That last point is the one that redirects the most effort. Ordinary search results are built by crawling websites. Local results are built from a database of businesses populated by profiles, licensing records, and data aggregators, which means a business with an excellent site and an unclaimed profile does not appear. Improving the site affects one and barely touches the other.
Start with the profile because it is free and it does the most. Claim it, verify it, and complete every field rather than the required ones. The primary category matters most and should be the most specific accurate option rather than the broadest. Hours need to be correct including holidays, since somebody who drives to a closed business does not return and frequently says so publicly.
Add photographs regularly rather than once, showing the actual premises, the actual work, and the actual people. Listings with images receive materially more engagement, and recency is visible. This is the field most businesses complete at setup and never touch again.
Reviews are the second and they compound in a way nothing else does. Placement improves noticeably past roughly ten, and a substantial share of consumers will not consider a business with fewer than twenty. Getting there is a matter of asking consistently after work is finished, by message with a direct link, rather than running a campaign.
Consistency across the web is the third and it is invisible work with a real effect. Your name, address, and phone number appearing identically everywhere is corroboration that you are one real business, and disagreement forces a guess. Write down the exact form you will use and apply it everywhere rather than retyping, since the drift happens through retyping rather than through decisions.
What the website contributes is narrower than people assume and still matters. Your address and phone number in text rather than in an image, formatted identically to the profile. Local business structured data on the home page. And pages about the areas you serve where you have something genuine to say about each, since a page that merely names a place is recognised as thin.
Speed and mobile usability matter more here than in general search, because local searches happen overwhelmingly on phones, frequently outdoors, often while somebody is choosing between two options in the next minute.
Then measure it in the profile rather than in your website analytics, since most of the activity never touches your site. How many people found you by name against by category is the number that matters, because the second group is genuinely new customers and the first already knew you.
Search for yourself from a browser you are not signed into, and from a phone, since what you see while logged into your own account is not what a stranger sees. That single check reveals how you actually appear and frequently surprises people who assumed their listing was fine.
Post updates to the profile occasionally, since several platforms surface recent activity and an account that has been dormant for a year signals a business that may no longer be operating.
Answer the questions section if the platform has one, because those appear publicly and anybody can submit an answer including people who do not work for you. Populating it yourself with genuine common questions prevents somebody else describing your business inaccurately.
Check the listing monthly for edits you did not make, since platforms accept suggestions from the public and a competitor or a well meaning stranger can change your hours or category without notification.