Local SEO for small business in the Waasland region: what Google and ChatGPT show across 48 searches
Local SEO for small business, measured: we asked Google 48 times who to call in Sint Niklaas, Lokeren, Beveren and Temse, and asked ChatGPT eight times who it recommends. Here are the figures and what they mean for your website.
Type your own trade and your town into Google, the way a customer would. A hairdresser in Sint Niklaas, a plumber in Temse, an accountant in Lokeren. At the top you get three businesses on a map, then a summary written by Google itself, then a row of directories and platforms: Trustlocal, the Gouden Gids, a Facebook page. Your own website sits somewhere in between, or nowhere at all. That is the real starting point of local SEO for small business in this region.
And anyone who asks ChatGPT instead of Google gets a list of five names with a short explanation of why. So the question is no longer just whether your website looks good. It is whether Google and ChatGPT know you, and why they pick someone else. This week we measured exactly that for the Waasland region, using real search results instead of general tips.
The short version: what we saw in 48 local searches in the Waasland region
On 4 November 2026 we pulled the real Google results for twelve sectors in Sint Niklaas, Lokeren, Beveren and Temse, and asked ChatGPT eight times who it recommends for a website or SEO in the area. These are the figures that matter most.
| What we measured | Result | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Map pack with three businesses from Google Maps | On 47 of the 48 searches, right at the top on 30 | Your Google Business Profile is your most important shop window |
| Google AI Overview | On 45 of the 48 searches | Google summarises first and picks its own sources for that |
| Directories and platforms in the top ten | 261 of the 474 regular results, or 55 percent | You are not only competing with colleagues, but with listings |
| Business websites in the top three | 60 of the 144 positions, or 42 percent | There is plenty of room for anyone who gets it right |
| Business websites ranking with a dedicated page | 103 of the 185, and 73 percent of those name the town | A page per service and per town beats one homepage |
| Median number of reviews in the map pack | 18, and only 11 for tradespeople | The bar in the Waasland region is lower than you think |
| Ads | On 12 of the 48 searches | Little competition for the paid positions |
| Prices used as an argument by ChatGPT | In 7 of the 8 answers | If you hide your prices, ChatGPT has nothing to quote |
How we measured this, and where the limits of such a measurement lie, is explained below. After that we go through each finding and what you can do with it as a business owner in the Waasland region.
How did we research local search results in the Waasland region?
We chose twelve sectors where people typically look for someone nearby: roofer, painter, electrician, plumber, contractor and landscaper on one side, and hairdresser, accountant, garage, physiotherapist, estate agent and lawyer on the other. We combined each sector with four towns: Sint Niklaas, Lokeren, Beveren and Temse. That gives 48 searches, typed exactly as a local customer would type them in Dutch, for example “kinesist lokeren” (physiotherapist Lokeren).
We pulled the results through DataForSEO, a service that requests the real Google page as if you were in that town yourself. For each search we noted what was on the page, in which order, and who held the ten regular results. We then looked at the homepage of the tradespeople in the top three. And we asked ChatGPT four questions, each twice, with web search switched on and always from Belgium.
Two honest caveats. This is a snapshot taken on one day, on a desktop computer. On a phone, or a week later, the page looks slightly different. And ChatGPT’s answers vary from one run to the next. The proportions described below are still clear enough to base decisions on.
What does someone in the Waasland region see when they search for a local business?
The first thing that stands out is how little room is left at the top for a regular website. On 47 of the 48 searches, Google showed a map pack with three businesses from Google Maps. On 30 of them, it was the very first thing on the page, before a single regular link. Only “schilder beveren” (painter Beveren) had no map pack.
On top of that, Google loaded an AI Overview on 45 of the 48 searches: a summary Google writes itself, with links to the sources it used. For tradespeople, that overview sat above the first regular result in 17 of the 24 searches, against 9 of the 24 for the other sectors. Google explains how it builds these overviews in its documentation on AI features in search.
Ads were the exception rather than the rule: on 12 of the 48 searches, mostly for plumbers, painters and electricians. For hairdressers, garages, physiotherapists and estate agents we saw none at all. So if you want to advertise, the Waasland region is not yet an expensive market.
And people really are searching. According to the Google Ads keyword planner, “kapper sint niklaas” (hairdresser Sint Niklaas) is searched around 1,600 times a month, “garage sint niklaas” 720 times, “dakwerker sint niklaas” (roofer) and “loodgieter sint niklaas” (plumber) 320 times each, “elektricien sint niklaas” (electrician) 260 times and “boekhouder sint niklaas” (accountant) 210 times, as of November 2026. That is for one town and one way of searching.
How many reviews do you need to get into the Google map pack in the Waasland region?
Fewer than most business owners think. Across all 144 businesses we saw in a map pack, the median number of Google reviews was 18. So half had 18 or fewer. For tradespeople the median was 11, and 30 of the 69 tradespeople in a map pack had fewer than ten. Three businesses made it with a single review.
Even more striking: in 28 of the 47 map packs, the business with the most reviews was not in first place. Reviews count, but they do not decide on their own. Google also looks at how well your profile matches the search and how close you are to the person searching. So a fully completed profile in the right category can beat a business with far more reviews.
| Sector | Directories in the top ten | Business websites in the top ten | Median reviews in the map pack |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roofer | 21 | 19 | 14 |
| Painter | 19 | 15 | 32 |
| Electrician | 27 | 11 | 7.5 |
| Plumber | 27 | 10 | 17.5 |
| Contractor | 21 | 18 | 5.5 |
| Landscaper | 18 | 20 | 4 |
| Hairdresser | 29 | 10 | 80 |
| Accountant | 22 | 4 | 6.5 |
| Garage | 23 | 14 | 98.5 |
| Physiotherapist | 20 | 19 | 18 |
| Estate agent | 18 | 22 | 107.5 |
| Lawyer | 16 | 23 | 13 |
We counted four searches per sector, so around forty regular results per sector. For accountants, fourteen positions also went to job sites, which explains why so few business websites are left.
Two things stand out. For tradespeople the bar is low: an electrician, contractor or landscaper with fifteen recent reviews is already among the businesses with the most reviews in their town in the Waasland region. For hairdressers, garages and estate agents the bar is much higher, probably because customers visit them more often. Which fields of your profile carry the most weight is explained in our article on optimising your Google Business Profile.
Why do Trustlocal, Facebook and the Gouden Gids rank above your website?
Of the 474 regular results we counted, 261 were a directory, a platform or a social media page. That is 55 percent. On 20 of the 48 searches, one of them even held the first regular position. These names came up most often:
- Facebook, on 27 of the 48 searches
- Trustlocal, on 20 searches
- the Gouden Gids, the Belgian business directory, on 11 searches
- quote platforms such as Offertesonline and Bativox
- sector directories for accountants, physiotherapists, painters, electricians and construction firms, often built on the same template
Those sites are not there because they are better than you. They are there because they have a page for every combination of sector and town, with the town in the title and a list of names below it. Exactly what Google looks for when someone searches “kinesist temse”. For the customer it is a detour: they click a list and see you between five colleagues, if you are on it at all.
So what do you do? Make sure your free listings are correct, with the same name, address and phone number as on your website. That helps Google recognise you. A Facebook page that has been quiet for years is worth updating, because it shows up on more than half of the searches. But do not build your visibility on those directories. Every click there is a click to a list of your competitors.
What do the websites that do make the top three on Google have in common?
In between all those directories, business websites took 60 of the 144 top three positions, or 42 percent. On 26 of the 48 searches, a business website held the first regular position. So it can be done, and the way it is done stands out.
Of the 185 times a business website appeared in the top ten, 103 times it was not the homepage but a dedicated page: a service page or a location page. Of those dedicated pages, 73 percent named the town in the title or in the web address, against 37 percent of the homepages. Whoever ranks first for “loodgieter temse” (plumber Temse) is more likely to do so with a page about plumbing in Temse than with a general homepage.
Of the business websites in the top ten in the Waasland region, more than half rank with a dedicated page, and almost three in four of those pages name the town.
We also looked at the homepages of 28 tradespeople who were in the top three. What we found: even those at the top leave a lot on the table.
| What we checked | Present on the 28 homepages |
|---|---|
| Adapted to a phone screen | 27 of 28 |
| A phone number you can tap on a phone | 20 of 28 |
| A word like price, rate or from | 11 of 28 |
| The town or region in the page title | 10 of 28 |
| A form on the homepage | 9 of 28 |
| Business details for Google in a fixed format | 5 of 28 |
| A concrete amount in euros | 2 of 28 |
In other words, the tradespeople at the top in the Waasland region today get there with websites that still have plenty of room to improve. If you want to catch up, that is good news. A site with a tappable number, a starting price, the town in the title and the right business details already does more than most sites in the top three. What those business details look like is explained in Google’s guide to LocalBusiness data. The order to tackle it in is set out in the nine steps we always follow after building more than 160 websites.
What do the mergers around Beveren and Lokeren mean for your visibility?
A detail you only notice if you know the area. Since 1 January 2025, Beveren, Kruibeke and Zwijndrecht have formed a single merged municipality, and Moerbeke has become part of Lokeren, according to the overview from Statistiek Vlaanderen. At the start of 2026 the merged municipality around Beveren still had no definitive name, VRT NWS reported.
Meanwhile people simply keep searching the way they always did: for a plumber in Kruibeke, a hairdresser in Moerbeke or a contractor in Zwijndrecht. A website that only names the merged municipality, or only Beveren, misses those searches. On your location page, also name the villages you work in, such as Melsele, Haasdonk, Kallo, Bazel, Rupelmonde or Burcht. And do not assume Google always reads Beveren as the Waasland: in our results for Beveren, businesses from Beveren aan de Leie and Beveren aan den IJzer turned up too.
Who does ChatGPT recommend for web design and SEO in the Waasland region, and why?
We asked ChatGPT four questions a local business owner might ask, each twice: which web design agency it recommends in Sint Niklaas, who builds a good website for a local business in the Waasland region, which SEO agency it recommends in the Waasland, and what a website costs in Sint Niklaas. More important than who was named is why.
| What ChatGPT used to recommend someone | In how many of the 8 answers |
|---|---|
| Location and services offered | Almost always |
| Prices published on the business’s own website | 7 |
| Google rating and number of reviews | 5 |
| Direct contact with the owner | 4 |
| Number of websites built | 3 |
| Years of experience | 2 |
| Delivery time | 1 |
The lesson applies to local SEO for small business in general, not just to web designers. ChatGPT quotes what it can concretely find on your website: a starting price, your service area, how long you have been around, how many customers you have helped. If you keep all of that “on request”, you give the system nothing to quote. In our test, every source came from websites and directories, none from Facebook.
We have a stake in this, so we will say it openly: Offlow was named in 7 of the 8 answers, three times as the first choice. The reasons ChatGPT gave were mainly the starting price published on our site, more than 160 websites since 2019, our presence in the area and direct contact with Silvio. That is not luck and it is not a trick. It is information we put clearly on our own site, and exactly what we do for clients. Whether your business already gets mentioned, you can find out with the five minute ChatGPT test. How we structure copy so it gets quoted is explained on our page about getting found in ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers.
What is a place in the map pack worth? A worked example for an electrician in Sint Niklaas
Search figures only become interesting once you turn them into jobs. Take an electrician in Sint Niklaas. “Elektricien sint niklaas” is searched around 260 times a month. In our measurement the map pack sat above the regular results for that search, and eight of the ten regular results were a directory or platform.
For the rest we work with assumptions, which you can swap for your own figures. Suppose four in ten searchers open a profile in the map pack, and that you, as one of three, get a third of them. Suppose one in five then calls or emails, and you win one in three enquiries, at an average of €1,200 per job.
| Step | Per month |
|---|---|
| Searches for “elektricien sint niklaas” | 260 |
| Open a profile in the map pack, four in ten | 104 |
| Of which yours, one in three | 35 |
| Call or email, one in five | 7 |
| Jobs won, one in three | 2 |
| Revenue at €1,200 per job | €2,400 |
Over a year, that is around €28,800 in revenue from one search in one town. Add the villages of Nieuwkerken, Belsele and Sinaai, and searches like “electrician near me”, and it grows. Now set the cost against it: web design in Sint Niklaas and the Waasland region starts from €750 with us, and SEO for your own town starts from €349 as a one off package. A single job won already pays for it.
What can you do this week to get found better in the Waasland region?
Your checklist for this week
- Search for your trade and your town on a phone, and note who is in the map pack, how many reviews they have and which directories appear.
- Open your Google Business Profile and check your primary category, your opening hours and your service area, including the villages.
- Send your last ten customers the direct link to leave a review.
- Put your phone number at the top of your website, tappable on a phone.
- Put at least one starting price on your website, with what it includes.
- Change the title of your homepage so it contains your trade and your town.
- Look yourself up on Trustlocal, the Gouden Gids and Facebook, and use the same name, address and number everywhere.
- Ask ChatGPT who it recommends for your trade in your town, and look at which websites it uses as sources.
Which mistakes do we see most often on websites in the Waasland region?
After more than 160 websites, many of them for businesses in Sint Niklaas, Stekene and the rest of the Waasland region, we recognise the patterns straight away. These five came back in the measurement too.
One homepage that has to do everything
Every service and every town on a single page. Google then knows you exist, but not what you should rank for. In our measurement, business websites ranked more often with a dedicated page than with their homepage. A page per service, and per town you really work in, is the foundation.
A title without the town
On 18 of the 28 homepages in the top three, the town was missing from the title. That title is what Google shows as the blue link. Home or Welcome says nothing, Electrician in Temse and surroundings says it all.
Prices that appear nowhere
Almost half of the questions Google itself showed under People also ask were about price: what a painter charges per hour, what an estate agent takes, what a normal price is at the hairdresser. It was 14 of the 31 questions. Yet only 2 of the 28 homepages showed an amount in euros. If you give no ballpark price, you leave that question to the directory or to your competitor.
A Facebook page as your only website
Facebook appeared on 27 of the 48 searches, so a good page there pays off. But it is an addition, not a replacement. You have no control over the structure, you cannot create a page per service or per town, and in our ChatGPT test not a single source came from Facebook.
Asking for reviews once and then never again
Twenty reviews in the month after opening, then nothing. In 28 of the 47 map packs, the business with the most reviews was not in first place. What counts is a profile that stays alive: a few new reviews every month with a reply to each, and a new photo of your work now and then.
When is local SEO for small business not worth it?
Not every business benefits from ranking higher on Google. These are the cases where we advise against it ourselves.
- Your diary is full for months ahead. Extra enquiries you cannot take on only lead to disappointed customers.
- You work almost only for regular clients. A subcontractor with two regular contractors, or an accountant with a full client list, does not need to be found on Google.
- Your customers are not local. If you mainly sell online across Flanders, a map pack and location pages are not your first concern.
- You need work this month. SEO takes three to six months. For quick results, start with your Google Business Profile and possibly a small ad campaign.
If you recognise yourself here, we will tell you so in the free audit. We would rather give you an honest no than sell you a package that brings in nothing.
How does Offlow handle web design and SEO for businesses in the Waasland region?
Offlow is the web design and SEO agency of Silvio De Maeyer, based in Stekene, with clients in Sint Niklaas, Lokeren, Beveren, Temse and the rest of the Waasland region. Since 2019 we have built more than 160 websites, from a roofer in Stekene to a law firm and an estate agent. What tops the list in this research is what we build into every site from the start:
- a page per service and per town you really work in, with the villages included
- a title and description per page with your trade and your town
- a tappable phone number and a starting price, so Google, ChatGPT and your customer have something to go on
- your business details for Google in a fixed format, linked to your Google Business Profile
- a site that loads fast on a phone
Web design starts from €750, clients pay €1,285 excl. VAT on average, and the site is live within four to six weeks. Already have a website? Then our SEO agency in the Waasland region gets you higher in Google and in AI answers: from €349 as a one off package for your own town, or monthly, cancellable every month and with no setup costs. For tradespeople in construction there is a dedicated approach for your construction company website, and how two construction clients reached the top this way is in our step by step plan for construction companies in the Waasland region. What a location page that ranks looks like is explained in our article on local SEO in the Waasland region.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get into the Google map pack in Sint Niklaas or the Waasland region?
With a fully completed Google Business Profile, the right primary category, a service area with your towns and a few new reviews every month. In our measurement, half of the businesses in the map pack had 18 reviews or fewer, and tradespeople 11 or fewer.
Do I have to pay for Trustlocal or another directory to get found?
There is no need. Directories took 55 percent of the regular results, but business websites took 42 percent of the top three positions. Make sure your free listings are correct and invest in your own site and your profile.
Is a homepage enough for local SEO?
Usually not. Of the business websites in the top ten, 56 percent ranked with a dedicated page, and 73 percent of those pages named the town in the title or the web address.
How do I get ChatGPT to recommend my business?
Put on your website what ChatGPT can quote: your services, your service area, a starting price, how long you have been around and how many customers you have helped. In our test, ChatGPT used prices from a business’s own website in 7 of the 8 answers.
What does a website that gets found locally in the Waasland region cost?
At Offlow, a website starts from €750, €1,285 excl. VAT on average, live within four to six weeks. SEO for your own town starts from €349 as a one off package, as of November 2026. The audit beforehand is free.
Should I change my website after the merger of Beveren, Kruibeke and Zwijndrecht?
Name both the former municipalities and the villages on your website. People still search for Kruibeke, Zwijndrecht, Melsele or Moerbeke, even though these have been part of a merged municipality since 2025.
Want to know where your business stands in the Waasland region today?
We will run the same measurement as in this article for you, but for your trade and your towns: who is in the map pack, which directories get ahead of you, what ChatGPT says about you and which three things on your website will pay off fastest. Send Silvio a message via the contact page or call 0495 46 80 90. Rather see where you stand first? Request a free audit of your website and your Google Business Profile. What you get in it is shown in this example of an audit, block by block.
Would you rather we took care of it?
Tell us briefly what your business does and what you need your website to bring in. Silvio reads every enquiry himself and replies by the next working day.
