SEO for service businesses: the honest checklist

Most SEO guides are written by content marketers for content marketers. If you run a service business — plumbing, restaurant, agency, consulting — 80% of that advice doesn't apply.

Here's what actually matters for service businesses.

The 10 things that move the needle

1. Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business)

This is your single highest-leverage SEO asset. More than your website, for most local service businesses. Complete every field. Post weekly. Respond to every review, positive and negative.

2. Consistent NAP everywhere

Name, Address, Phone. Exactly the same across your site, Google Business Profile, Yelp, Facebook, industry directories. Inconsistencies confuse Google.

3. Structured data (LocalBusiness schema)

JSON-LD telling Google exactly what your business is, what services you offer, where you're located, and what hours you're open. Every Orbit site ships with this by default.

4. Service-specific pages

A single "Services" page listing 10 services doesn't rank. Individual pages for each service do. If you're a plumber, have a page for "Water Heater Repair," another for "Drain Cleaning," etc. Each targeting its own search intent.

5. Location-specific pages (if you serve multiple areas)

"Plumber in Minneapolis" and "Plumber in St. Paul" should be different pages. Same template, location-specific content, schema tagged to the right area.

6. Reviews, visibly

Not just on Google. On your site. Aggregate count in the hero. Individual testimonials on service pages. Review schema so star ratings appear in search results.

7. Site speed

Core Web Vitals is a ranking factor. Most WordPress sites running 2019's theme + 20 plugins score below 50 on Lighthouse. That's actively hurting you.

8. Mobile experience

70%+ of local service searches are mobile. If your site is slow, cramped, or broken on phones, Google down-ranks you.

9. Blog, but not for the reason you think

Blogs for service businesses don't rank by volume. They rank by answering the specific questions your customers type into Google. "How often should I get my furnace serviced?" "What does Cole Haan pricing mean?" Each answered question is a ranking opportunity.

10. Backlinks from local sources

Chamber of Commerce. Local news features. Neighborhood Facebook groups mentioning you. These are gold for local SEO, much more valuable than generic guest posts.

What doesn't matter as much as people say

• Keyword density. Write naturally. Google's smart enough.
• Meta keywords tag. Deprecated since 2009.
• Exact-match domain names. Marginal at best, penalty at worst.
• Submitting to 100 directories. Low-quality directories hurt more than help.

How Orbit sites handle this

Every site we build ships with:

• LocalBusiness structured data
• Per-service and per-location page templates
• Integrated Google Review aggregate display
• Sub-2s page loads (Lighthouse 90+)
• Mobile-first responsive
• Blog with category-aware structure
• Auto-generated sitemaps + robots.txt

Then we plug in your NAP, services, locations, and testimonials. That covers 80% of what matters for local SEO on day one. The other 20% is the ongoing work: reviews, backlinks, content.