For plumbers, electricians, roofers and builders

SEO for trades

SEO for trades is how a plumber, electrician, roofer or builder shows up when someone nearby searches for one. Most of it happens on your Google Business Profile, your reviews and a few well-built pages on your website.

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Last updated: 13 November 2026

Where trade jobs come from on Google

Someone with a leak, a tripped board or a slipped slate searches for help near them. Google shows a map with three businesses, then a list of websites.

Your Google Business Profile, your reviews and how close you are decide most of the map. Your website decides the list. SEO for a trade business works on both.

Homeowner on the phone in her kitchen as water drips through the ceiling into a bucket

Roofer fitting a new slate on a London terraced roof

How low the bar is

In my own research on 197 roofing and drainage businesses in West London:

The median business has 6 Google reviews.

57% have fewer than 10 reviews.

21% have no website at all.

So a trade business with 30 genuine reviews and a page for each service is already ahead of most of its area. The method and the full data are in my West London trades research.

The checklist

Pick the Google Business Profile primary category that matches your main trade, such as "Plumber" or "Electrician", and add every service you want work for.
Set the towns and postcodes you actually cover as service areas, not the whole county.
Post photos of real finished jobs, taken on site, every month.
Ask every customer for a Google review on the day the job is done, with a direct link.
Give each service its own page on your website, with the service and the area in the page title, such as "Boiler repair in Reading".
Keep your business name, address and phone number the same on your website, Google, Checkatrade, Yell and anywhere else you are listed.
Answer the phone, or text back fast when you can’t, because a caller who gets no answer rings the next business on the list.

Electrician arriving at a customer’s front door, with an EV charger on the wall

Plumber in his van reading a new booking on his phone

What I do for you

Local SEO is part of Growth. I build you a new website with a page for each service and area you cover, set up and run your Google Business Profile and handle the technical and on-page SEO.

Growth includes everything in Core, so a review request goes out after every job and a missed call gets a text back while you’re on the tools. If you want the trade-specific detail, see SEO for roofers, missed call text back for plumbers and how to get more Google reviews. The full scope is on the pricing page.

Questions tradespeople ask about SEO

How long does SEO take for a trade business?

A page for a narrow search, such as one service in one town, can start showing within a few weeks once Google has indexed it. Wider searches like your trade plus a big city take months. Your map listing and reviews move faster than your website, so start there.

Is the Google Business Profile more important than the website?

For most trades, the map listing wins more calls, because it sits above the website results for "near me" searches. The website still matters. It gives Google a page for each service and area, and it gives a customer comparing three listings a reason to pick you.

Do directories like Checkatrade help SEO?

They help in two ways. They often rank on page one themselves, so a good profile there can win jobs directly. And a listing with the same name, address and phone number as your Google profile helps Google trust that your business is real.

Can I do SEO for my trade business myself?

Yes. The checklist on this page is the foundation and none of it needs special tools. The part that usually slips is the monthly upkeep: new job photos, a review request after every job and a new page when you add a service.

Keep reading

Which related guide should you read next?

For roofers

SEO for roofers

How a roofing company gets found on Google search and Maps, with data on 197 West London roofing firms and a checklist you can use yourself.

For plumbers

missed call text back for trades

How a plumber stops losing the emergency caller: every missed call texted back within seconds and booked into the calendar.

Original data

what a missed call costs a trade business

Original research on 671 West London trade businesses: median 10 Google reviews, one in seven with none, one in six with no website, plus the arithmetic for your own missed calls.

Owner's guide

how to get more Google reviews after every job

The compliant six-step system: trigger from every job, same-day text with a direct link, ask everyone, never incentivise, reply to everything, and what Google and the CMA actually prohibit.

Looking for local SEO and AEO? It is part of Growth, from £497 a month, alongside the new website and the content and ads engine. I do not sell it on its own.

See where your trade business stands on Google

Book a free 30-minute growth audit. I check your map listing, reviews and website against the trades around you.

Book my free audit