SEO for tradies starts with the Google listing, not a national campaign. One price, one listing, five western councils.
SEO for tradies is the work that helps a plumber, electrician, roofer, or similar business show up when someone nearby searches. Tradie marketing, on this page, means that same listing work. The valuable spot is usually the map results. Those results come from Google Business Profiles. Local SEO is the service. Google Business Profile is the listing. This page is how the two apply to a trade.
WestReach covers Wyndham, Hobsons Bay, Brimbank, Maribyrnong, and Melton. The map is local SEO Melbourne. The price is A$399 setup and A$349 a month plus GST, one listing, month to month. Details are on pricing.
A shop can wait for a browse. A tradie is often called because something failed today: no hot water, a safety switch that will not reset, a ceiling stain after rain. The caller is on a phone, often outside, and will tap a listing that looks open, close, and specific. A second group of searches is slower: a switchboard upgrade, a roof restoration, a quote for gutters. Those people read photos and reviews because the job is expensive and hard to inspect from the ground.
One listing has to serve both. Hours and an honest after-hours line serve the urgent call. Services, photos of your own jobs, and recent replies serve the planned one. A slogan does not serve either.
Google's local ranking page says relevance, distance, and prominence are the main factors, and that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Relevance is the match between the search and the profile. You influence that with the category, the services, and a website that does not contradict them. You do not influence it by paying for a badge.
"Emergency plumber", "power out", "roof leak now". If you do not offer after-hours work, do not put emergency in the services. If you do, the hours have to match. A listing that says open when the phone goes to a message loses the next caller and collects the bad review.
The phone already has a location. "Near me" is a distance problem as much as a wording problem. A complete profile helps you qualify. It does not move your base closer to the customer. A virtual office in their suburb is a guideline breach, not a shortcut.
"Electrician Point Cook", "plumber Hoppers Crossing", "roofer Altona". The suburb pages exist so the place is described accurately: Point Cook keeps the 2013 Williams Landing train access and does not invent a "no station" line, Hoppers Crossing is its own Wyndham locality, and Altona uses the council's city-wide distance, not a single suburb kilometre. Your listing should name the suburbs you drive. Your website should mention them in sentences if they are a real part of the week. A block of every western suburb under every heading is stuffing, not coverage.
"Switchboard upgrade cost", "how often to clean gutters". Those queries are not all yours to rank for, and this plan does not include a blog. If you already have a page that answers a question you are qualified to answer, keep it factual. Do not invent prices, licence numbers, or rainfall statistics to fill it.
The right primary category, real services, a true service area, hours, photos, and activity. This is where every client starts. Category choice is on the Google Business Profile page: pick the specific trade from the dropdown, do not invent a label, and do not add a category per job. Google's category help says the categories you select affect local ranking, and it says to use a few.
A tradie site needs the services, the suburbs, a phone that taps, and a fast load on a mobile network. It does not need a manifesto. Our fee does not include a build. Setup includes a note when the site and the listing disagree. Trade website questions have their own spokes, including plumber and electrician website pages, when those are published. Until a price for a site exists, we will not type one.
The same name, phone, and website on the listing and on the main directories. A different mobile on a directory is how a call misses you and how Google hesitates. We check. We do not submit the business to dozens of low-quality directories for the sake of a count.
A link or QR after a real job. No discount, no free work, no gift for a review or for editing one. We reply to up to eight reviews a month within two business days. You approve the negative replies. We do not write reviews in a customer's name.
Up to four posts a month, each approved by you. A post can be a job you finished, with the address and the face left out, or a plain note of the suburbs you are in this month. Unused posts do not roll over. A listing that was perfect in March and silent until November looks closed.
Any of those can suspend a listing or waste the fee. We would rather decline the client.
SEO for plumbers is the plumbing hub. SEO for electricians covers sparkies, including the category warning: do not add a solar category name that is not in the dropdown. SEO for roofers covers roofs and the photos those jobs need. Landscapers and other trades can use this pillar. They do not get a fake hub until a page exists. HVAC and pest control are not subsections of this page. They belong on their own pages if they are ever written.
You can create the profile for free and read Google's insights yourself. Many owners do the first weekend and then stop. The month is for the owners who will not open the app again until a bad review arrives.
| Yourself | WestReach | |
|---|---|---|
| Money | Time | A$399 then A$349 a month plus GST |
| Category | You versus the dropdown | Set with you, labels not invented |
| Posts | When you remember | Up to 4, you approve |
| Replies | When you remember | Up to 8, within 2 business days |
| Numbers | Google's screens | One plain page |
| Login | Yours | Still yours. We are a manager |
This DIY SEO checklist is the free version of the tradie marketing work above. It does not add a rank promise or a review target. If you later hand it over, the price is still A$399 setup + A$349/month plus GST.
Free check, then setup if you want it, then the monthly rhythm. You approve posts and negative replies. You talk to WestReach Digital, not a ticket queue. Meetings in person are Tarneit and Truganina. The about page names WestReach Digital, and it does not add a team, a headcount, or a founding year.
Wrong category. Empty services. Area too wide or too narrow. Hours that claim a 24-hour call-out the owner does not run. Logo only. Reviews from the last storm left unanswered. A phone on the listing that is not the phone on the van. A description that copies a landmark and gets it wrong: the zoo treated as every Werribee job, a regional train stop stated without a timetable, or a station placed on a road the official pages do not name. The suburb pages leave those out. A listing should not put them back.
Ask after a job you would be happy to have described. Send the link. Do not add "and we'll take $50 off". Do not ask the customer to remove a fair complaint. Reply to the complaint as the business, in your voice, after you have approved the draft. A reply is not a chance to stuff suburbs into a paragraph.
One page or section per main service. A list of suburbs in sentences. The phone in the header on a phone-sized screen. Photos that match the jobs. The same name as the listing. No stock team. No "20 years" unless you will say the year you started, and we will not invent that year for you. No licence number copied from a template. If you show a number, it is yours. WestReach does not hold a trade licence and will not lend you one.
Google's local ranking page says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity, and it names the third factor prominence. Relevance is how well the profile matches the search: category, services, and a website that does not contradict them. Distance is from the person searching. A virtual office does not move the van. Prominence is how well known the business is, including reviews and sites that link to you. The same page says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. We do not buy reviews or links.
Emergency searches and planned searches need different lines on the same listing. If you do not offer after-hours work, do not put emergency in the services. If you do, the hours have to match. Seasonal content, in this plan, is a post about the work that week: gutters before wet weather, a leak call after rain, a restoration quote when the job is planned. We do not attach a rainfall figure. The cap is still four posts you approve. A quiet week does not get a filler post.
Some searches show a written answer above the links, and some people ask a chat tool instead of opening Maps. This page does not claim a method for appearing inside those answers. The local ranking page we cite does not publish a separate formula for them. What it does say still applies to the listing: relevance, distance, and prominence. A profile that names the trade, the jobs, and the suburbs gives a person, and any system reading the page, something specific. A slogan does not.
Match the name, phone, and website. We do not sell a citation blast. Two trade bodies are real and worth aligning if you already belong to them. Master Plumbers at plumber.com.au offers membership for plumbing businesses and runs Victorian industry awards. NECA describes itself as the peak body for the electrical and communications contracting industry in Australia, and its Victorian branch is necavic.asn.au. We do not sign you up. If you are a member, the details on that listing should match the Google profile. A roofing association is not named here, because this page has not checked one.
The listing becomes eligible for more of the searches it should already match. More people may tap call or directions. Reviews accumulate if you ask. Speed depends on the suburb, the competition, and how empty the profile was. We do not promise a position or a number of jobs. The numbers page is the record. A quiet month stays quiet.
Growth corridors and older suburbs are both in the five councils. New residents search because they have no regular tradie. Older streets search because something failed. Industrial pockets in Truganina, Laverton North, Altona North, Derrimut, and Sunshine add commercial calls. Your service area should mark which of those you take. Wyndham council's growth sentence and Melton council's growth sentence are theirs. They are not case studies.
You visit the customer. The profile should say so. Hide the home address. List suburbs, not a state. If customers do visit a yard, the address is that yard, and the hours are the hours the yard is staffed. A sign on the gate matters more than a pin dropped on a map you do not control. Google's representation rules reject keyword names, post office boxes, and virtual offices. We follow them even when a competitor in the same suburb does not. Their suspension risk is not a tactic.
Photos are part of prominence only in the ordinary sense that a real business looks like one. They are not a trick. A van with your real sign, a finished job, a tool board. Four posts can reuse the same standard: one photo, one sentence, your approval. A post that names a suburb you worked is useful. A post that names twelve suburbs is a keyword block.
It is not a rank report. It is not a comparison with a neighbouring tradie. It is not a forecast. Calls, website clicks, direction requests. Three lines. A fourth line if the export was empty. Owners who want a league table are better served by reading Google's own screens, which we will not decorate. The page exists so you can see the month without learning the product's menus.
Monday: you approve two posts on your phone between jobs. Midweek: a review arrives, we draft a reply, you tap yes if it is positive and we wait if it is not. Friday: a suggested edit changes your hours. We catch it on the monthly pass, or sooner if you forward the email Google sent you. You did not attend a workshop. That is the product. If you want a longer conversation, it is a call, or a table in Tarneit or Truganina.
A roof plumber is not automatically both a plumber and a roofer in the category list. Pick the business the dropdown can name, and put the other skill in services only if you want those calls. An electrician who also does air conditioning faces the same choice. We will not tick every trade you have ever touched. The calls follow the ticks. Electrician SEO and roofer SEO each explain the category look-up for that trade. The plumber hub does the same for plumbing. This pillar does not override them with a blended category.
Book a free listing check. Trade, suburb, business name. You get a list you can use alone.
It means the profile matches the search, the details are consistent, and the business looks current. It does not mean we have a lever for distance. It does not mean a post on Thursday changes Thursday's map. Google's own starter guidance says changes can take time and that there is no magic word count. We do not quote a week count for when a listing "should" move. The monthly page shows what Google recorded. If you need a forecast for a bank or a landlord, we cannot write one. There is no client history on this site to borrow a forecast from.
Getting a trade business found for local searches, mainly through a complete, active Google listing and a website that matches it. It is not ads and not a national campaign.
The Google Business Profile: category, services, service area, hours, photos, and replies. Then the clashes on the website.
A$399 setup and A$349 a month plus GST, one listing, month to month.
No. Google says a better local rank cannot be bought. We guarantee the work on the pricing page.
Plumbers, electricians, and roofers have their own pages. Other local trades can use the same plan. We do not pretend to have a page for every licence class.
If you genuinely work there, set the service area. Expect stronger results near your base. Do not open a second profile.
Yes. Manager access is an email role. You can remove it.
No. You get a note of what we would fix. A build is a separate quote, and no website price is published here.
