How to rank for tradesman Local searches?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Jamie Heinrichs: I'm a roofing contractor in a small town. We do work within a 45 mile radius of our office. My question/problem is that my website doesn't rank high in Google using search terms including the nearby small towns, such as "roofing mineral point" or "roofing dodgeville". Google Maps only brings up the geographically closest roofing contractors and we don't rank high in the organic results. ; I only provide the content for my website. I hired a local company to handle the hosting and ;design of my site. Is there a problem with the coding of my website? Are they doing some outdated SEO that is hurting my site? Or is it a ;problem with content? I recently started a blog and try to update the content periodically. Any suggestions would be appreciated. ;
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  Nishant Desai: Can you message me your website link so that I can check if there is something hurting your website or can send you some guidelines to improve your local presence.
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  Brent Wildman: As far as local goes, it doesn't matter how awesome your site is, Google puts priority on the distance the customer is from your company when ranking locally. ;
  
  There are several things you can do to improve your local and organic results though.
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  Jen Holzman: +Jamie Heinrichs ;If your web masters/ designers are only providing the hosting and design of the site, they are not responsible for the organic ranking of the property (unless the load time of the site is very slow due to bulky design features). ;Showing up for roofing related searches in Dodgeville and Mineral Point (etc.) is dependent on creating content and landing pages for the services you provide in those areas. ;A blog is a great start, and I recommend that you and your employees continue publishing high quality as often as you can. ;
  
  Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any more specific questions.
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  Paul Lovell: +Jamie Heinrichs Unless you web designer is providing you with a seo services then you will need to take care of this yourself or if this is a bit out of your depth you need to get a professional to help
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  Jamie Heinrichs: Thanks for the advice.
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  Kevin Wiles: +Jamie Heinrichs hi james feel free to email me and id happily take a look for you
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  Jim Munro: +Nishant Desai ;+Kevin Wiles ; - Please do not tout for business here. There is nothing that you can provide by email that this community cannot supply on a peer-reviewed basis. ;
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  W.E. Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:09:28 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/how_to_rank_for_tradesman_local_searches