Someone in Woking picks up their phone and types "hairdresser near me." Three businesses show up on a little map at the top, with stars and photos and a directions button. One of them gets the booking.
That map is the local pack, and for a business that serves a town, it's the most valuable spot on the internet. It sits above the normal results. It's where people with their card already half out of their pocket are looking.
Getting into it isn't luck, and it isn't expensive. Most of it you can do yourself in an afternoon. Here's how it actually works.
You cannot appear on Google Maps without a Google Business Profile. It's free, it's separate from your website, and it's the single most important thing on this page. If you haven't claimed yours, stop reading and go to google.com/business.
Plenty of businesses have a profile they've never touched, auto-created by Google from an old listing. Search your business name and "Woking" (or wherever you are). If a profile shows up that you don't control, claim it. Don't make a second one.
Fill in everything. Not most of it. Everything. Name, address, phone, hours, website, the lot. Google trusts complete profiles more than half-finished ones, and so do customers.
This one sounds boring and it matters more than you'd think. Google cross-checks your business details across the web. If your address says "Unit 4" on your website, "Unit 4a" on your Facebook page, and "Suite 4" on an old directory, Google gets less confident it's all the same business. Less confident means lower in the pack.
Pick one exact version of your name, address and phone number. The same format everywhere. Your site, your profile, your socials, any directory you're listed in. This is unglamorous housekeeping that quietly lifts you above competitors who never bothered.
When you set up your profile, Google asks for a business category. People pick something vague like "Shop" or "Business services." Don't. Pick the most specific category that fits.
Not "Salon" but "Hair salon" or "Nail salon." Not "Clinic" but "Physiotherapist" or "Dental clinic." The specific category is how Google decides which searches you're even eligible for. You can add secondary categories too, so a salon that also does massage can list both.
Profiles with real photos get more clicks and more direction requests. Not stock images. Actual photos of your place, your work, your team, the front of the building so people recognise it from the street.
Add a handful when you set up, then a few more every month. Google reads an actively updated profile as a live, real business. A profile with two blurry photos from 2019 reads as one that might have closed.
If you do one thing after claiming your profile, get reviews. In the local pack, reviews are close to everything. They influence your ranking, and they're the first thing a customer reads before choosing you over the salon two doors down.
The honest way to get them: ask. After a good appointment, a job well done, a happy customer, ask if they'd leave a quick review. Send them the direct link (Google gives you one in your profile dashboard). Most people are glad to, they just never think to on their own.
A few genuine reviews with real names beat a pile of vague ones. And reply to them, all of them, the good and the awkward. A thoughtful reply to a three-star review does more for trust than ten five-star ones with silence underneath.
One thing I won't tell you to do: buy reviews or fake them. Google is good at spotting it, the penalty is brutal, and customers can smell it too. Slow and real wins here.
The local pack and your website work together. Google looks at your site to understand and trust your profile, so the two should agree.
Put your town on your site, in the words, not just buried in a footer. A page that says "web design in Woking" or "physiotherapy in Guildford" helps Google connect your profile to those searches. Make sure your address and phone match your profile exactly. And keep the site fast, because a slow site drags on everything, local included. I covered the fundamentals of that in SEO is not magic if you want the wider picture.
This is also why a proper local page helps. My Surrey and Woking pages exist partly for exactly this reason: to tell Google, clearly and in plain words, which places I serve.
Claim your Google Business Profile and fill it in completely. Make your name, address and phone identical everywhere. Choose the most specific category. Add real photos regularly. And get genuine reviews by asking, then reply to them.
That's the whole game for most Surrey businesses. It's free, it's mostly a weekend of effort, and it puts you in front of people who are ready to book right now.
If your website is working against you here, slow, vague about where you are, not matching your profile, tell me about it and I'll tell you honestly what's holding you back locally.
Federica is a web designer in Surrey. She builds fast, fixed-price websites that clients own outright, and writes about it here. More about her
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