Local SEO for Dutch Businesses with a Physical Address

en 2026-09-22 6 min read

For a business with a physical address in the Netherlands, local search comes down to three things: a Google Business Profile you control, a website whose name, address and hours agree with it, and a page for each service you actually sell. The profile is free, the website side is the SEO foundation at EUR 450 to 750 one-off, and SEO growth at EUR 500 to 800 per month only makes sense once you have more services or locations than pages.

What local search is

When someone searches for "fysiotherapeut Haarlem" or "dentist near me", Google can answer with a map and a short list of businesses above the ordinary results. Google states that it ranks local results mainly on three things.

• Relevance is whether your profile and site say you offer what was searched. Your category, services and page titles carry it.
• Distance is how far you are from the searcher, or from the place named in the search. You cannot change it, which is why a salon in Amsterdam-Noord starts behind for someone searching from De Pijp, however good its website is.
• Prominence is how well known you are: reviews, links and mentions elsewhere, and your website's own standing in search.

So the same work plays out differently across the country. In a city centre a competitor in your category can be on the same street, and relevance and prominence are what separate you. In a smaller town you may be the only option within reach, and the job is being found at all.

Where people find you, and who controls each place

Your website matters in two ways: people go there after the map to decide, and search engines read it to understand what you offer. If the profile shows one set of hours and the contact page another, the visitor has no reason to trust either.

What is particular to a Dutch business

• Your KvK details. Your trade name and address are registered with the Kamer van Koophandel, and your KvK number belongs on your website. Use the same trade name on the profile, the site and your invoices, so nobody wonders whether these are three businesses.
• Two languages. In Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Eindhoven, people look for the same service in Dutch and in English: tandarts and dentist. Serving both means a page per language with its own title, marked so search engines know which is which. An English line under a Dutch page does not do that.
• Public holidays. Set special hours in your profile for Koningsdag, Hemelvaartsdag, Tweede Pinksterdag, the Christmas days and any other day you close. A visitor the map sent to a locked door has a good reason not to try you again.
• Getting there. The useful local content for a physical location is practical: the nearest tram, metro or train stop, where to park, where to leave a bike, whether there is a step at the door. A competitor cannot copy it, and it is what a first-time visitor wants to know.
• Reviews on your own site. EU consumer rules, enforced in the Netherlands by the ACM, require a business that shows reviews to say whether and how it checks they come from real customers.

What moves the cost

• Locations. Each location needs its own profile and its own page with its own address, hours, photos and directions. One page per location, never one page listing every address.
• Services. A page per service is what makes you relevant for each search. A single-page site cannot hold that, which can mean a new site before any SEO work: a step 02 mini-site at EUR 900 to 1.500 for two or three pages, or a step 03 business website at EUR 1.500 to 3.500 for 4 to 7 pages.
• Languages. Dutch and English means a second version of every page to write, title and link.
• Where you work. A shop, clinic or studio shows its address. A plumber or cleaner working at customers' homes should hide the address in the profile, set service areas, and describe those areas in plain text on the site rather than giving each town a thin page of its own.
• Bookings. An embedded scheduler fits a step 03 business website. Taking a deposit or payment online is step 04, EUR 3.500 to 7.500.

Process and timeline

1. Your profile. Claim or create the Google Business Profile and complete verification. Google verifies with the business, so this one is yours to do.
2. Scoping. List your services and locations and decide which languages you serve. That list becomes the page plan.
3. The site, if it cannot carry the plan. A step 02 mini-site takes 2 to 3 weeks, a step 03 business website 3 to 6 weeks. If your current site already has room for a page per service, skip this.
4. The SEO foundation. Search Console, analytics, indexation, technical hygiene, titles, internal links, and a plan for the following 3 to 6 months. One-off, EUR 450 to 750.
5. Optionally, SEO growth. EUR 500 to 800 per month for technical and on-page work, new service and location pages, internal links and reporting, once the plan holds more than you want to do yourself.

Photos of the premises, your real opening hours and a few sentences on what each service includes are what the pages are built from. That is the part that waits on you.

When to spend less

If you have one location, a verified profile with correct hours, reviews coming in and a phone that rings, you are already doing local SEO. Keep answering reviews, keep the hours right, and do not hire us yet.

If your site only needs to confirm you exist, a step 01 single-page landing at EUR 600 to 900 with your address, hours, phone number and a form is enough. The map does the finding and the page does the reassuring.

Do not pay anyone for a page per nearby town you do not serve from a real location. Pages where only the town name changes are what search engines call doorway pages, and they treat them as spam. Every price is on the packages page.

Questions buyers ask

Should the site be in Dutch, English or both?

Write in the language your customers search in. A bakery in Zwolle and an international dental practice in Amstelveen will give different answers. If you genuinely serve both groups, build both versions properly, each with its own pages, rather than one page in mixed languages.

Can we ask customers for reviews?

Yes, and ask all of them, not only the ones you expect to be happy. Google's review policy does not allow discounts or gifts in exchange for reviews, or asking only satisfied customers. Send a short link after the appointment, and reply to reviews, the critical ones included.

How soon will we show up on the map?

Nobody can honestly promise a date or a position. Verification has to complete first, and after that distance means some searches will go to a competitor nearer the searcher whatever anyone does. What you control is being complete, consistent and relevant, and the profile's own performance figures together with Search Console show whether that is working.

What do we own at the end?

Your Business Profile should sit under a Google account that belongs to your business, with anyone helping you added as a manager. For any site we build, you own the code, the repository and the database, and hosting is agreed per project.

Tell us where you are and what you sell, and we will tell you which of these steps your business needs. Get in touch.