Oftentimes, it's the simple things done well that make all the difference. That certainly holds true for local business websites. Most local, service-based businesses hope to make it to the first page of Google results, but rarely even crack the top 10 pages. These websites often cost thousands of dollars, have fancy animations and many pages and still don't do the trick. That's because SEO for local and small businesses is different and most website builders do not take that into consideration.
Here's the story of one of our customers gave up on his huge website and finally started getting found by the people that need him.
The Day He Gave Up The Big Website
We got a chat message one evening with a question I’ve heard a hundred different ways:
“I’ve been trying to build my site with Squarespace, but it's confusing. I don’t understand how the SEO works, and I’m not sure if setting this up correctly or how my site will show up in Google. Would Siimple be a better option for someone like me?”
He runs a small auto detailing shop. He’s good at what he does—obsessively good, in fact. Paint correction, interior restoration, mobile services, the whole deal. But websites? SEO? That stuff wasn’t in his wheelhouse.
He had spent days trying to make a “real” website. The kind with five tabs, a contact form, some animations. But it never felt finished. And more importantly, no one was finding it. He had typed “auto detailing in South Carolina” into Google more times than he could count, hoping to see his business pop up.
It never did.
So he came to us.
I told him what I tell a lot of small business owners who end up chatting into us:
"It’s not about building a bigger site. It’s about building the right site for your business. "
Most local businesses and service-based professionals don’t need ten pages—they need one page that they can manage and keep updated that does its job really, really well. One page that’s fast, focused, and built the way Google likes. That’s exactly what Siimple does.
He went from lost in the search results to ranking locally in just a few weeks—and here's what you can do to follow the same path.
What exactly is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means making your website easier for Google to understand and show to people searching for businesses like yours.
There are two main types of SEO:
- On-page SEO: The structure and content of your (the code, text, images, meta tags, layout).
- Off-page SEO: What happens outside your site (Google Business Profile, backlinks from other reputable sites, reviews and organic traffic).
Siimple is one of the only website builders that takes care of all of the on-page SEO specifically for service-based, local businesses. But most website builders are busy focusing on the off-page SEO and giving you all the bells and whistles for blogging and e-commerce that most service-based professionals never end up using.
It Wasn’t Magic. It Was Siimple.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) sounds intimidating. But at its core, it’s just about making your website easier for Google to understand—and easier for the right people to find.
Siimple was built for that exact purpose. While most site builders treat SEO like an afterthought or overcomplicate it and focus on giving you features to control off-page SEO, we focus on on-page SEO and bake it in from the start, specifically for local, service-based businesses like yours.
Here’s what that actually looks like—and how to start getting found online.
1. Start with a Site Google Actually Likes
Most business owners think they need a “big” website to rank. But that’s not what Google wants.
Google has a soft spot for clean, fast websites. Siimple’s templates are built that way from the ground up: mobile-friendly, lightning fast, and structured to help Google understand what you do and where you do it.
A fast, mobile-friendly, clearly structured site will outperform a cluttered, multi-page one every time. That’s exactly how Siimple templates are built—clean under the hood, lightweight, and structured for SEO.
All you have to do is pick a template, write my service and city right in the headline (such as “Mobile Detailing in Berkeley”), and suddenly... you're one step closer to visibility
💡Why it matters: Google scans your headline for clues. The clearer and more local your language, the better Google understands who should see your site.
2. Fill In Your SEO Settings
Filling in your Meta information is super important. This is the stuff that shows up when you share your website link with someone or when it appears in search results. Siimple gives you simple fields for your Page Title, Meta Description, Meta Image and URL—no guessing, no coding. We even have an AI assistant to help you write it perfectly.
What you can do:
Use phrases like what you do + where you do it.
Title: “Glossy Auto Detailing – Berkeley, CA”
Description: “Eco-friendly mobile auto detailing in New York. Book your detail today.”
URL: yourname.siimple.site/berkeley-detailing
💡 Why it matters: These fields are what show up in Google search results. If they’re clear and relevant, people will click.
3. Speak the Language of Your Neighbors
Google doesn’t guess. It needs clues. Adding phrases like “Berkeley car detailing” and “Oakland mobile detailing” into your homepage text helps Google understand the context and location more easily.
Example: “We offer on-site car detailing throughout Berkeley, Oakland, and Emeryville.”
Having a location, address and map are also super important. Siimple makes this so easy, just type your address into the map field and Siimple embeds a perfectly styles map for you way just the way Google wants to see it.
4. Google Business Profile Is Non-Negotiable
If you do nothing else: set up your Google Business Profile.
Go to google.com/business, add your info, link your Siimple site, and make sure your phone number and business name match exactly. That’s how you show up in the little map results at the top of the search page that people trust so much.
5. Get Shared. Get Linked. Get Found.
A Siimple site may be small—but it’s powerful. It loads fast, it’s easy to share, and best of all, it’s indexable by Google.
You can share your site in local Facebook groups, add it to your Yelp listing, and drop the link in your Instagram bio. Don’t be shy about sending it to friends or past customers and asking them to share it, too. Google really loves to see you being linked to by other sites especially reputable ones.
Speaking of which if you send us a testimonial about your experience with Siimple and tag us on social media, we’ll feature your business on our blog—with a link back to your site!
That kind of backlink from a trusted source? It’s SEO gold. Google sees it as a vote of confidence, which can help boost your visibility in search results.
6. Keep It Simple and Active
Just like a storefront that looks open and well-maintained invites customers in, a website that stays fresh signals to Google (and your visitors) that your business is alive and well.
When a site goes stale—no updates, outdated info, broken links—Google starts to assume it might be inactive. That can cause your ranking to slip, even if your services are still running strong.
What you can do:
🔷 Update your site occasionally. Even small changes like updating a sentence, tweaking your headline, or adding a new service can help Google see that your site is still being cared for.
🔷 Add new testimonials or project photos. These don’t just build trust with potential clients—they give search engines fresh content to crawl and index.
🔷 Keep your hours and contact info current. If a customer (or Google) sees conflicting information about when you're open or how to reach you, it creates doubt—and doubt doesn’t convert.
💡Why it matters: Google gives preference to active, well-maintained websites. Fresh content tells the algorithm that you’re still in business and still relevant.
Visitors are more likely to contact or book with a business that looks current and engaged. A recent testimonial or a photo from last week’s job adds credibility.
Regular updates keep your site ranking strong over time—especially in competitive local markets where others may be neglecting their websites.
Think of it like this:
You don’t need to constantly overhaul your site. But touching it up every so often—like you’d tidy a storefront window—shows you’re paying attention. And both Google and your customers notice.
With Siimple, updates are easy. Log in, make a quick change, hit publish. No code, no stress. Just a living, breathing site that keeps working for you.
7. Be Patient with the Crawl
I won’t lie to you—this takes a minute. Google needs time to crawl your site, index it, and decide it’s legit. Sometimes it’s a few days. Sometimes a few weeks.
You’ve probably heard the term “Google crawling your site”—but what does that actually mean?
Think of Google like a giant library, and its bots (also called "spiders") are the librarians. Their job is to scan websites across the internet, figure out what each page is about, and file it away so it shows up when someone searches for something related.
Here’s how it works:
↳ Google’s bots visit your website.
They read your content, analyze the structure of your site, and take note of your images, links, and keywords.
↳ They add your site to Google’s index.
This index is like a massive database of websites. If your site isn’t in the index, it won’t show up in search results—no matter how nice it looks.
↳ They come back periodically.
Google revisits your site regularly to see if anything has changed. If you update your content or add new info, the bots will pick it up and refresh your listing in search results.
What does this mean for you?
If your site is brand new, Google may not know it exists yet. That’s why it can take a few days (or even weeks) to appear in search.
You can speed things up by submitting your site to Google Search Console. This tells Google directly: “Hey, come check out my site!”
Sharing your site on platforms like Yelp, Instagram, or Facebook also helps. If Google sees your link out in the wild, it’s more likely to crawl and index it quickly.
Crawling is how Google discovers your website. Indexing is how it remembers it. Ranking is how it decides where to place you in search results.
You don’t need to do anything technical—but you do need to make sure your site is clear, connected, and easy to find.
With Siimple, the hard part is already handled. You just have to give Google a little nudge—and a little time.
The Bottom Line
Many local businesses and service-based professionals think SEO is a big, complex mystery, but the truth is, if things are stuctured right by the website building tool itself and you take a few steps to get your site out there and make it easy for Google to crawl, you've already solved most of the mystery!
Siimple give business owners a site that is pre-built the right way, with local SEO baked in and you do the rest—filling in the blanks with good keywords and key phrases, using your real voice, and telling the internet who you are, where you are and what you do.
And you can do that too!
