Local SEO in 2026: how to get noticed by customers in your area

Imagine: someone in your town searches for ‘plumber Utrecht’ or ‘hairdresser nearby’. Google will then display three businesses at the top of the results, each with a map pin, a star rating and a phone number. This section is called the Local Pack. If you’re not listed there, you’re simply invisible to that potential customer. That’s exactly what local SEO is all about: ensuring your business appears the moment someone just round the corner is searching for your service.

We are increasingly seeing among our clients that local searches generate the highest conversion rates of all channels. People searching with a local intent are ready to buy, ring or pop in. Yet many businesses are missing out on these opportunities because their local presence isn’t up to scratch. In this article, we explain how local SEO works, what has changed by 2025 and what specific steps you can take right now.

What is local SEO and why is it so valuable?

Local SEO focuses on visibility in search queries with a geographical intent, whether that’s ‘service + place name’ or simply ‘near me’. The main difference from standard SEO is that you’re not competing with the whole of the Netherlands, but with the ten businesses in your immediate vicinity.

The figures clearly show just how high the chances are. According to data from BrightLocal, 46 per cent of all Google searches have a local intent. Furthermore, 88% of mobile searchers visit a local business within 24 hours of such a search, and 78% of local mobile searches ultimately lead to an offline purchase. These are by no means insignificant figures.

Up to 80% of clicks on local search queries go to the businesses in the Local Pack – the top three listings with the map. Those not featured there are left to scrape up the remaining crumbs. Local SEO is therefore not just a nice extra, but a primary growth strategy for any business with a physical location or a regional catchment area.

How does Google decide who ranks at the top?

Google uses three key factors to rank local search results. They do not operate independently of one another, but as an integrated system.

• Proximity: how close your business is to the searcher or the location being searched for.
• Relevance: how well your business profile and website match what someone is looking for.
• Visibility: how well-known and trusted your business is, as measured by reviews, backlinks, citations and online presence.

Proximity is the factor over which you have the least direct control: your business address is where it is. However, if you score highly on relevance and prominence, you can partially offset the disadvantage of distance. A business that is further away but has a strong profile can sometimes beat a competitor that is closer but doesn’t have its affairs in order.

Google Business Profile: the foundation of your local visibility

Your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is the starting point for any local SEO strategy. A complete, verified and active profile sends signals to Google about who you are, what you do and where you’re based. If you leave fields blank or never update your profile, Google won’t have the information it needs to show you to the right people.

By 2025, Google had further developed Business Profile. This included the launch of a revamped publishing centre, bringing together all updates, offers and events in a single, easy-to-navigate hub. In addition, business owners can now report suspicious or fake reviews directly from the dashboard, with Google having significantly reduced response times. A WhatsApp integration has also been rolled out, allowing customers to get in touch directly from your profile.

A point we regularly observe in practice: in 2025, Google is also experimenting with automatically selecting photos for profiles, which sometimes results in images from other companies or poorly cropped photos appearing. So, check your profile regularly and upload high-quality photos yourself, but don’t impulsively delete existing images during such an experiment.

What should be included in your Google Business Profile?

• The correct primary category: this is by far the strongest relevance signal in your profile.
• Accurate opening hours (including public holidays and temporary closures).
• A keyword-rich yet natural description of your services.
• High-quality photos of your premises, team and work.
• Regular Google Posts featuring updates, special offers or content that piques people’s curiosity.
• Accurate NAP details (name, address, telephone number) that match those on your website.
• Respond proactively to all reviews, both positive and negative.

Reviews: the most powerful tool in local SEO

Reviews aren’t just a conversion tool. They’re also a direct ranking factor. Estimates from local SEO specialists suggest that reviews account for 15 to 17 per cent of your Local Pack ranking. That’s a substantial proportion.

Businesses that appear in the Google Local Pack have an average of 47 reviews. As a rule of thumb, we require a minimum of 50 reviews with an average rating of 4.5 stars or higher. But it’s not just about the total number: Google places greater value on recent reviews. Two to three new reviews a week is a pace that keeps you clearly visible.

What we’ve seen work well for customers: an automated workflow that sends satisfied customers a friendly request for a review via email or WhatsApp after they’ve used a service or made a purchase. Not a pushy plea, just a direct link to your Google review form. It’s easy to do and the results are consistent.

We’re also honest about the limits: paid or fake reviews are a bad idea. Google detects artificial signals, and the consequences can be serious. Build your reputation on genuine customer feedback – full stop.

NAP consistency: the invisible ranking factor

NAP stands for Name, Address and Telephone number. The consistency of this information across all online platforms where your business appears is a factor that many companies underestimate, but which Google takes seriously. Is your information spelt differently on Google than on your website or on a directory site? If so, this sends confusing signals to the algorithm.

At the very least, check the following places: your own website (header or footer), Google Business Profile, Apple Maps, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bing Places and relevant industry directories. Tools such as BrightLocal or Moz Local help you to automatically synchronise citations and detect inconsistencies.

A practical tip: make sure the spelling is exactly the same. ‘Keizersgracht 12’ and ‘Keizersgracht 12A’ are the same address to a human, but to an algorithm they are two different locations.

Local content and landing pages

Your Google Business Profile tells Google where you are. Your website tells Google what you do. The two should complement each other. This means having specific, locally relevant content on your website, tailored to the search terms your customers use.

Do you operate in several cities or regions? If so, create separate landing pages for each location or service-region combination. Don’t just copy and paste content where only the place name has been changed; ensure genuine local relevance: references to projects in that city, local partnerships, and specific circumstances in that region. Google will see right through it if it’s generic.

You should also add LocalBusiness schema markup to your pages. This is structured data that tells Google directly: this is a local business, at this address, in this category. It boosts your relevance and improves the chances of your information being displayed correctly in search results. See the Google documentation on structured data for the exact implementation.

On-page checklist for local search visibility

• Be sure to include the place name or region in the page title, H1 and meta description.
• Display your NAP details clearly on the page (preferably in the footer of each page).
• Implement LocalBusiness schema markup.
• Add an embedded Google Maps map to your contact page.
• Write location-specific content that offers genuine added value to visitors from that region.
• Make sure your page is mobile-friendly and loads quickly: the majority of local searches are carried out on mobile devices.

Local backlinks and citations

You can also build your prominence through mentions outside your own website. Citations are external mentions of your company name, address and telephone number on directories, industry websites or news platforms. They confirm to Google that you are an established, legitimate business.

As well as citations, local backlinks are valuable: links from other websites in your region or sector. Examples include a listing in a local business directory, a collaborative article with a complementary service provider in your town, or sponsorship of a local event. Such links are geographically relevant and therefore carry more weight than a random link from an international blog.

The impact of AI Overviews on local SEO

This is the topic we discuss most with clients in 2025. Since spring 2025, Google AI Overviews have also been available in the Netherlands. These automatically generated summaries appear at the top of search results and provide users with an immediate answer without them having to click.

For local searches, the picture is more nuanced than for informational searches. Searches with a clear local transactional intent, such as ‘plumber Amsterdam emergency’, still prominently display the Local Pack. However, searches involving an intermediate decision-making stage, such as ‘best painter Rotterdam’, are more likely to trigger an AI Overview above or alongside the Local Pack.

It is interesting to note that Google does not rely solely on traditional top positions for AI citations. Research covering Q4 2025 shows that well-structured service pages can earn AI citations without having a classic top-3 ranking. Ranking and being cited are therefore no longer the same thing. This makes it even more important to have clear, well-structured content that Google recognises as a reliable source.

Our honest observation: AI Overviews in the Dutch local context are still very much a work in progress. The algorithm’s behaviour is changing rapidly. We actively monitor this for our clients and adjust our strategies as soon as reliable patterns become apparent.

Local answers increasingly run through data licences

Until recently, the main question regarding local SEO was: am I in the local pack? A second question has now emerged, as a growing proportion of local search queries are no longer entered into a search engine but into a chat window. And there, the answer comes from a different source.

In July 2026, Yelp entered into a licensing agreement with OpenAI. As a result, 330 million reviews, over eight million business listings, photos and business details will be incorporated into ChatGPT’s responses to local queries, including the option to request a quote directly within the conversation. The agreement is non-exclusive, so Yelp can do the same with other AI providers. Axios described the meeting and the reasoning behind it.

Yelp plays hardly any role in the Netherlands, so there’s no need to create a profile there. The principle does apply to you, though. Local visibility in AI responses isn’t about writing cleverly on your own website, but about which database the model consults and what it contains about you. For Dutch businesses, these are primarily your Google Business Profile, industry platforms such as Werkspot, Trustoo, Zorgkaart Nederland or Thuisbezorgd, and the review sites relevant to your sector.

What this means for you in practical terms

• Treat your listings on industry platforms as a way to improve your visibility, not as a lead generation channel. A half-completed profile with out-of-date opening hours is the wrong answer that will soon be read out loud.
• Make sure your category, service description and service area are consistent across every platform. Conflicting information leads to a less clear response, and vagueness means you’ll lose out to a competitor who is clear.
• Reviews count double: they determine whether someone chooses you, and they are the text from which a model deduces what you’re good at. Reviews that mention your service are therefore more valuable than those that simply give five stars.
• Try it for yourself. In ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode, ask the question your customer might ask, including your town or city name, and see who is mentioned and on what basis.

The latter takes ten minutes and often yields the best results. If a competitor is mentioned but you aren’t, check where that review comes from. It’s usually a platform where you have no profile, or only a partial one. To find out how to get those reviews without breaking Google’s rules, see our article on collect reviews.

Measuring and adjusting: how to keep your finger on the pulse

Local SEO isn’t a one-off task. Competitors are optimising their sites too, Google is rolling out updates, and reviews may increase or stagnate. So you need ongoing monitoring.

• Google Search Console: check which local search terms are generating impressions and clicks. Please note: following an update in June 2025, Google will only show the most popular search queries, so low-volume but valuable local terms may no longer appear in your reports.
• Google Business Profile Insights: view the number of views, route requests, phone calls and website clicks from your profile.
• BrightLocal or Local Falcon: for detailed Local Pack rankings by location and search term.
• Review score and frequency: monitor how quickly new reviews are coming in and whether the average remains stable.

A sound local SEO routine includes monthly checks on your Local Pack rankings, weekly attention to new reviews (and replies to them) and quarterly audits of your NAP consistency and profile completeness. See also the Google Search Central blog for the latest official updates that may affect local results.

What no longer works (and never did)

For the sake of completeness: there are still tactics in circulation that have no effect whatsoever or actually cause harm. Google is getting increasingly better at detecting artificial signals.

• Buying fake reviews or manipulating friends and family in a manipulative way: detection by Google leads to removal or account suspension.
• Embedding Google Maps all over your website in the hope that it will improve your ranking: it won’t.
• Keyword stuffing in your business name on Google (‘Jansen Plumber Cheap Emergency Utrecht’): this contravenes the guidelines and may lead to suspension.
• Changing your address to a busy location without actually being based there: Google actively re-verifies this.

A summary of the key actions

Local SEO involves many different aspects, but if you’re not sure where to start, begin here.

1. Claim and verify your Google Business Profile if you haven’t already done so.
2. Fill in your profile in full: the correct category, accurate opening hours, a description and photos.
3. Check your NAP consistency across all platforms and correct any discrepancies.
4. Set up a regular review process for satisfied customers.
5. Optimise your website with local search terms, NAP in the footer and the LocalBusiness schema.
6. Create separate landing pages if you serve multiple regions.
7. Build up local citations on relevant directories and look for opportunities for local backlinks.
8. Monitor your positions and adjust them based on data, not on assumptions.