How to watch your competitors online (and win locally)
Your rivals leave a trail every day: their prices, their new pages, their posts. Here is how to read that trail and turn it into moves you can make first.
Read moreA lot of nonsense is told about SEO, mostly by people selling “number one on Google”. For a hotel, a law firm or a trade business, the truth is simpler and more encouraging: you are not competing with the internet. You are competing with the five providers in your area who do the same thing you do.
Where local visibility is decided
Whoever searches for “tax advisor Munich” or “hairdresser near me” does not get an ordinary list of results. They first get the map pack: three businesses, rating, opening hours, a call button. Whoever stands there gets the call. Whoever stands in position four practically does not exist.
You do not get into that map pack with tricks, but with three things:
- A fully maintained Google Business Profile. Categories, services, photos, opening hours: complete and current. Sounds trivial, yet half of all businesses leave gaps.
- Consistent data everywhere. Name, address and phone number must match exactly across your website, your profile and the directories. Every deviation costs trust, with Google and with customers.
- Real reviews, regularly. Not fifty bought at once, but a steady stream of genuine voices. The simplest method works best: kindly asking satisfied customers.
The website as the foundation
The profile earns the first glance; the website turns it into an enquiry, and it feeds the ranking. Three things count most:
Technology: fast load times, clean structure, error-free indexing. Invisible, but it is the foundation everything else stands on.
Local content: one page per service and, where it makes sense, per location. Whoever works in three cities does not need the same text three times with the town name swapped, but three times real substance.
Liveliness: search engines favour websites where work is visibly happening. A regularly maintained blog is the most reliable way to show it. More on that shortly.
What you are allowed to ignore
Just as important as doing the right work is the courage to skip the rest. You do not need a hundred backlinks from dubious directories. You do not have to post daily. And you should not believe anyone promising a ranking guarantee. Google gives such guarantees to no one.
