If you run a trades business in Vancouver, local SEO is the highest-ROI marketing channel available to you. A customer searching 'furnace repair Vancouver' at midnight is ready to spend money right now. If your business shows up first, you get the call. If it does not, your competitor does.
This guide covers everything you need to rank in local search: your Google Business Profile, your website structure, schema markup, citations, and reviews. No theory, no generic advice. Just the specific things that actually move the needle for trades businesses in Metro Vancouver.
Google's local search algorithm weighs three factors: proximity (how close the business is to the searcher), relevance (how well the business matches the search query), and prominence (how well-known and trusted the business is based on links, reviews, and citations).
Proximity you cannot control. It is based on where your customer is searching from. Relevance you control through your website content and Google Business Profile categories. Prominence you build over time through reviews, backlinks, and consistent directory listings. Most trades businesses neglect relevance and prominence entirely, which is why the local pack results in Vancouver are often dominated by whoever just did the basics.
Your Google Business Profile is the listing that appears in Google Maps and in the local pack, the three businesses shown at the top of local search results. It is free and it is the single most impactful thing you can optimize for local search.
Start with your primary category. For an HVAC company that is 'HVAC Contractor'. For a plumber it is 'Plumber'. Be specific because Google uses this to match your business to relevant searches. Add secondary categories for every service you offer: 'Air Conditioning Contractor', 'Furnace Repair Service', 'Heating Contractor'. The more accurately your categories match what customers actually search, the more searches you show up for.
Fill in every field. Business description at 750 characters, including your primary services and cities served. Service area listing every city you cover in Metro Vancouver. Hours, including 24-hour availability if that applies to you. Upload photos every week: job site photos, team photos, before-and-after shots. Profiles with regular photo updates rank measurably better than static ones.
Google reviews are a direct local ranking signal. A business with 80 reviews at 4.8 stars will consistently outrank a competitor with 12 reviews at 5.0 stars. Volume and recency both matter. A business that gets one new review per week signals ongoing activity to Google's algorithm.
The most effective review system for trades businesses is a text message sent right after a completed job. Something like: 'Thanks for choosing us today. If you were happy with the service, a quick Google review helps our small business more than you know, here is the link.' Send directly to your GBP review form, not your homepage.
Target at least one new review per week once you are operational. Respond to every review within 24 hours because Google tracks your response rate. For negative reviews: respond professionally, offer to make it right, and never argue. A handled negative review does less damage than an ignored one.
A single Services page listing everything you offer ranks for nothing specifically. Google needs individual pages for each service and each location you want to rank in.
For an HVAC company in Metro Vancouver that means dedicated pages for furnace repair, AC repair, heat pump installation, HVAC maintenance, and emergency service, each targeting a keyword like 'furnace repair Vancouver'. Then location pages for every city you serve: furnace repair Burnaby, HVAC repair Surrey, and so on.
Each page needs at least 600 words of real, specific content. Google can detect thin pages written purely for SEO. They need to actually answer the questions a customer would have. Include your service area, what the service involves, a pricing range if possible, your credentials, and a clear call to action.
For emergency services specifically: the phone number needs to be above the fold and click-to-call on mobile. Someone with no heat at midnight is not filling out a contact form.
Schema markup is structured data you add to your website that tells Google explicitly what your business is, where it is, and what it does. Google uses it to power rich results in search, things like star ratings, FAQ dropdowns, and business details shown directly in the results page.
Every trades business website should have LocalBusiness schema on the homepage covering your business name, address, phone number, service area, and opening hours. Service pages should have Service schema. Any page with FAQs should have FAQPage schema, which is what triggers the expandable FAQ results you see below some listings and significantly increases click-through rate.
If you are on WordPress, a plugin like Rank Math handles basic schema. If you are on a custom-built site, a developer needs to add this manually as JSON-LD in the page head. Either way, verify it is working with Google's Rich Results Test.
A citation is any mention of your business name, address, and phone number on another website. Google cross-references citations across directories to verify your business is real and to confirm your location data. Inconsistent information (different phone numbers, old addresses, name variations) actively hurts your local rankings.
For Vancouver trades businesses the essential directories are: Google Business Profile, HomeStars (the most important Canadian home services directory), Houzz, Angi, Yelp, Bing Places, Apple Maps, and your industry associations. TECA for HVAC, Master Plumbers of BC for plumbers, ECABC for electricians.
When you submit to directories, use the exact same business name, address, and phone number every single time. If your business name is 'ABC Plumbing Ltd.' do not list it as 'ABC Plumbing' on some and 'A.B.C. Plumbing Limited' on others. Consistency is what Google is looking for.
The highest-traffic content opportunity for any trades business is the cost guide. 'How much does furnace repair cost in Vancouver', 'plumbing inspection cost Vancouver', 'AC installation cost BC': these are searched thousands of times per month by people actively researching a purchase. A 1,500-word honest cost guide with real price ranges and the factors that affect them will rank and convert better than almost anything else you can write.
Blog content for trades businesses should fall into one of three buckets: cost guides for people ready to hire, symptom-based guides for people with something broken, or seasonal content published before the peak arrives. Furnace content published in August ranks by November. Published in November, it misses the peak entirely.
Local SEO is not fast. A brand-new Google Business Profile in a competitive market like Vancouver will take 3 to 6 months to rank in the local pack for primary keywords. A new website targeting competitive service keywords will take 4 to 8 months to reach page one.
That is not a reason to wait. It is a reason to start now. The businesses at the top of Vancouver local search today started 1 to 3 years ago. The ones who start today will hold those spots in 2027.
Month 1: fully set up your GBP, submit to the essential directories, make sure your website has the right page structure and schema in place. Month 2: start collecting reviews systematically and publish your first cost guide. Month 3: build location pages for your top service cities. Month 4 onward: one new piece of content per month and consistent review acquisition. That cadence, maintained without stopping, compounds into real rankings.
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