Someone needing a plumber this week may never open a list of ten results. They ask an assistant, get two or three names, and call one. You are either in that answer or you are invisible, and there is no page two to be on.
They are not guessing. They lean on sources that are easy to verify and hard to fake:
The pattern is unglamorous: assistants recommend the business that is easiest to describe. If your site never states which towns you cover or which services you actually perform, nothing can state it for you.
Being findable used to mean ranking. Now it means being legible enough to quote.
Reviews used to be social proof for humans. They are now source material. A review that says "replaced our water heater in Falmouth the same day" tells a machine your service, your town and your turnaround in one sentence. Asking customers for specifics instead of "leave us five stars" changes what can be said about you.
Start with the boring layer: profile categories and service area correct, listings consistent, a page per service, a page per town you genuinely cover, hours that are true. Then a steady flow of recent reviews. That work also happens to be classic local SEO, which is why it pays twice.
The free local presence review includes what an assistant can currently say about your business, and what it cannot. It usually takes one look to find the gap.
Tell me the trade and the towns you cover. I will tell you what I would do first.