What local SEO is, no fluff
Local SEO is the work that helps a business show up when someone searches for what it sells near where they are. “Dentist,” “restaurant for groups,” “sofa workshop”: Google understands these searches are made with the intent to go, call, or book, and it shows a map and three listings before web pages. That block, the local pack, is where most calls for a brick-and-mortar business are won.
What it is not: writing “in Sabadell” at the end of every sentence, creating one page for every town in the region, or paying someone to submit you to directories nobody reads. That worked ten years ago, and today it does more harm than good.
Why the profile matters more than the website
We see it with our local clients, whether it’s a restaurant, a dental clinic, or a furniture store with a warehouse: the Google profile brings in more direct contacts than the website. It makes sense. Someone looking for a dentist at seven on a Tuesday evening doesn’t want to read a treatment page; they want to see where it is, what rating it has, whether it opens tomorrow, and a button to call. The profile gives them everything on one screen.
The website still matters, but at another stage: when that person compares two clinics, wants to know who will treat them, or is looking for a specific treatment. That’s why at Digency we treat the profile like another page of the website, with the same care as the homepage, and not as a chore you fill out once and forget.
What decides who shows up on the map
Google explains its criteria with three words: relevance, distance, and prominence. In plain English:
- Relevance: that your profile clearly says what you do. Correct primary category, secondary categories that actually exist, services filled in with names people use.
- Distance: how far the person searching is from you. You can’t control that, unless you open another location. Accepting it saves a lot of money on gimmicks.
- Prominence: how much people talk about you outside your profile. Reviews, mentions in local press, real directories, links from your trade association website or from your suppliers.
Of the three, you can only work on two. And the first one can be sorted in an afternoon if it’s done properly.
The profile, field by field
Almost every profile we audit has the same gaps. What we check, in order:
- Primary category. This is the field that matters most. “Dental clinic” and “Dentist” do not rank the same way; you have to choose the one used in the searches with the most volume in your area, and that needs checking, not guessing.
- Name. The real business name. Adding keywords to the name (“Clínica Dental Sonrisas Implantes Sabadell”) goes against the rules and can be reported. Your competitors do it; you can report them too.
- Services and products. One per line, with the name a customer would use. This is where Google reads what your business is about when the category isn’t enough.
- Your own photos. Of the premises, the team, the product. No stock images. Photos with real people get more clicks and, besides, Google can spot catalogue images.
- Real opening hours, including holidays. A profile that says “open” on a day you’re closed will get a one-star review with names and surnames.
- Description with what you do and who it’s for, without promises.
- Posts now and then, with no template, no fixed time, and no same photo on repeat. Google flags content that looks automated as automated, and a flagged profile loses visibility.
Reviews: what they’re for besides the rating
Reviews do two visible things: raise the rating and build trust. And a third that almost nobody uses: they tell you how customers refer to your service. In reviews people write “they fixed my sofa at home” or “they took away my fear of the dentist,” not “home upholstery” or “conservative dentistry.” Those are real searches, with the words people actually use, and they’re useful for the profile, the website, and ads.
How to ask for them without it feeling like a campaign: when the customer is happy, with the direct link ready, and one by one. A sign at the counter works less well than a sentence from the person who helped them. And reply to all of them, even the good ones: Google values that and, above all, the next customer reads it.
Negative reviews are not deleted, they’re answered. Calmly, with facts, and with an invitation to talk privately. A measured reply to a complaint convinces more than twenty five-star reviews with no text.
Contact details: the same comma everywhere
Name, address, and phone number have to be identical on the profile, on the website, in the footer of every page, on the association’s page, and in any directory where you appear. In our case: “Av. de Francesc Macià, 40-44, planta 3, oficina 4 · 08208 Sabadell”. If you move offices, update the address everywhere so your customers find the right place.
Before creating anything new, we look for the profiles and listings that already exist, sometimes created by former employees, automatic directories, or a well-meaning provider. They get claimed, corrected, or removed. It’s boring work, and it’s the work that matters most.
The website: one page per service, not one per town
This is where the most money has been wasted in the last decade. Creating “dentist in Sabadell,” “dentist in Terrassa,” and “dentist in Barberà” with the same text and only changing the town name doesn’t fool anyone anymore. Google treats them as duplicates, and all they do is compete with each other and with your homepage. We see websites with dozens of city pages getting thousands of crawler impressions and zero clicks from people.
What does work is one page per service, written for the person searching for it, with the city where it makes sense to mention it, the address in the footer, and local business structured data that confirms to Google the same thing the profile says. If you really have several locations, then yes: one page per location, with its profile, its opening hours, and its team. That’s what we do in web positioning, and when the website won’t allow it, it’s the first reason to redesign it without losing what already performs.
What to measure and what not to
What matters fits into four profile metrics: calls, route requests, website clicks, and messages. You can see them in the profile dashboard and compare them month by month. “Views” and impressions are useful for context, but they don’t pay salaries.
Two honest warnings. One: profile data can swing a lot from one week to the next without you doing anything; judge the trend over several months, not a single-day spike. Two: some tool reports still show metrics Google removed and that always come back as zero. A perfect zero for weeks is almost never your business: it’s the tool.
Where to start this week
If you only have one afternoon: review the primary category, upload ten photos taken by you, fill in the services with the words your customers use, and reply to the pending reviews. If you have a month, add a directory cleanup and one page per service on the website. And if you want us to do it, we start by looking at your profile and your website and telling you, with data from your area, what moves the needle and what doesn’t. When organic is slow to deliver, a local Google Ads campaign covers the gap in the meantime, but that’s another conversation.
