Local SEO for trades is a solved problem in 2026. The frustrating bit is that 80% of trade businesses do not do the three things that matter and 100% of them spend money on the things that do not.
1 · Google My Business — the foundation
If your GMB profile is incomplete, no other SEO work will move the dial. The reason: Google ranks the GMB profile in the local 3-pack independently of your website. The 3-pack drives 70%+ of local-search clicks for trades. If you are not in it, your website is invisible no matter how well-optimised.
What 'complete' actually means in 2026: every category Google offers (you can pick up to 10), all opening hours, real photos updated monthly, services listed individually with descriptions, areas served as a list, owner-verified, posts published weekly. It takes about three hours to set up properly and 15 minutes a week to maintain. Most trades do 30 minutes once and never come back. That is the gap.
2 · Schema markup — the upgrade
If GMB is the foundation, schema is the structural upgrade. Schema is invisible code that tells search engines exactly what your business is, where you operate, what services you offer, and what reviews you have. Without it, Google guesses. With it, Google knows.
- , LocalBusiness schema — your name, address, phone, hours, geo-coordinates
- , Service schema — one entry per service, with description and area served
- , Review schema — aggregate rating and individual reviews exposed
- , FAQPage schema — your most common questions, answered
- , BreadcrumbList — site structure made explicit
Schema bumps your click-through rate from search results by 20-30% in our measurement. Stars next to your listing. Hours visible. FAQs visible. The listing is just bigger and richer than the competitor without schema. We ship every site with all five of these as standard.
3 · Reviews — the multiplier
Google's local ranking algorithm is heavily weighted on review count and recency. 50 reviews from the last 12 months beats 200 reviews from 2018. The trade businesses winning local search in 2026 are running a review-request automation: every completed job triggers an SMS at day 7 with a one-tap Google review link.
Average response rate on automated review requests for trades: 40-50%. So a business doing 5 jobs a week generates 100-130 fresh reviews a year, with no manual chasing. Compound that for 18 months and you are at 200+ reviews. That alone outranks 80% of UK trade competitors.
What does not matter as much as you think
- , Blog posts — only matter if you publish 50+ over 18 months
- , Backlinks — local citations help, paid link-building does not
- , Page speed — matters, but only after the above three are sorted
- , Long-form content — useful for AI search, less so for local SEO
The order of operations
Week 1: GMB rebuilt properly. Week 2: schema added to the site. Week 3: review-request automation wired up. Week 4 onwards: 15 minutes a week on GMB posts and photos. That is 90% of local SEO for a trade business done in a month.
Most local SEO advice in 2026 is over-engineered for trades. Three things, in order, run consistently for 18 months. Everything else is optional.
Luca Planchais
We package GMB optimisation as a one-off £350 service. Schema goes on every site we build, no extra charge. Review automation is part of the Growth Bundle. Three things, three small investments, compounding for years.