SEO
If your customers find you by searching "near me" or the name of their neighborhood, local SEO is the thing deciding whether you show up first or not at all. It's a different game than ranking a national website, and it runs on different rules.
Regular SEO is mostly about a ranked list of links. Local SEO is about the map pack, the three businesses Google shows at the top of a local search along with a map. Getting into that map pack depends on signals that don't matter much for a national site: your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your local citations, and how consistent your business name, address, and phone number are across the web.
Your Google Business Profile is the foundation. Categories, hours, service area, and photos all need to be filled out completely and kept current. On top of that, reviews matter more locally than almost anywhere else, both the count and how recently they came in. Citations, meaning your business listed consistently on directories across the web, round out the picture.
None of this replaces having a real, fast, useful website. Local SEO and a good website work together. A perfectly optimized Google Business Profile still needs a website behind it that actually converts a visitor once they click through.
Local SEO matters most for businesses that live and die by nearby customers: plumbers, roofers, contractors, restaurants, and similar service businesses. If you're competing for anyone within driving distance rather than customers anywhere in the country, this is where your SEO effort should be concentrated first.