What makes a business show up locally
Google ranks local businesses on relevance, distance and prominence. Your website feeds all three. It tells Google what you do, where you are, and whether your details match your Google Business Profile.
This check looks for your phone, address, email and ABN, LocalBusiness schema, consistency between them, maps, reviews, opening hours, and whether your suburb appears where it counts.
Questions
- What's NAP consistency?
- Name, Address and Phone. They should be identical on your website, Google Business Profile, Facebook and directories like Yellow Pages and True Local. Mismatches confuse Google and cost rankings.
- I work from home. Should I show my address?
- No. Service-area businesses can hide their address on Google and show suburb and state on the website instead. You'll still rank if your service areas are clear.
- Do I need a page for every suburb?
- For your main 3–5 areas, yes, with genuinely useful content (local jobs, travel times, local photos). Copy-paste pages with only the suburb name swapped can hurt you.