The checklist: what a local business website needs to be found (and to convert)

A local business website needs to do two jobs: tell Google exactly which service it offers in which town, and turn a visitor into a phone call or a booking within seconds. Most sites we audit do neither well. They try to rank the homepage for everything, hide the phone number, never mention price and leave dozens of useless URLs in Google’s index.

This checklist is opinionated. It is built from what we see in audits and from our study of 138 local searches and 1,168 ranking pages (Flanders, 5 October 2026). The study is correlation, not proof of cause, and it is Belgian data, but the patterns match what Google documents for every market.

1. One page per intent

The homepage should not try to rank for every service. A garage that does servicing, tyres, air conditioning and inspection prep needs a page for each, because each is a different search with a different buyer.

In our study, 65% of the independent businesses at organic #1 ranked with an inner page, not their homepage. 40% had the town in the URL.

Check: write down your five most profitable services. Does each one have a dedicated page whose title, main heading and first paragraph are about that service and nothing else? If two pages compete for the same search, merge them.

2. Service × town pages, only where there is demand

Winners often had pages built for a specific town. Yet the median site in our data had zero town pages. That is an opportunity, with one firm limit: Google’s spam policy names “multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page” as doorway abuse.

Our rule: create a town page only if you really serve that town and people actually search for your service there. Then give it something real: jobs done there, travel time, local specifics. Fifty copies with the town name swapped is not a strategy. It is a risk.

3. City + service in the title

The page title is still the clearest website signal we found. The city was in the title of 79% of independent #1 pages, and of 53% of Maps top-3 websites against 35% at Maps positions 15–20.

Format we use: Service in Town | Business name. Google’s guidance is to give each page a distinct, descriptive title, avoid keyword stuffing and keep it concise, because long titles get truncated.

Use the buyer’s real phrase. In our data, “garage + city” also returned parking spaces to rent, so a car repair shop should say “car repair” or “car servicing”, not just “garage”.

4. Make contact frictionless

• Tap-to-call: a clickable phone number (tel: link). 63% of #1 pages had one, against 53% at #11–20.
• A quote or appointment call to action: on 63% of #1 pages and 71% of Maps top-3 websites.
• One main call to action, high contrast, with proof (rating, number of reviews, years in business, a recognisable client type) visible without scrolling on a 13-inch laptop. Check it on a real laptop, not just on your large monitor. If the visitor has to hunt for the phone number, you are paying for traffic you do not convert.

5. Name, address and phone, exactly as on Google

Full address with postcode: 66% of #1 pages and 77% of Maps top-3 websites. It must match your Google Business Profile character for character: same business name, same street spelling, same phone number. Put it in the footer on every page, and in full on the contact page with opening hours.

6. LocalBusiness structured data

Only 22% of #1 pages had LocalBusiness-type structured data. That makes it one of the cheapest gaps to close. Google’s documentation says to “use the most specific LocalBusiness sub-type possible” (a dentist, an auto repair shop, a vet) and lists name and address as required. Add hours, phone, URL and geo coordinates. Make the values match the page and the Google profile. Validate with the Rich Results Test before publishing.

7. Speed and mobile

Google indexes and ranks the mobile version of your site. Its Core Web Vitals targets: largest content loaded within 2.5 seconds, interactions answered in under 200 milliseconds, and a layout shift score under 0.1.

In our data, HTTPS and a mobile viewport were on 96–100% of ranking pages. They are not an edge, but missing them is a red flag. Test on a mid-range phone over mobile data, not office Wi-Fi.

8. Price information

The most underused element. The “People also ask” box appeared in 86 of 138 searches, and in trades its questions were mostly “how much does X cost per hour / per m²?”. Yet only 37% of #1 pages mentioned any price.

You do not need a fixed price list. A range, a starting price, or a clear “what affects the cost” section answers the question that the search results show buyers are asking. It also filters out leads who were never going to buy.

9. Proof on the page

Reviews shown on the site: 28% of #1 pages. An FAQ: 19%. Project or job pages: 44% of #1 pages against 37% at #11–20. Each is a small step, so treat them as hygiene to stack, not as levers on their own. Tag projects with the town they were done in. That gives real local content with no doorway risk.

10. Index hygiene

Every junk URL in the index is a page that can rank instead of the right one, or make the site look thinner than it is. Keep the index to pages you want found.

• Search site:yourdomain.pt and look at what is indexed: old promotions, tag archives, test pages, empty category pages, duplicate “home” URLs.
• Pages that should exist but never rank (thank-you pages, internal search results): add noindex. Google’s documentation notes the page must not be blocked in robots.txt, or Google never sees the noindex.
• Pages that are outdated but have a better equivalent: 301 redirect to it. Google treats a permanent redirect as a signal that the target should be canonical.
• Check that your XML sitemap lists only pages you want indexed. 84% of #1 pages had one.

11. Internal links to money pages

Every service page should be reachable within one click of the homepage, linked from the main menu and from related text with a descriptive anchor (“brake repair in Barreiro”, not “click here”). Blog posts should link to the service they support. A money page with no internal links pointing to it is telling Google it is not important.

Quick self-check

Check	Yes / No
Each main service has its own page
Service + town in every money page’s title
Tap-to-call and one clear call to action visible without scrolling
Name, address and phone identical to the Google profile
LocalBusiness (most specific subtype) structured data, validated
Price, range or “what affects the price” on the service pages
Reviews or proof visible on the page
No junk URLs in site: results

The website is half the local picture. The other half is your Google profile: see what actually moves Google Business Profile rankings and what the Maps top 3 have in common.

Next step

Want this checklist run against your own site, and against the businesses that outrank you in your town? Ask for a free diagnosis. We will tell you which items are missing and which ones we would fix first. No ranking promises, just a clear list.