Local search for trades Updated October 2026
SEO for tradies
Most trades lose local search to businesses doing four ordinary things: a Google profile filled in properly, reviews arriving steadily, a real page for each job they do and each area they work, and a site that loads on a phone. None of it is exotic, most of it is free, and this is the order it gets done in. tyso does this work for tradies in Canberra, Queanbeyan and anywhere in Australia.
SEO for tradies is the work of making a trade business the result Google shows when someone nearby searches for the job it does, on the map first and in the ordinary results underneath it.
Why doesn't my trade business show up on Google?
A trade business does not show up on Google when the four things local search sorts on are missing: one page trying to cover every job, no suburb named anywhere, a Google profile half filled in, and a page that is slow on a phone. That is nearly all of it, and none of it is exotic.
One page doing every job
A single services page listing everything you offer tells Google you are loosely relevant to all of it and the best answer to none. The pages that rank are written about one job, in one area.
Nowhere named
You work a handful of suburbs and the site names none of them. Local search sorts on place before it sorts on anything else, and a page that never says where it works hands over nothing to sort by.
A profile left half filled
The Google Business Profile is the biggest single source of local trade leads. Most sit on a default category, no services listed, and photos from whenever the account was opened.
Slow on a phone
Trade searches happen on a phone, usually standing in the room that needs the work. Load time is one of the few things Google grades directly, and it grades it on mobile.
What does SEO for a trade business actually involve?
Four pieces of work, in this order: the Google Business Profile, the reviews, a real page for each service and each area you work, and the technical layer under the site. Search is the first of three jobs, found, chosen and followed up, and it is the one most trades have never had done properly.
The Google profile, run properly
Categories, services, description, photos, posts and questions, kept current rather than set once and abandoned. It comes first because it is the biggest lever most trades have never pulled, and it moves faster than anything on the website does.
Reviews, asked for every time
A direct link and a message you can send one-handed once you have left the job, to every customer rather than the ones you expect to be kind. No incentives, nothing filtered, nothing written for them: that breaches Google's policy and the Australian rules together.
Pages for the work you actually do
A page for each real service and each real service area, written so a person reads it and a search engine can file it. Not thin doorway pages with the suburb swapped out: those get filtered, and rightly.
The technical layer, and the machines reading it
Titles, headings, schema markup, internal links, the sitemap, the speed work. Unglamorous, mostly invisible, and the reason two near-identical businesses rank differently. Every job is also set up so an AI assistant can quote you as easily as Google can rank you, measured on day one and re-tested later.
What can go wrong with tradie SEO?
Three things go wrong often enough to name: thin suburb pages that get filtered instead of ranked, reviews that get bought or filtered, and money spent chasing rankings with no buyer behind them.
The first two are self-inflicted. A page for a suburb you have never worked in, with the name swapped out, has been filtered for years, and an incentivised review breaches Google's policy and the Australian rules at once. The third is the quiet one: a search nobody buys from still produces a chart that goes up.
Who has tyso done this for?
tyso has done this work for two named businesses, ANT Painting in Canberra and Sophisticated Manes in Melbourne, and publishes its own number beside theirs. It is a one-person studio launched in 2026, so this is the whole list rather than a wall of logos.
ANT Painting, quoted in AI answers
ANT Painting is a Canberra painting business, heritage and residential repaints, whose search presence tyso runs. It was cited on 9 of 22 painting questions we measured on 29 August 2026, across Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT search.
Sophisticated Manes, reviews moving
Sophisticated Manes is a Melbourne cat grooming business and a tyso build. Its Google reviews went from 3 to 10 in August 2026, its first month live, on nothing cleverer than asking every customer.
Our own number, published
tyso.io is measured on its own eight questions every month. On 1 October 2026, in one run, ChatGPT search cited it on three of the eight and Google's AI Overview on one.
How does a job with tyso start?
It starts with the free audit, not a discovery call. The audit reads your live site and asks an AI assistant who it recommends in your suburb, then shows you the score before it asks for an email.
- Give it your business, your trade and your suburb.
- It runs the checks live and scores what it finds.
- You read the findings worst first, in plain English.
- If you want the layer underneath, where you rank across your suburbs and who sits above you, the Deep Audit lands on your desk within five business days.
- If the work is worth doing, we talk. If not, I will say so.
Straight answers
What is SEO for tradies?
It is local search work aimed at one thing: being the trade business that shows up when someone nearby searches for the job you do. Pages built around your services and the areas you cover, a Google Business Profile that ranks, reviews arriving steadily, and the technical fixes under the site.
Does SEO work for a one-man trade business?
Yes, and a one-man operation is often where it works best. A sole trader with a complete Google profile and twenty reviews will sit above a five-van company that never filled its listing in, because the map pack sorts on profile, reviews and proximity rather than on size.
How long does tradie SEO take to work?
Months, not weeks. Google profile changes can move inside weeks because the profile gets re-read constantly. Website pages take longer, usually a few months to settle. Anyone promising page one by next month is selling you the promise rather than the work.
Is local SEO for tradies different from ordinary SEO?
Yes, mostly in what decides it. Ordinary SEO is fought over pages and links. Local SEO is decided by your Google Business Profile, your reviews, and how close you are to the person searching. The website supports that fight, it rarely wins it alone.
Do I need a website, or is a Google profile enough?
The profile gets you found. The website decides whether you get chosen. People who find your profile still open the site before they call, and what they find there settles it. If you can only do one thing first, do the profile.
What does SEO for tradies cost?
It depends on whether you have a site worth keeping and how many services and areas need covering. Every tyso price is published rather than quoted on request, so the full list, and what the rest of the market charges, sits on the tradie website cost guide.
See what your suburb sees.
The audit runs in a few minutes and shows you the score before it asks for an email. If the answer is that you are fine, that is a fine answer.
Rather talk it through? Book a call.