By Carson Handran, web designer in Bluffton, SC. About 2 minutes.
The short answer: the profile first. When someone in Bluffton searches 'plumber near me', Google shows three businesses on a map before it shows a single website. Getting into those three is mostly about the profile, not the site. It costs $349 to set up properly and it starts working within weeks.
What the profile does
The Google Business Profile is the box on Maps and on the right side of a search: hours, photos, reviews, a Call button. Google decides who goes in the map results based on distance, how complete and active the profile is, and reviews. A business with a complete profile, real photos, every service listed and a steady flow of reviews can be in the map results with an average website.
What SEO on the site does
SEO on the website is the pages and research that hold the profile up and win searches the map does not cover. Keyword research finds the phrases people actually type. A page for each service gives Google something to rank for each one. Town pages cover the places you serve. This takes months to show and keeps working for years.
The order that works
Claim and complete the profile. Get the site to say the same name, phone and services. Ask every happy customer for a review by text. Then add a page for each service you want to be found for, starting with the one that makes you the most money. Then the towns. That order gets calls soonest and wastes the least.
What it costs
The profile setup is $349 on its own, or included in the Growth site at $3,497 and in the Grow monthly plan at $499, which also runs the profile every week. Service pages are $549 each. Everything is at /pricing, and the local SEO page at /local-seo explains what the map looks like in each town.