Sector
SEO for trades: the map pack for the call-out, the pages for the big job
A trade gets found through two doors, and they send different work. The map pack, decided by the Google Business Profile, sends the emergency and the small job. The organic results, decided by the pages on the website, send the rewire, the extension, the boiler replacement and the commercial contract. Most trade businesses we audit have neither set up properly, which is why a new remapping business in Chester could reach third in the map pack in five weeks. SEO for a trade is on the Local tier from £399 a month, one business per town and sector, confirmed personally in the reply.
The two doors
What each door sends, and what wins it
| Door | What comes through it | What decides it | The work |
|---|---|---|---|
| The map pack | The emergency, the call-out, the small job: whoever is nearest, open, and well reviewed. | Primary category, distance, open now, review count and recency, services and hours filled in. | The profile built properly and a review routine that runs at the end of every job. |
| The organic results | The rewire, the extension, the new boiler, the commercial fit-out: the person researches and compares. | A page that explains that exact job in that area, with what is involved, what affects the price, and real photographs. | One page per job you want more of, written after a fifteen-minute call with you. |
| The directories | Whatever the directory's own ranking sends, beside your competitors, for a fee. | The directory's authority, which you rent. | Keep one where the fee makes sense; collect the reviews; build the owned ground alongside. |
What is different for a trade
Four things the general SEO advice gets wrong for a van-based business
The address should usually be hidden. A trade that visits customers is a service-area business. Showing a home address on the profile breaks Google's guidelines and gets profiles suspended; hiding it and listing the towns you cover is correct.
Open hours are a ranking factor. Google favours profiles open at the moment of the search. A trade that answers the phone at 7am and on Saturdays should say so; one that claims 24 hours and does not answer at night loses the review that follows.
The register is a mention. Gas Safe, NICEIC, NAPIT, FMB, TrustMark: each register entry is a citation from a site Google trusts, and each one needs the same name, address and phone as the profile.
Photographs are the content. A phone photograph of the finished job, captioned with the job and the town, does more for a trade page than three paragraphs of copy. We give you a shot list for the next job.
The trade sites
Three trades have their own site, with the specifics
We run separate sites for the trades where the searches and the registers are specific enough to deserve their own pages. Each is written for that trade only: the categories, the certificates, the job pages, the seasons.
- electricianseo.co.uk: rewires, consumer units, EV chargers, EICRs, the NICEIC and NAPIT registers.
- garageseo.co.uk: MOT, servicing, diagnostics, remapping, and the map pack for “garage near me”.
- builderwebdesign.co.uk: extensions, renovations, the portfolio page, the FMB and TrustMark registers.
Every other trade (plumbers, heating engineers, roofers, landscapers, decorators, cleaners, locksmiths) is served from this site on the same tiers and with the same method. The same person runs all of them.
Reviews, and the law
The review routine for a trade, in five lines
- Ask at the end of the job, in person, in one sentence we write for you.
- Send the direct link the same evening, on the invoice or by text.
- Reply to every review within a working day, three sentences, never an argument.
- Ask everyone. Asking only the happy customers is review gating, which the CMA treats as an unfair practice.
- Never incentivise, never ask family or staff, never buy. The filters catch it and a suspended profile is months of lost call-outs.
Questions trades ask
Why do you have separate sites for electricians, garages and builders?
Because the searches, the registers and the seasons are different for each, and a page that covers all trades ends up vague for every one. If you are an electrician, garage or builder, the trade site has the specific version: the categories, the certificates, the job pages. This page is the general one, for plumbers, roofers, landscapers, cleaners and every trade without its own site yet.
Do you take one tradesman per town?
One business per town and sector on the Local tier, confirmed personally in the reply. A plumber and a roofer in the same town are fine; two plumbers are not, because they would be competing for the same three map positions.
Is Checkatrade or MyBuilder better than SEO?
They are rented ground: the enquiries stop the day the subscription stops, and the directory shows your competitors beside you. They are worth having where the fee makes sense, and the reviews you collect there are real trust. Your own profile and pages are owned ground. Most trades we work with keep one directory and build the rest.
How fast can a trade get into the map pack?
A remapping business in Chester was third in the map pack for its main search five weeks after launch, from nothing. That was a profile set up properly plus a site with a page per service, in a town where the leaders had more reviews but weaker profiles. Your town's leaders decide the timescale, and the audit counts their reviews so you know.
We do not have a website. Do we need one?
For the emergency and the small job, a strong profile does most of the work. For the rewire, the extension and the commercial contract, people research before they call, and that research happens on pages. The smallest site we build is on the pricing page; a profile alone is the one-off option.
Find out which door your competitors are winning
Send your trade and your town. The audit shows who is in the map pack and why, which job pages the sites above you have, and what it would take, with a quote.