What Customers Google Before Calling Your Local Business

Most local customers don’t call the first result they see. They spend a few minutes researching — checking multiple businesses, reading reviews, looking at websites — before deciding who to contact.

Understanding what they’re looking for during that research is one of the most useful things you can do to improve how your website converts visitors into customers.

Stage 1: The initial search

The first search is usually a category and location: “plumber Birmingham,” “accountant Coventry,” “solicitor Wolverhampton.”

At this stage, the customer is generating a shortlist. They’re clicking on the first few results in the map pack and the organic results, quickly scanning each one to decide if it’s worth looking at further.

What they’re scanning for:

• Is this business actually in my area?
• Do they do what I need?
• Do they look credible at a glance?

A website that takes more than three seconds to load, doesn’t clearly state what it does and where, or looks visually untrustworthy, gets closed immediately. The customer doesn’t consciously reject it — they just move on to the next result.

Stage 2: The trust check

Once a customer has identified two or three plausible options, they start doing a deeper check on each. This is where your website does its real work.

Reviews are the first thing most people look at. Before they read your About page or your services list, they’re looking at your Google reviews. How many? What do they say? Are they recent? Are they from people and businesses that sound real?

A business with 30 reviews averaging 4.8 stars, with specific comments about quality and responsiveness, will be called ahead of a business with a more impressive website but three reviews from 2019.

They check your service matches their need. If someone needs a consumer unit replaced, they want to see “consumer unit replacement” or “fuse board upgrade” listed somewhere on your site — not just “electrical services.” Specific language builds confidence that you know and regularly do exactly what they need.

They look at photos of your work. For trades and services where quality is visible — building contractors, landscapers, decorators, beauty salons — photos of completed work are a direct proxy for quality. A website with real job photos is trusted more than one with only stock imagery, even if the stock images look more polished.

Stage 3: The specific concern

After the general trust check, the customer often has a specific concern they want addressed. This is where many businesses lose customers they should win.

Common specific concerns by sector:

• Plumbers: “Will they charge a call-out fee just to quote?” → your website should address this explicitly
• Accountants: “Will they understand my specific situation (self-employed, landlord, limited company)?” → your services page needs to list specific situations you handle
• Solicitors: “How long will this take and how much will it cost approximately?” → some indication of process and timeline builds confidence
• Cleaners: “Are they insured and DBS checked?” → state this prominently, not buried in an FAQ
• Builders: “Can they handle the size of job I have in mind?” → mention project sizes or types you typically work on

If a customer has a specific concern and your website doesn’t address it, they’ll often call a competitor whose website does — even if you’d handle their concern perfectly well.

Stage 4: The contact decision

By the time a customer reaches out, they’ve usually already decided you’re worth trying. The contact process shouldn’t introduce friction.

What they want at this stage:

• A phone number that’s easy to find and tap on mobile
• Confidence that someone will actually answer (operating hours help)
• Or a contact form that’s short and asks for the minimum needed
• Some indication of how quickly they’ll hear back

A customer who has done the research and decided you’re the right fit will still abandon if the contact process is difficult — if the phone number is buried, if the form has six required fields, or if there’s no indication that anyone will respond in a reasonable timeframe.

What this means for your website

You can’t control the searches customers make or how they evaluate results. But you can make sure that at every stage of their research, your website gives them what they’re looking for:

• Fast load, clear location, clear service — within three seconds
• Specific, recent Google reviews — visible without scrolling far
• Photos of real work — not stock imagery
• Explicit answers to the specific concerns common in your sector
• A frictionless contact process with a clear next step

A website built to match how customers actually research is a website that converts.

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At mybitness, we build local business websites that answer the questions your customers are actually asking — designed to convert research into contact.

Get a free review of your current site →