Local SEO for Illawarra businesses: the checklist I use

When I checked my own Google Business Profile this month, it listed my service area as "Australia", said I was open 24 hours and had no phone number. That's a marketing consultant's profile. If it can happen to mine, it's worth ten minutes to check yours.

This is the checklist I run for businesses in Wollongong, Shellharbour, Kiama and down the South Coast. Most of it costs nothing but time, and you can do it yourself this week.

How does Google rank local businesses?

Google says local results are mainly based on three things:

• Relevance. How well your profile matches what someone searched for.
• Distance. How far your business is from the person searching.
• Prominence. How well-known your business is. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help.

You can't change distance. You can work on the other two. Google is also clear that "there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking." Anyone selling you a shortcut is selling something else.

Source: Google Business Profile Help, Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, checked November 2026.

How do I set up my Google Business Profile properly?

For most local service businesses this is the biggest lever, and it's free. Work through it in order.

• Claim and verify it. Google says a verified profile is more likely to show up in search results.
• Use your real business name. Don't tack "Wollongong" or "Best Plumber" on the end unless it's on your signage and invoices. Google's guidelines don't allow extra words in the name, and breaking that rule can get a profile suspended.
• Pick the most specific primary category. "Electrician" beats "Contractor". Add only the few extra categories that describe your core work. Google's advice is to use as few as possible.
• Set your service area by town or postcode. List the places you actually go, up to 20 of them. Google wants the whole area within about 2 hours' drive of your base. From Wollongong, that covers the Illawarra, the Shoalhaven and the Southern Highlands.
• Hide your address if you go to customers. If people don't come to you, Google says you should hide it. Don't use a PO box. Google doesn't accept them.
• Add a phone number you control. A local number or your mobile, not a central call centre line.
• Set real hours, plus holiday hours. If you shut down over Christmas and New Year, set special hours so nobody rings a closed business and leaves annoyed.
• List every service, with a line on each. Use the words your customers use, not the trade terms.
• Add photos of your actual work, vehicles and team. Not stock photos.
• Tag your website link. Add UTM tags (for example ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp) so GA4 shows visitors from your profile separately from the rest of Google.
• Post an update every month or so. A finished job, a seasonal tip, an offer. People checking you out can see you're still trading.

Sources: Guidelines for representing your business on Google, Manage your service areas and Tips to improve your local ranking, all Google Business Profile Help, checked November 2026.

How do I get more Google reviews without breaking the rules?

Reviews are the part of prominence you can actually move. They also help the person deciding between you and the next business on the map.

• Ask every customer once the job's done. Text your review link or show a QR code the same day, while the job is fresh. Google suggests both.
• Make it one tap. One link, no instructions about logging in, no essay.
• Reply to every review, good and bad. Short, specific and polite. The next customer reads your replies too.

And what gets you in trouble:

• Offering a discount, freebie or prize draw in exchange for a review. Google strictly prohibits it, and the ACCC says incentives for positive reviews risk breaching the law.
• Writing reviews yourself, or arranging fake ones. The ACCC says that's against the law.
• Removing or hiding genuine negative reviews. The ACCC lists this as a way a business can mislead customers.

The ACCC does take this to court. The Federal Court ordered Service Seeking to pay $600,000 in penalties, and one of the issues was letting businesses on its platform draft their own reviews.

Sources: Google Business Profile Help, Tips to get more reviews and ACCC, Online reviews for product and services, checked November 2026.

What does my website need for local SEO?

Your profile gets you on the map. Your website backs it up, and it's what shows for the searches where Google doesn't show a map.

• A page for each main service. "Bathroom renovations" and "kitchen renovations" are different searches. One page listing everything makes it hard for Google to match you to either.
• The service and town in the page title. "Bathroom Renovations Wollongong | Smith Building" tells Google and the searcher what the page is, in under 60 characters.
• Name, phone and service area in the footer. Spelt exactly the same as your profile, with the same number.
• Real local proof. Jobs you've done in named suburbs, with photos. "Retaining wall, Figtree" says more than "we service the Illawarra".
• LocalBusiness schema. Code that gives Google your name, phone, hours and area in a format it reads directly. Google doesn't guarantee any special display for it, but it takes the guesswork out.
• Click-to-call on phones. A number people can tap, at the top of every page.
• Fast pages on mobile. Test your key pages in PageSpeed Insights.
• A form that lands somewhere you'll see it. Ideally in your CRM, with where the enquiry came from attached.

Source: Google Search Central, Local Business structured data, checked November 2026.

Do I need a page for every suburb?

No. This is where a lot of local SEO goes wrong. Google's spam policies name "multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" as doorway abuse. Twenty pages that only swap the suburb name are exactly that.

A town page earns its place when you have something real to say about that town: jobs you've done there, who you work with, what's different about doing business there. A Kiama page can talk about the tourism season. A Southern Highlands page can talk about rural properties and the drive. If you can't write a few hundred honest words that only fit that town, leave the page out and add the town to your service area instead.

You can see how I've handled mine on the Kiama and Shellharbour pages. Each is written for its own town.

Source: Google Search Central, Spam policies for Google web search, checked November 2026.

Where else should my business be listed?

Google is the big one, but it isn't the only one. Claim these, and use exactly the same business name, phone number and website on each:

• Bing Places for Business, for Bing search and maps.
• Apple Business Connect, if customers come to you. It controls how you show in Apple Maps.
• Your industry association's find-a-member directory.
• The brands you're an approved installer or stockist for. Most have a "find a local installer" page.

Then get mentioned locally. Sponsor a junior club and ask to be on its sponsors page. Send the local paper a story when you finish a job worth talking about. Mentions from real Illawarra organisations show you're a real local business, which no paid directory package can.

Skip the packages that promise 100 directory listings. A handful of real listings that match your profile do more than a pile of junk ones.

How do I know if local SEO is working?

Check these once a month. Local SEO moves slowly, and checking weekly mostly makes you anxious.

• Business Profile performance. Searches, calls, website clicks and direction requests, month on month.
• Search Console. Filter your search queries by town names to see which local searches you show for, and where you rank.
• GA4. With the tagged profile link, visits and enquiries from your profile show on their own.
• Your CRM or job book. Ask every new customer how they found you, and write it down. None of the numbers above matter if they don't turn into jobs.

If your tracking isn't set up, that's the first fix. My website cost post covers why it belongs in every build.

The full local SEO checklist

What it costs if you want help

You can do most of this list yourself. If you'd rather hand it over, or you've done the basics and nothing's moving, this is what I charge:

All prices AUD. No GST is added. Each one is a fixed price, with the scope agreed before we start. Details are on the technical SEO and tracking page.

FAQ

Next step

Send me your business name and the three searches you most want to show up for. I'll look at your profile and your site and tell you the first three things I'd fix. Get in touch and I'll reply as soon as I can.