Start with your Google Business Profile
Before anything else, claim and fully verify your Google Business Profile if you haven't already. Then go through it properly: correct categories (primary and secondary), real photos of your actual premises or work — not stock images — and business hours that are actually accurate, including public holidays. This is the listing that shows up in the map pack, and it's the single highest-leverage thing a local business can control directly.
NAP consistency: the boring thing that actually matters
NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone — and it needs to match exactly across your website, your Google Business Profile, and every directory you're listed on (Yellow Pages, True Local, industry-specific directories, all of it). "12 Smith St" versus "12 Smith Street" sounds trivial, but inconsistencies like that make it harder for Google to confidently tie all those listings back to one real business — which weakens the local signal you're trying to build.
Reviews are a ranking signal, not just social proof
Review volume, recency, and how often you respond all factor into local ranking — not just whether a potential customer trusts you. A business with 40 reviews where the last one was 8 months ago reads very differently to Google than one with a steady trickle of new reviews and visible responses from the owner.
The simplest fix here is a habit, not a tool: ask every satisfied customer for a review right after the job is done, while it's still front of mind for them.
Local content needs to feel local, not stuffed
Mentioning "Sydney" forty times on a page doesn't help you — and reads exactly as desperate to Google as it does to a human. What actually helps is content that's genuinely specific: naming the suburbs and areas you actually service ("we work across the Inner West and Eastern Suburbs"), and using real client case studies and testimonials instead of generic claims. Specificity is the signal; repetition isn't.
What this looks like over time
Local SEO is closer to compounding interest than a quick fix — a realistic timeline for movement is 3 to 6 months of consistent work, not a complete profile and an overnight jump in the map pack. The businesses that actually move are the ones that keep doing the boring, consistent things — profile accuracy, review habits, consistent NAP — rather than chasing whatever the latest "hack" is.