SEO for Tradies: The No-Bull Guide to Getting Found on Google (2026)
What actually gets a trade business found on Google, explained the way you would explain a job to an apprentice: what matters, what does not, what it costs, and what you can do yourself this week.
Strip away the jargon and SEO for a tradie is one sentence: when a local types your trade into Google, you show up before your competitors do. The good news is that local trade SEO is less complicated than agencies make it sound, because the battleground is Cairns, not the country, and most of your competitors are doing very little. The bad news: “less complicated” still is not “quick”.
Why tradies are actually SEO’s best-case scenario
Three reasons the odds favour you:
- Local intent is buying intent. Nobody searches “emergency plumber cairns” for fun. The clicks are customers.
- The competition bar is low. Most tradie websites are slow templates with half-finished Google profiles. Doing the basics properly puts you in the top handful by default.
- Every job is content. Your finished work is exactly what Google wants to see: real, local, fresh proof. (This is the whole idea behind TradeProof, every job you send becomes a ranking page.)
The four things that decide tradie rankings
| Lever | What it decides | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Map pack + “near me” searches | 2 hours setup, 10 min/week (guide) |
| Service + suburb pages | Which searches you can rank for at all | The core build (page list) |
| Reviews | Map position + whether people pick you | An ask after every job (system) |
| Site speed | Rankings + whether visitors stay | Get the build right once (why) |
What results actually look like
Real tradies, real numbers, from our own campaign data: Cairns Auto Works ranks #1 for over 30 terms including “roadworthy certificate cairns” and takes 300+ leads a month, revenue is 4x where it started. Cairns Precision Earthworks hit the top two for “earthworks cairns” in their first year with 25+ leads a month. Neither is a special case. Both are the four levers above, pulled consistently.
Do this yourself, this week
- Finish your Google Business Profile. Every field, real photos, right primary category.
- Ask your last five happy customers for a review. Text them the direct link, make it a 30-second job.
- Check your site on your phone. Slow, fiddly, or number buried? That is where your leads leak. (The 7 leaks.)
- Make your details identical everywhere: same name, number and address on your site, profile and directories. (Why this matters.)
When to bring in help, and what it costs
DIY covers the floor; the ceiling is content, structure and authority, which take weekly hours you probably do not have. Realistic paid options, honestly compared: TradeProof at $399/mo turns your jobs into ranking pages (the on-ramp), and full SEO campaigns from $1,000/mo chase the big money keywords. The full price landscape, including what to avoid, is in what SEO costs in Australia.
Want to know which searches you are invisible for right now? Book a discovery call: we pull the real numbers for your trade in your area and show you exactly where the jobs are going instead.