Contractors and field services
Local SEO for contractors: the coverage area a homeowner checks first
A homeowner calling a plumber, electrician or builder usually has one screen open: the map. Before dialling, they check where the crew actually travels, what finished work looks like and how the last dispute was handled. A dedicated manager keeps the coverage area, the portfolio and the review record honest for every crew you run, and logs each change in your cabinet.
Get an audit of my locationsThe request is free and creates no obligation; a manager replies within two business days.
How a homeowner picks a contractor on the map
Nobody searches for a builder by name until they already trust one. The first search is "plumber near me", "emergency electrician", "roof repair [town]" and the map answers with a short list of profiles compared before any call is made.
- Photos of finished jobs decide the first impression, a profile with no work photos looks unproven next to one with a clear before/after set.
- The service area shown on the map tells a homeowner whether a call is even worth making; a crew that does not actually reach that street should not appear for it.
- Rating and the most recent reviews are read before anything else; a dispute left unanswered for weeks reads as a business that does not respond.
- The list of services (rewiring, boiler repair, extension, kitchen fit-out) filters out mismatches before the phone rings, a vague profile gets skipped for a specific one.
- Hours and response expectations are checked against urgency: a burst pipe search behaves differently from a kitchen renovation search.
- A working quote form or a phone number that is answered matters more than any badge or photo.
Where a crew's listing stops matching what the crew can prove
Eligibility is the part a homeowner never sees and the part Google checks hardest. A service-area listing holds its place by matching four things at once: who may hold the trade category, how far the van goes, what the finished work shows, and what the paperwork behind a job says. Let one of the four slide and the listing is exposed long before anyone notices a quiet phone.
- Coverage claimed on the map runs past the last street a van reaches. A town added for one subcontracted job sits on the list years later and pulls in callers nobody will drive to.
- The eligibility setup slips: an address goes on public view for a business with no premises a homeowner may walk into, which is the exact shape Google pulls contractor listings down for.
- Trade categories outlive the trade. A crew that dropped roofing keeps the roofing category, so part of every week is spent turning down work it no longer takes.
- The evidence thins out. Last season's job, a supplier's product shot, or an empty gallery, none of which shows a homeowner what this particular crew leaves behind at the end of a job.
- Somebody else's edit lands on the dispatch number, the pin or the category, and a line that no longer rings anywhere loses jobs before the office hears about it.
- A second entry survives a rebrand, a change of van livery or a trade directory sign-up, and two versions of one crew now compete for the same street.
Fields, services and actions that matter for contractors
Google gives service-area businesses a distinct set of fields. They only protect the business when they are set correctly and kept current.
- Service-area setting: the business is marked as visiting customers rather than receiving them, and the address is hidden from the public profile, Google's own rule for this business type.
- The list of cities, districts or postcodes actually served, kept realistic, not padded to look bigger than the crew can cover.
- Primary and secondary categories that match the real trade (general contractor, electrician, plumber, roofer), the wrong category hides the profile from the right searches.
- Services list with the specific work offered: what is done, not a generic "home improvement" label.
- Attributes customers filter by where they genuinely apply, years in business, appointment-only, on-site estimates.
- A quote request form or a booking link only where it actually reaches the business and is checked regularly.
- Questions & answers on the profile (call-out charges, areas covered, whether estimates are free), answered by the business, not left to guesswork.
The monthly routine that keeps a contractor profile honest
Field crews rarely sit down to fix their own listing, so the routine is built to need almost nothing from you beyond confirming what changed. Inside the package cadence, the manager compares the live profile against what was last agreed and brings back only genuine drift.
- Coverage towns and districts are checked against where the crew is actually taking jobs this month, not what was true when the profile was first set up.
- The service-area setting itself (no public address, a service area shown instead) gets verified so a home address never leaks onto the public listing by accident.
- Trade categories and the services list are matched against the work the crew currently takes on, so a business that stopped doing loft conversions stops drawing calls for them.
- Job photos sent after a project wraps are added to the portfolio, and a private home clearly identifiable in a shot only goes up once its owner has agreed.
- A quote-request form or listed phone number gets tested to confirm it still reaches someone at the business, a form nobody checks does more harm than no form at all.
- Whatever Google or a stranger's suggested edit changed without asking (a category, a digit in the phone number, the address field) stays visible with its earlier value until you say to put that value back.
Send the list of towns your vans actually reach
A line about the trade, the streets the crew covers and how jobs come in is enough for a first look. Your manager checks the live listing against Google's eligibility rules for a service-area business, marks what is stale or out of policy, and answers with a package that fits the coverage. No charge attaches to any of that.
Get an audit of my locationsReviews for a crew and the calls a person has to make
A renovation or repair review usually isn't about taste; it's about money, mess or a missed deadline, so a template reply reads as an insult. Your manager writes replies in the tone you've agreed, inside the package's monthly limit, and pulls you in the moment a complaint is about more than an opinion.
- A thank-you for a straightforward job gets a specific answer (which trade was involved, which street or project type), never a generic line copied across every review.
- A complaint about a missed appointment window gets a factual, non-defensive answer agreed with you first, dates, what actually happened, nothing promised beyond what was part of the job.
- Patterns that show up more than once (a crew running late, quotes that don't match the final invoice, calls not returned) go into the report so whoever runs the business hears them directly.
- A review that is plainly fake, about a job the crew never did, or clearly written by a rival gets reported through Google's own process; only Google decides whether it comes down.
Where a human has to step in
- Anything involving money, a missed deadline, property damage or a safety concern is never answered by the manager alone, it lands in front of you the same day, and nothing public goes out until you (and your lawyer or insurer, if you want them involved) have signed off on the wording.
What a crew actually has to publish
For a contractor the publishing material is evidence: the job that finished last week, the season that brings a particular call, the week the diary closed. How much goes out in a month is set by the package, and the manager assembles each post from what the crew sends back off site.
- Finished-job posts built from the crew's own site photos, a completed bathroom, a replaced consumer unit, a re-tiled roof, and a recognisable house goes up only once its owner has agreed.
- Seasonal work that maps onto a real call pattern: heating checks before the cold, gutters after leaf fall, the first dry weeks of the render season.
- A newly covered town or a trade added to the crew's scope, published in the week it genuinely opens rather than the week it was discussed.
- Diary honesty: booked out until spring, estimates open again, a pause while a long job runs.
- Documented credentials only, and only where the business has handed over the paperwork behind them; nothing is inferred from a sign on a van.
- Growth brings a content plan into the mix, and Pro adds the promotions calendar that maps a whole season of trade work before it opens.
One crew, or several coverage maps at once
One location
A single crew is mostly an eligibility question. The category has to be one the trade may hold, the coverage list has to stop where the van stops, and the gallery has to show work this crew did. Your manager holds those straight, looks in at whatever rhythm the package sets, and writes down what moved. Start suits a crew that wants eligibility and coverage kept clean and little else. Growth is where finished-job posts become regular, which is what most single crews come back asking for.
A network
Two crews in two regions are two eligibility cases, not one. Each carries its own coverage list, its own evidence gallery and its own review thread, while the reply tone and the reporting rhythm stay shared. A flagship crew can sit on Pro and a regional team on Start. The band you land in comes from how many coverage areas are under service in total, and one invoice covers them all. Google's rules close off the shortcut here: an entry invented for a town the van never reaches counts as a policy breach, and it can pull down every profile tied to the business.
Who signs off what on a contractor listing
What the manager does
- Holds the eligibility setup: a category the trade may hold, a service area in place of a public address, and a coverage list that stops where the crew stops.
- Builds the evidence layer out of site photos and job notes you send back, and holds a shot of a recognisable house until its owner has agreed to it.
- Passes anything touching an estimate, a variation, damage or a missed date to you rather than drafting an answer alone.
- Records each month what moved on the listing and why, and raises open questions in your cabinet, a town worth adding, a trade worth dropping, before acting on any of them.
What you confirm
- What only the office knows: this season's real driving radius, the jobs the crew takes and refuses, and which documents exist behind any credential the listing mentions.
- The wording whenever an estimate or an argument about a final invoice turns up in a public review; nothing goes out on that subject without your sign-off.
How a first month often runs for a service-area crew
an example of the process, not a client result-
Week 1
Eligibility first. The manager signs in to the account the business owns, lists every town the profile currently claims, checks whether an address sits on public view where the setting says it should not, and settles with you which corrections are routine enough to make without a question each time.
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Week 2
Coverage next. The claimed towns come down to the ones a van genuinely reaches this season, trade categories are matched to work the crew still takes, and the dispatch number is dialled to confirm somebody picks up.
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Week 3
Then the evidence. A first run of finished-job photos goes on with owner consent recorded for any recognisable property, unanswered reviews get replies within the package limit, and an argument about an estimate or damage is parked for your decision.
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Week 4
Written up. You receive what was found, what was corrected and what was published, alongside the manager's shortlist of what deserves attention next, and on Growth an outline of the posts the following month should carry.
What follows is an example of the process, written to show the order of the work rather than any client's result, and nothing here forecasts what your listing will do. How long each step takes depends on the package and on how far the current eligibility setup has drifted.
Risks and limits
- Nothing about a licence, an insurance policy or round-the-clock availability appears on the profile unless the business has handed over paperwork to back it, we don't infer coverage from a logo on a van.
- A second listing in a town the crew doesn't genuinely serve isn't something we'll set up to make the coverage map look bigger, Google treats that as a policy breach, and it can take every linked profile down with it.
- The service-area setting, which trades qualify for which category, and what counts as an eligible business at all, these are Google's calls, and they differ by country.
- Quotes, timelines and what a job actually costs come from the business, not from the manager's guess, an estimate never goes on the profile until the business has confirmed it.
What is the same for every industry
The industry page above is about what changes from one business to the next. The part below is the same for a restaurant and a dental practice alike: the packages, the split of duties and the rules Google sets. It applies to the Google Business Profile, the listing many still call Google My Business.
How the packages work here
Each serviced location is on one of three packages. The package sets how often the profile is checked, how many posts, replies and edit bundles a month are included, and how fast the manager first responds. Prices are on the pricing page. See the prices Everything the team handles
Start
Basic, regular upkeep of a location.
- Dedicated manager
- Monthly profile check
- 1 post or offer a month
- Up to 5 review replies a month
- 1 profile data edit bundle
- Basic monthly report
- Manager's first response: up to 3 business days
Growth
A location that needs regular development and content.
- Dedicated manager
- 4 posts or offers a month
- Up to 15 review replies a month
- 2 profile data edit bundles
- Monthly optimisation
- Snapshot of the competitive environment
- Content plan
- Extended monthly report
- Quarterly consultation
- Manager's first response: up to 2 business days
Pro
Priority, more intensive upkeep of a location.
- Dedicated manager
- Weekly control of the profile
- 8 posts or offers a month
- Up to 40 review replies a month
- 4 profile data edit bundles
- Monthly optimisation
- Snapshot of the competitive environment
- Content plan
- Promotions calendar
- Extended monthly report
- Monthly consultation
- Priority service
- Manager's first response: up to 1 business day
The manager proposes, you approve
The manager drafts every change, post and reply from your materials. Nothing is published, restored or billed without your yes; a flagged edit or a package switch waits for you.
Who does what, in every industry
What the manager does
- Checks the profile on the package cadence and keeps a written record of the agreed data.
- Prepares edit bundles, posts and offers from your materials and the agreed plan.
- Replies to reviews within the monthly limit, in the tone you set once at the start, and hands anything sensitive back to you the same day.
- Writes the monthly report and puts recommendations into the cabinet chat instead of acting on them alone.
What you confirm
- The facts only you know: current hours, prices, services, photos, who is on the team this month.
- The tone of replies, set once at the start, and the wording of anything escalated to you.
- The yes before a value someone else changed is restored and before a location moves between packages; nothing is charged without it.
Google's rules that apply to every profile
- Local ranking is Google's own weighing of relevance, distance and prominence. No service can buy a position or promise a place in the results.
- Verification, eligibility and which categories exist are Google's rules and differ by country.
- Photos and reviews left by other people cannot be deleted by us. Where they break Google's rules they can be reported, and Google decides.
- Booking, ordering or delivery features are connected only when you already run them with a provider Google supports in your country.
- The number of posts, replies and edit bundles per month is fixed by the package; what is unused in a month does not carry over.
Reviews: the same policy everywhere
- We do not ask only happy customers for reviews, do not offer anything in exchange for one and do not remove reviews; only Google can.
- We do not promise a rating, a position in the results or more customers. We promise the agreed process, every month.
What the team handles for this industry
The rest of the local SEO work
This page is about the profile: what a manager keeps correct on the map every month. Local search also depends on the website itself, on citations and on the pages a customer lands on after the map. Those we handle separately, and the audit tells you which of them is actually holding you back.
Frequently asked questions
We work across several towns. Can you keep our service area accurate? +
Should our home address show on the profile? +
A customer left a review disputing our invoice. What happens? +
Can you add "licensed and insured" to our profile? +
We have three crews covering different regions. One package for all? +
Our profile shows as suspended. What usually causes that for a contractor, and can you get it back? +
Do you guarantee more calls or jobs? +
A neighbouring industry, and what is different there
A listing that claims only the ground your vans genuinely cover.
Ask for a review of your listings. A dedicated manager replies inside two business days with the first corrections to make, a package proposed for each coverage area, and a price range to expect.
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