The service-area setting, which is the usual culprit
If customers do not come to your premises — and for tree surgery they almost never do — Google treats you as a service-area business. That means the address is hidden and the areas you cover are declared instead.
Tree surgeons frequently have this the wrong way round: a home address visible on the listing, no service areas set. The effects are a listing that ranks only in the immediate postcode, and a real risk of suspension, because showing an address you do not trade from breaches Google's guidelines.
Fixing it is free and takes minutes, and it is the first thing we check in every audit of this trade.
Category, and declaring an honest area
Primary category should be Tree service. Businesses listed under landscaping or general contracting will lose the searches that matter most.
When setting service areas, resist the temptation to declare half a county. Google weighs how close you are to the searcher, and a business claiming an enormous area often ranks nowhere in particular. A tight, honest area usually performs better than an ambitious one.
Reviews that name the job and the town
“Removed a large ash in Otley, cleared everything, tidy job” does more for you than “great service”, because it matches both the work and the place someone is searching for. Ask at sign-off, when the site is clear and the customer can see the difference.
Reviews on trade directories do not count toward your Google ranking — only Google reviews do. Tree surgeons with hundreds of directory reviews and a dozen on Google are a common and expensive pattern.
Photos, credentials and duplicates
Before-and-after photos do more for a tree surgeon than for almost any other trade, because the result is dramatic and the customer is nervous about damage. A listing with real job photos converts far better than one with a van shot.
Show your qualifications and public liability insurance clearly — people are choosing who works above their house with a chainsaw. And check for duplicate listings under your name or number, which split reviews and ranking history between two profiles.