’s location, so your profile and address matter most
- Specific jobs: “boiler service”, “hedge cutting”, “wedding cake”, rather than your general trade
- Questions: “how much does a new fuse box cost”
Start with five to ten of these. That’s your target list.
Give every search its own page
Google ranks pages, not websites. If your home page tries to cover every service, it ranks for none of them.
For each main service on your list, make a page that:
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Says it in the title. The page title (the blue link in Google) should read like the search: “Boiler servicing in Dolgellau · Your Business”.
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Answers it in the first lines. What you do, where, and roughly what it costs.
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Covers what people want to know. Prices, how long it takes, what’s included, areas covered, photos of real jobs, and the questions customers ask you on the phone.
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Makes it easy to act. A phone number you can tap, and a short contact form.
Google’s job is to show the page that best answers the search. Your job is to make sure that’s yours.
Set up your Google Business Profile
For local searches, Google shows the map results first, often above every website. A complete, verified profile is the fastest route onto page 1 for most local businesses. I’ve written a step-by-step guide: how to get your business on Google Maps.
Earn trust
Two businesses with equally good pages won’t rank equally. Google also weighs how established and trusted each one looks.
- Reviews. A steady flow of genuine Google reviews, with replies from you.
- Mentions and links. Local directories, your trade association, suppliers, the local paper, the chamber of commerce, a sponsor listing at the local football club. Each is a small vote that you’re real.
- Consistent details. The same business name, address and phone number everywhere.
Fix the technical basics
You don’t need to be technical, but these need to be right:
- Works well on a phone. Most local searches happen on one.
- Loads quickly. Test it with Google’s PageSpeed Insights, and see how to speed up your website.
- Secure. The padlock in the address bar, not a “not secure” warning.
- Google can find every page. Set up Google Search Console, submit your sitemap and check for errors. If you’re not showing up at all, start with why your website isn’t showing up on Google.
How long does it take?
For a new local business site with the basics right, expect weeks to show up at all, and a few months to settle on page 1 for local searches that aren’t fiercely competitive. Bigger, more competitive searches can take a year or more, and some you won’t win. Anyone who promises faster, for everything, is guessing.
Be wary of guarantees
No one can guarantee page 1. Google says so itself in its advice on hiring an SEO. If someone cold-calls offering “guaranteed first page rankings”, they’re usually talking about paid ads, a search nobody makes, or tactics that get sites penalised.
Where to start today
- Write your list of five to ten realistic searches
- Check each has its own page, with the search in the title
- Complete and verify your Google Business Profile
- Ask your last five happy customers for a review
- Run your site through a speed test
Want to know where your site stands? The free website check tests speed and phone performance with Google’s own tools and tells you, in plain English, what’s holding it back.
