Lead flow is feast or famine.
Relying on word of mouth and paid directories means unpredictable work. The customers searching "[your trade] [suburb]" right now are demand you can own consistently, instead of waiting for the phone to ring.
Why most tradie SEO underdelivers
You are flat out, then dead quiet, because the leads are not steady.
Word of mouth and the odd directory lead leave most trade businesses lurching between flat-out and dead quiet. Local SEO turns the search demand in your service area into a steady stream of booked jobs, so you are not at the mercy of referrals or rented leads.
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You are renting leads you should own.
Hipages, ServiceSeeking, and ads rent you leads, shared with competitors, at a rising cost. Your own Map Pack and organic rankings are an asset that compounds, not a bill that recurs.
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Your Google Business Profile is your best salesperson, undermanaged.
For a trade, the profile, reviews, and job photos do the selling before you pick up the phone. Most are an afterthought, leaking the jobs that were ready to book.
What is included
Three pillars, run as one system.
Local SEO for a trade business is three search surfaces working together: your Google Business Profile, suburb-level organic rankings, and the AI engines customers now ask first.
Your first 90 days
What actually happens, week by week.
No mystery retainer. Here is exactly what gets built, and in what order, before the first lift in enquiries typically lands.
- FoundationDays 0 to 14
Audit, access, baseline, first links.
- Link building starts on day one, while the audit is still running
- Full GBP, on-page, technical, link, and AI-citation audit
- GA4, GSC, and GBP access set up and owned by you
- Conversion tracking on calls, forms, and bookings
- Location and competitor mapping
- Strategy doc with a prioritised quarter plan
- Foundation fixesDays 15 to 45
Technical, GBP, on-page corrected.
- Technical issues resolved: speed, schema, indexing
- GBP rebuilt: categories, services, posts, photos, Q&A
- Location and service page architecture set up
- On-page rewrites for the top commercial pages
- Review generation system live
- Link building running every week while the fixes go in
- ExecutionDays 46 to 90
Content and AI signals ship weekly. Links are already landing.
- Location and service landing pages published
- Link building continues, now pointing at the new location and service pages
- Answer-block content built for AI citation
- Map Pack movement on lower-competition terms
- First measurable lead lift typically lands here
- CompoundDay 90+
Links never stop. Reporting every month.
- Plain-language monthly report from our custom dashboard
- Lead, call, and revenue attribution
- Quarterly strategy review
- GBP suspension monitoring, reinstatement included
- Link building never stops: new links secured every month
- AI citation tracking, plus continued work to get you mentioned in the sources AI tools cite
Honest timeline. Established domains with existing authority move faster.
Brand-new sites take longer. Anyone guaranteeing rankings in 30 days is either lying or about to penalise you. Speed
also depends on how competitive your market and category are.
Who this is for
Steady booked work that earns the retainer, if you are the right fit.
Honest answer up front: we are not for every trade business. The strategy call is a 30-minute conversation, not a pitch. If we are not a fit, we will say so and point you somewhere that is.
- ✓ An established trade business with a team or vansAny trade: electrical, plumbing, building, roofing, landscaping, HVAC, painting and more. You have a working site and real customers, and we build on that.
- ✓ High-value or repeat work to winTrades with considered, higher-ticket jobs reward local SEO most, because one booked job can pay for months of work.
- ✓ Single or multi-location operationWe run single-operator and multi-location campaigns, with the Google Business Profile and page architecture each needs.
- ✓ You can take on more jobsWhen local SEO works, the phone rings more. Make sure your schedule and team can absorb it before we open the tap.
A straight 30-minute call with Dorian. No pitch deck, no obligation.
We are probably not the right fit if…
- ✕ You are shopping purely for the cheapest tradie SEO quote.
- ✕ You want a guaranteed number one ranking and a contract that promises it.
- ✕ The business is brand-new and pre-revenue with no working website.
- ✕ You want one supplier handling SEO, ads, social, and the website.
We will say so on the call. We optimise for your revenue, not our retainer count.
SEO since
The founder
Meet your senior SEO consultant, Dorian Menard
Founder. SEO only, since 2013.
Specialising in SEO since 2013. Founder of Search Scope. I work directly with every client on strategy and execution. No account managers, no offshore teams, no templated retainers.
My work covers multi-location and franchise SEO, organic and national SEO, local SEO, Google Maps, GBP and GMC reinstatement, technical audits, and AI search visibility. I work with established businesses and multi-location networks that want a senior specialist, not a service package.
2013
In SEO since
200+
Clients since 2021
295 of 300
GBP reinstatements
1
Specialist on your account
Pricing
Straight pricing, no lock-in.
4 ways to start. The Search & AI Authority Partner retainer for ongoing growth in competitive markets, Local Growth for one location in a less competitive niche, the Search Foundation Sprint to fix the whole foundation in one go without a retainer, and a flat-fee citation cleanup for businesses with messy name, address, and phone data scattered across the directory web.
For smaller businesses
Local Growth
The same Maps, organic and AI work as the Partner retainer, scaled to one location in a niche that is not highly competitive. Month to month, 30 days notice.
From
$1,999
+ GST a month
What's included
- Month 1: your foundation, scaled to one location. If you did a Sprint first, you skip it and start on growth work.
- 1 high-value page created or upgraded every month (service, location or answer page), plus technical health watched and fixed
- Link building from day one and every month after, including editorial coverage in real publications
- Your Google Business Profile managed: 2 posts a week, photos, and review requests sent to every customer within Google’s rules
- Your key questions checked in AI answers every month, plus work to get you named in the sources those tools cite
- Rank tracking, a Maps grid, AI tracking, and call and form tracking, with a monthly report and a 30-minute call
- A strategy review every quarter, and the plan for the next one
Who it fits. One location, in a niche that is not highly competitive. Legal, medical, finance and other competitive niches, or more than one location, need the Partner retainer. The 90-day movement guarantee covers the Partner retainer, not Local Growth. What moves the price: a second location, a tougher niche or more pages a month. Past that, the Partner retainer fits better.
No commitment
Search Foundation Sprint
The whole foundation in one go: website, Google Business Profile and your name across the web. One-off, about 4 to 6 weeks, then it closes.
From
$1,500
+ GST one-off
What's included
- The diagnosis: the 25-point technical audit, a Google Business Profile review, a check of how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Gemini answer your key questions, and a check that your business details match across the web
- The website: critical technical fixes, 1 priority page fully optimised plus 3 lighter pages, schema across the whole site, and an llms.txt file with an AI reference page
- Your Google Business Profile, where relevant: categories, services, description, hours and attributes corrected, your own photos uploaded, and a posting plan for the next 90 days
- Your name across the web: 1 brand fact document as the single source of truth, profiles and directory listings created or corrected, 1 Wikidata entry where eligible, and 10 short factual write-ups published from the fact document
- Handover: a roadmap (done, next, later, needs a developer, and worth doing with ongoing help), a reference guide, a recorded walkthrough, and 30 days of email questions. Then the Sprint closes.
From $1,500 + GST is the starting scope, for a smaller site. Larger sites and multi-location businesses get a tailored quote. Everything in the audit with implementation (from $999 + GST), plus your Google Business Profile corrected, your business named consistently across the web (fact document, profiles, Wikidata where eligible, 10 write-ups), an llms.txt file with an AI reference page, and a full handover pack. Not included: link building, ongoing posting, writing beyond the pages above, and rebuilds or development work.
Standalone product
Professional Citation Cleanup
For businesses that have changed address, traded under a different name, or built up inconsistent listing data across the directory web over the years.
Clean citations are critical in the AI-SEO era. They are how engines confirm who you are, and they also help you avoid Google Business Profile suspensions.
Flat fee
$599/location
+ GST
What's included
- Digital footprint audit included
- Manual citation verification and cleanup
- Enhanced business directory management
- Real-time progress tracking
- Multi-location support
- Consistent NAP across the directory web
Most cleanups complete within 30 days. Multi-location pricing available, book a call to discuss.
FAQ
Local SEO for Tradies questions.
The 30-minute strategy call answers the rest. No pitch deck. No proposal at the end unless you ask.
More from Search Scope
Different focus? Start here.
30 minutes · One specialist · No obligation
What would steady, booked work be worth?
We build toward more of the work you actually want, not rankings for their own sake. A straight 30-minute call with Dorian, the person who does the work. You leave knowing where the jobs in your service area are going, what it takes to win them consistently, and whether we are the right team for it.
No lock-in contracts Specialising in SEO since 2013 Founder-led from first call