Get Found: Google Business Profile and First SEO Moves
Your site is live. Now make it findable. Set up a Google Business Profile and do the handful of local SEO moves that actually matter first.
Where you are: Live site, launch check passed (Ch 7). A site nobody can find earns nothing. This last step points customers to it. For a local business, this is the single highest-return move you can make.
Do the high-leverage moves first and skip the rest for now:
Claim your Google Business Profile. Search "Google Business Profile," create or claim your listing, and verify it. This is what puts you on Google Maps and in the local results box (often above regular search results). For any local business, this alone can outperform the website at bringing in calls. It's free.
Fill the profile completely. Business name, category, service area or address, phone, hours, and your new website URL. Add a few real photos. Google rewards complete profiles with better placement.
Ask happy customers for reviews. Send your best recent customers the review link from your profile. Reviews are the strongest local ranking signal you control. Never buy or fake them; Google catches it and it's dishonest. Ask real people, one at a time.
Make your site's title and description clear. In your builder's SEO or page settings, set the page title to "[What you do] in [City] | [Business name]" and a one-sentence description with your main service and location. Use this R.O.A.D. prompt if you want help:
ROLE: You are a local SEO specialist.
OBJECTIVE: Write the page title and meta description for my site so
local customers searching for my service find me.
ASSETS: I do [SERVICE] in [CITY]. Business name: [NAME].
DELIVERABLE: One page title under 60 characters and one meta
description under 155 characters, both plain-spoken and keyword-clear.
Give me two options.
Say where you work, in words. Make sure your city/service area appears in your actual page copy (hero and footer). Search engines read the words on the page.
Submit your site to Google. Optional but easy: set up Google Search Console, add your domain, and submit your URL so Google indexes you faster. Otherwise it finds you within days on its own.
What to ignore for now: backlinks, blogging schedules, technical SEO audits. They matter later. The moves above are 80% of early local results for a fraction of the effort.
You've done it: a live website at your own domain, findable by real customers. That was the whole promise. Now go send it to your first ten prospects.