Search for "electrician Brunswick" and look at what Google actually shows: ads, then a map with three businesses, then everything else. That map — the local pack — is where the phone calls live, and for a local business it matters more than every blue link below it combined.
The good news: map-pack ranking is less about SEO wizardry than about a short list of unglamorous habits. Google's own documentation says local ranking weighs relevance (do you do the thing?), distance (are you near the searcher?), and prominence (does the internet corroborate that you're real and good?). You can't move your shop, so the work is relevance and prominence.
The Business Profile, done completely
Most profiles are 60% complete, and completeness is table stakes:
- Category is the strongest signal you control. The primary category should be the most specific true one — "Emergency plumber", not "Plumber", if that's the work you want. Add secondary categories for everything else you genuinely do.
- Services and products listed, with descriptions and prices where you can. Each service you list is a phrase you can match.
- Hours accurate, including holidays. "Closed when it said open" is both a lost job and a trust signal Google notices via behaviour.
- Real photos, added regularly. The van, the work, the team, the shopfront. Profiles with steady photo activity look alive to Google and to people; a photo a week for a month beats forty at once.
- The booking/quote link pointed at a page with one action — not your homepage. (What that page looks like.)
Reviews: volume, recency, replies
Reviews are the loudest prominence signal, and they're won by process, not personality:
- Ask same-day, every time. The moment the job's done and the customer is happiest, the review link goes out by text. Make it a step in the job, like invoicing. A QR card in the shop or van removes the last excuse.
- Recency beats totals. Forty reviews with the last one in 2024 reads as a business in decline; steady monthly reviews read as a business in demand. There is no finish line.
- Reply to every one, briefly. Replies signal an attended profile, and your reply to the negative review is read by every future customer — write it for them, not for the reviewer: factual, calm, offering to fix it offline.
- Never buy or fake reviews. Platforms delete them in batches, the ACCC has prosecuted over it, and one caught fake costs more trust than fifty real ones earn.
The website's supporting role
The site's local job is corroboration:
- Name, suburb, and service in the obvious places — title tags, the H1, the footer. "Hartley Electrical — Emergency Electrician, Brunswick & Northern Suburbs" does quiet, honest work.
- A page per service, a page per major area — if each page says something real. Ten template pages with the suburb swapped are a pattern Google demotes; three pages with real local photos, local jobs described, and local reviews are an asset.
- Consistent name/address/phone everywhere. Your website footer, profile, directories, and socials should match to the character. Inconsistency doesn't tank you, but consistency is free.
- The basics that make any page rank: loads fast on a phone, answers the question, has a visible way to act. Same story as every other page.
What doesn't work anymore (save your money)
- Keyword-stuffed business names ("Hartley Electrical Best Emergency Electrician Melbourne") — against guidelines, and suspensions over it are routine.
- Mass directory submissions. The dozen that matter (the majors plus genuinely local ones) you can do in an afternoon; the other five hundred are landfill.
- Chasing the whole city. Distance is a ranking factor you can't beat; own your actual service area first. Deeper beats wider.
The monthly half-hour
- Add three or four photos from real recent jobs.
- Check this month's reviews arrived; nudge the happy customers who forgot.
- Reply to everything unanswered.
- Glance at the Profile's performance tab: calls, direction requests, website clicks. Write the numbers down next to your GA4 three.
That's the entire discipline. It's not clever, which is exactly why it works — most of your competitors won't sustain it past February.
Want the profile completed, the review engine set up, and the service pages written — as tasks with proofs to approve? Start a chat.