Local SEO gets a business found by nearby customers, mostly through its Google Business Profile, reviews and listings. Technical SEO makes sure search engines can crawl, read and trust the website itself. A local service business usually needs both, but not equally: fix technical problems first if your pages are missing from Google, and put most of the ongoing effort into local once the site is sound.
| Local SEO | Technical SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| The question it answers | Will nearby customers find and choose you? | Can search engines reach, read and trust your site? |
| Where the work happens | Google Business Profile, reviews, directory listings, location and service pages | Your site: its code, speed, structure, redirects and indexing |
| Where results show | The map pack, Google Maps and "near me" searches | Every search the site could rank for, local or not |
| Who needs it most | Businesses serving a defined area: trades, clinics, firms, restaurants | Larger sites, sites after a redesign or move, and any site with pages missing from Google |
| Signs you have a problem | Competitors show in the map pack and you do not. Few reviews. Wrong hours or phone number online | Pages missing from Google. Traffic fell after a redesign. Slow pages. Search Console full of errors |
What local SEO covers
Local SEO is about being the business Google shows when someone nearby searches for what you do. Most of that is decided off your website.
- Your Google Business Profile: the right categories, accurate hours, services, photos and a service area that matches where you actually work. See the most common Business Profile mistakes.
- Reviews: how many, how recent, and whether you reply. See how many reviews you need.
- Consistent listings: the same name, phone number and details everywhere your business appears.
- Pages for what you do and where: service pages that say plainly which areas you serve, without the copy-and-paste town pages that stopped working years ago.
What technical SEO covers
Technical SEO is about removing anything that stops search engines from crawling, understanding and ranking your pages. Almost all of it happens on the site itself.
- Indexing: making sure the pages you want in Google are there, and the ones you do not want are kept out.
- Crawl paths: internal links, sitemaps and redirects that let search engines reach every important page.
- Speed and stability: pages that load quickly and do not jump around on a phone.
- Structure: clear titles and headings, one address per page, and structured data that describes the business accurately.
Which one to start with
- If your pages are missing from Google, start with technical. Nothing else works until search engines can read the site. Why a website is not showing up on Google walks through the checks.
- If the site is indexed and you serve a local area, start with local. For most service businesses the map pack sends more calls than the ordinary results, and the Business Profile is the fastest lever.
- If you just redesigned or moved the site, check technical first either way. A move is the single most common way sites lose search traffic.
Where they overlap
Google's local rankings weigh your website as well as your Business Profile. A profile linking to a slow site, or to a page Google cannot index, holds back both. In practice most local businesses need a technical check once, then ongoing local work. Larger sites with many pages need technical attention continually.
Search for your main service plus your town. If you are missing from the map pack, that is local. If your own site does not appear anywhere, even for your business name, that is technical. If both, fix technical first.
We offer both as separate services: local SEO and technical SEO. If the map pack is the problem, read how to rank higher on Google Maps.