When an owner asks me about "Google", they usually mean one of two things. Either the profile is missing, wrong or half filled in, or the profile looks fine and the phone still does not ring. Those are two different problems, and they have two different fixes.
The profile is the box that shows up on Google Maps and next to a search for your business name. A setup is a one-time job: the right categories, the services you actually offer, a business description, hours and contact details, a realistic service area, links to your site, the basic settings, and guidance on the photos Google wants to see. At the end, the whole profile gets reviewed.
It is the right choice when the profile does not exist yet, was started by someone else and never finished, or shows wrong information. It does not touch your website, and it does not include ongoing work.
Local SEO starts where the setup ends. Google does not decide who appears in local results from the profile alone. It also reads your website: whether its pages are indexed, whether they say which services you offer and where, and whether your name, address and phone match the profile.
So the Local SEO setup covers the groundwork on both: a technical audit, Google Search Console, an XML sitemap, robots.txt and an indexing check, titles and meta descriptions, the structure of your service pages, your service area, consistent business details and a starting baseline. After that comes the monthly work: tracking where you appear by town, improving the site and the profile, checking indexing, and adjusting based on what the numbers show.
The Profile Setup fixes the listing. Local SEO improves how Google understands your business.
If you hire Local SEO and already have a profile, reviewing and optimizing it is part of the work. If you start with the Profile Setup and move to Local SEO later, the $119.90 is credited toward the Local SEO setup. The Profile Setup is $119.90 once. Local SEO is $299.90 to set up, then $99.90 a month.
No one controls Google's ranking. Anyone who guarantees first place or a date is guessing. What you can control is a correct profile, a website that says the same thing, and tracking that shows the direction.
Not sure which one you need? Send me the business name and the towns you cover. The free Local Presence Review will tell you which of the two problems you have.
Tell me the trade and the towns you cover. I will tell you what I would do first.