Birmingham, Michigan · Since 2016
Michigan local SEO company
that gets you in the three.
When someone nearby searches what you do, Google shows three businesses on a map. Everything below that fights for scraps. We build the foundation that puts you in the three and keeps you there.
Get my free SEO audit30 minutes with Ervin · Ranked fix list · No contract
- Client in the Troy map pack, 5.0 from 111 reviews
- One-time build from $2,500
- You own the profile
How the map pack actually works
Three spots, and the rules are public.
There’s no secret here. Google has said what it weighs, and it has stayed consistent for years. The businesses that win local search are the ones that treat those three factors as a checklist instead of a mystery.
- Distance
Where you are
Proximity to the person searching. You can’t change it, which is why your rank shifts from one suburb to the next and why a single ranking number is meaningless.
- Relevance
What you say you do
How well your profile and pages match the exact search. Categories, services and wording decide whether Google even considers you for that query.
- Prominence
How trusted you look
Reviews, consistency and mentions across the web. This is the one that moves fastest when you work on it, and the one most businesses ignore.
Sound familiar?
You’ve done this search yourself.
- From your own counter
“Glass repair Troy. Three names on the map, and none of them are mine.”
- Scrolling down
“The one on top has twelve reviews. I have sixty.”
- The monthly report
“Rankings up, it says. The phone didn’t get the memo.”
- Later
“Maybe Google just doesn’t like us.”
Google doesn’t dislike you. It can’t read you.
Distance you can’t change. Your profile, your reviews and your listings you can, and those decide who gets the three.
Forty reviews from three years ago read worse than fifteen from last month.
Why nearby customers pick someone else
Four signals Google reads before it ranks you.
You can’t move your shop, so distance is fixed. The other two factors are entirely fixable, and most businesses have never touched them.
- 01
A half-empty profile
Missing categories, services, hours or photos. For a near-me search this matters more than your website.
- 02
Thin or stale reviews
Forty reviews from three years ago read worse than fifteen from last month.
- 03
Details that disagree
Your name, address and phone differ across listings, so Google trusts none of them fully.
- 04
Pages that never say where
Google can’t rank you for Troy if the site never mentions Troy.
Proof, before the pitch
Real evidence should survive an incognito window.
Result one
A Troy med spa we relaunched, already winning its market.
Rêve came to AlbaTech for a full relaunch. We rebuilt the site, the local-search foundation and the review engine together, and the treatments people actually search for now surface the business.
- Search: med spa troy
- Market: Troy, Michigan
- Result: first web result
- First web result under the map, and it holds that spot every time we check
- In the map pack too, highest rated of the three at 5.0 from 111 reviews
- Also in the pack for botox troy and laser hair removal troy
Result two
Our own studio, first for “microblading Michigan”.
Fine Strokes is our own studio. We built the website and the local search setup around the service customers actually search for. We ran the method on our own business before we sold it to anyone.
- Search: microblading Michigan
- Market: Birmingham, Michigan
- Result: first position shown
30 minutes with Ervin · Ranked fix list · No contract
What we actually do
The work that moves you up the map.
No secret sauce. The boring signals Google keeps rewarding, done properly and then kept up, because local SEO is a habit rather than a project. A one-time build starts at $2,500, and every account we set up stays in your name.
Google Business Profile
The storefront that decides a near-me search.
Every field filled, the right primary category, real photos of real work, services written the way customers actually say them. A complete profile beats a better business with an empty one, every time.
- Categories and services
- Real photos, added monthly
- Hours, phone, service area
- Posts and Q&A seeded
A review engine that runs
Steady beats a big pile from two years ago.
A one-tap ask at the moment the job goes well, built into how you already work, so new reviews keep arriving instead of stopping the week after the push.
- Direct review link
- The ask, built into the job
- Replies to every review
- No gating, no buying
Listings that agree
One name, one address, one number, everywhere.
We clean the directories that contradict each other, because mixed signals are why Google hedges on you and shows a competitor it feels surer about.
- Citation cleanup
- Duplicate listings removed
- Local schema
- Map embed and directions
Pages that name your area
Say what you do and where you do it.
Service and city pages written for people first, so they read well to a customer and still tell Google exactly where you work.
- Service pages
- City and service-area pages
- Internal linking
- Written in your voice
How the work runs
Five steps, in this order, every time.
- 01
Audit
We run your real searches from your real service area and record where you actually show up, suburb by suburb.
- 02
Fix the profile
Categories, services, hours, photos and description, because this is the fastest lever you control.
- 03
Clean the record
Duplicate and contradictory listings sorted so every source tells Google the same story.
- 04
Start the reviews
A one-tap ask that fits how you already finish a job, so the flow keeps going without you thinking about it.
- 05
Build the pages
Service and area pages that earn the ranking, then we re-run the searches and show you what moved.
The cost of leaving it
Every near-me search you miss is a customer with their phone already out.
These aren’t maybe-someday leads. Someone needed the job done today, searched, and called one of the three names Google showed. If you weren’t there, you never knew the opportunity existed.
- The searcher is ready now, not researching for later
- The three spots take the overwhelming share of the calls
- Unlike ads, the spot keeps working after you stop paying
- Your competitor’s review count grows every month you wait
Try it from two different suburbs. Your rank changes block to block, and that tells you which areas you actually own.
Who this works for
Businesses where the customer is already nearby.
Local search pays off when someone within driving distance needs what you do and needs it soon. That covers most of the trades and most of the appointment businesses across Metro Detroit.
- Trades and home services
Emergency and scheduled work
The homeowner searches, then calls one of the first three.
Burst pipe, dead furnace, roof leak. Nobody scrolls to page two at eleven at night, which is exactly why the map spot is worth more than any brochure page you could build.
- Appointment businesses
Med spas, PMU, salons, clinics
They search the treatment, not your business name.
Botox, microblading, lash lift. If your profile lists the service the way customers say it, you show up for it. If it doesn’t, you’re invisible for the exact thing you do best.
- Multi-area businesses
Anyone serving several suburbs
Your rank changes from one town to the next.
You might own Birmingham and be nowhere in Royal Oak. Measuring across the whole service area is the only way to see which places are actually sending you work.
- Not a fit
When we say no
Some businesses shouldn’t start here.
If your customers are national, or you already turn work away, local SEO is the wrong first spend. We’ll tell you that on the call instead of selling you a package.
What we turn down
We won’t promise you a ranking.
- No guaranteed positions, nobody controls Google
- No fake reviews, and no screening out the unhappy ones
- No city pages for towns you don’t actually serve
- No recommendation based on the easiest service to sell
The ownership promise
No hostage accounts. No mystery handoff.
Your profile, website, analytics, advertising accounts, data and documentation stay in your name. If we stop working together, your profile and your listings stay yours.
Common questions
Stuff you’re probably wondering.
How long does local SEO take?+
Profile and listing fixes can show up in weeks. Reviews and rankings build over months. You get the honest timeline before the work starts, and we’d rather set it low than oversell it.
What does a local SEO build cost?+
A one-time build starts at $2,500 and usually takes 4 to 8 weeks, depending on your city and how competitive your market is. It gets scoped on the free audit call before you pay anything.
Can you guarantee the map pack?+
No, and neither can anyone else. What we can do is fix every signal you control, then show you what moved with before and after searches.
Do I need city pages?+
Only if you genuinely serve those cities. Pages for towns you don’t work in read as spam to Google and to customers, and they can hurt more than they help.
What if my listings are a mess?+
That’s normal, and it’s usually the fastest win. Cleaning contradictions often moves things before anything else does.
Why does my rank keep changing?+
Because distance is a factor. You’ll rank differently from one suburb to the next, which is why we measure across your service area instead of quoting one number.
How do I get more reviews without nagging?+
Ask at the moment the job goes well, with a link that opens the review box in one tap. Most people say yes when a human they just had a good experience with asks directly.
Is local SEO different from regular SEO?+
Yes. Local is about the map and nearby searchers. Organic is about ranking in the blue links for your topic. Most local businesses should win local first.
What if I get a bad review?+
Answer it calmly in public. A perfect five with two hundred reviews reads as fake anyway, and future customers read your reply more closely than the complaint.
Where this runs
Local SEO, city by city, with the receipts.
Birmingham SEO
Our own studio’s home turf →Troy SEO
Rêve’s market →Detroit SEO
The biggest market →Fine Strokes case study
First for microblading Michigan →Rêve Medical Spa case study
First web result for med spa Troy →The complete guide to local SEO
Read it →Google Business Profile guide
Read it →Conversion-ready website
Website pillar →One next step
Find out where you actually rank before you spend on ads.
Thirty minutes with Ervin. We run the searches together across your service area, and you leave with a ranked fix list whether or not you hire AlbaTech.
Get my free SEO audit