Rated People SEO Audit

What DeepSEOAnalysis checks for Rated People tradespeople

Frequently asked questions

Does Rated People membership help Google SEO?

Rated People membership contributes to your Google SEO in several indirect ways, though it is not a direct ranking signal. The most significant contribution is the backlink: your Rated People profile page links to your website from a high-authority UK domain, passing domain authority that can strengthen your overall link profile. The second contribution is citation consistency — Rated People is one of the UK\'s most recognised trade directories, and Google uses NAP (Name, Address, Phone) data from directories like this to build its understanding of your local business entity. A Rated People listing that matches your website\'s LocalBusiness structured data and your Google Business Profile reinforces your local entity signals and supports Local Pack eligibility. Third, Rated People profiles themselves rank in Google — particularly for branded queries ("[Trade Name] reviews", "[Your Name] tradesperson") and for category listing pages ("[trade type] near me", "electricians [area]"). Your individual profile benefits most from the branded search ranking; Rated People\'s own category pages handle the broad "[trade] near me" queries, which is why your own website needs a complementary strategy. A Rated People membership alone cannot substitute for a technically sound website with well-structured local schema, a verified Google Business Profile, and service pages targeting the specific trade and location queries your ideal customers use. But as part of a broader local SEO strategy, a complete and consistent Rated People profile is a useful citation, an authoritative backlink, and a branded search asset.

How do I use Rated People reviews on my own website?

You can display Rated People reviews on your own website as testimonials, but Google\'s structured data guidelines contain an important restriction you must follow: you cannot use AggregateRating or Review schema on your own website to mark up reviews sourced from a third-party platform like Rated People. Google\'s policy requires that review schema on your website reflects reviews that were collected and hosted by you — not imported from an external platform. If you mark up Rated People reviews as AggregateRating schema on your own site, you risk a manual action for misuse of structured data, which can remove your rich snippets and penalise your site. The correct approach is to display Rated People reviews as unstructured testimonial content — a dedicated testimonials section or a page showing quotes from Rated People with attribution — without adding Review or AggregateRating schema to that content. To legitimately use AggregateRating schema, collect separate reviews directly on your own website: this can be a simple contact-form-based review submission system, a Trustpilot widget where you control the schema output, or testimonials submitted by email and published on your site with your own markup. Once you have first-party reviews, add HomeAndConstructionBusiness JSON-LD to your homepage with an aggregateRating property reflecting those reviews. Practically, the most effective strategy is to ask every satisfied Rated People client to also leave a Google review (which builds your Local Pack star rating) and a review directly on your website (which enables first-party review schema). Rated People reviews displayed on your site build social proof for human visitors; only first-party reviews can be marked up for Google\'s rich results.

What is HomeAndConstructionBusiness schema and how do tradespeople use it?

HomeAndConstructionBusiness is a structured data type in the Schema.org vocabulary specifically designed for businesses that provide home improvement and construction services — builders, electricians, plumbers, roofers, plasterers, decorators, and similar tradespeople. It is a subtype of LocalBusiness, which means it inherits all LocalBusiness properties and signals to Google precisely what type of trade business your website represents, rather than relying on the more generic LocalBusiness or Organization types. To implement it, add a JSON-LD script block to your website\'s homepage (and ideally your service pages) with "@type": "HomeAndConstructionBusiness". At minimum, populate the following properties: name (your exact trading name — must match Rated People and your Google Business Profile), address (with streetAddress, addressLocality, postalCode, and addressCountry: "GB"), telephone, url (your website homepage), and areaServed (a list of towns, cities, or postcodes you serve). Add a sameAs array that includes your Rated People profile URL, your Google Business Profile URL, and any other verified directory listings — this directly tells Google\'s entity consolidation that your website, Rated People profile, and GBP all represent the same business. If you have collected first-party reviews on your website, add an aggregateRating with ratingValue, reviewCount, and bestRating. HomeAndConstructionBusiness schema does not guarantee rich results on its own, but it is the technically correct schema type for tradespeople and provides Google with far more precise entity signals than generic markup. DeepSEOAnalysis checks whether your website uses this type, whether required properties are present, and whether the NAP data in the schema matches your Rated People listing.

Should tradespeople have their own website if they have a Rated People profile?

Yes — relying solely on a Rated People profile for online presence is a significant missed opportunity and a strategic risk. The risk: Rated People is a third-party platform that can change its pricing model, alter how profiles rank within the platform, or introduce new competitor visibility features at any time. Tradespeople who depend entirely on Rated People for leads have no owned digital asset and no direct organic visibility in Google. If Rated People changes its algorithm or increases membership costs, your lead pipeline is immediately affected with no fallback. The opportunity: your own website lets you target search queries Rated People cannot own for you. Rated People\'s category listing pages rank for broad queries like "[trade type] near me" or "plumbers in Manchester" — but your own website can target specific service and location combinations that have less competition: "emergency boiler repair Stockport", "flat roof replacement Tameside", "bathroom renovation quote Cheshire". Dedicated service pages, before-and-after project galleries, case studies with materials and costs, and location-specific landing pages give your own domain unique content that Rated People profiles cannot replicate. A website with HomeAndConstructionBusiness schema, a verified Google Business Profile, and well-structured service pages positions you to rank in the Local Pack — the map results that appear above organic listings — which is where most local trade enquiries come from. Your Rated People profile and your website work best together: the Rated People profile provides credibility and reviews for prospects who discover you through the platform; your website converts direct search traffic and referrals from Google. DeepSEOAnalysis audits both the technical foundations your website needs and how consistently it is integrated with your Rated People profile as a citation and entity signal.

Can I use the Rated People member badge for E-E-A-T signals on my website?

Yes — the Rated People member badge is a legitimate trust signal that contributes to E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) when implemented correctly on your website. E-E-A-T is Google\'s quality framework for assessing how trustworthy and credible a website is, particularly for service businesses where the quality of the provider directly affects user outcomes. Displaying third-party vetting credentials like a Rated People membership badge signals to both users and Google that your business has been verified by a recognised UK trade platform. However, displaying only the badge as an image is the least effective implementation from an SEO perspective. Google cannot read image content to understand what the badge represents; it needs text and structured data. The correct approach is three-layered: first, display the badge image with meaningful alt text — not "badge" but something like "Rated People member — vetted UK tradesperson"; second, accompany the badge with visible text on the page explaining that you are a verified Rated People member, how long you have been a member, and your star rating; third, in your HomeAndConstructionBusiness JSON-LD schema, use the memberOf property to reference the Rated People organisation with its URL. For example, "memberOf": [{"@type": "Organization", "name": "Rated People", "url": "https://www.ratedpeople.com"}]. This gives Google a machine-readable signal that your business is a member of a recognised trade vetting organisation. If your Rated People rating is strong (4.5 stars or above), display it as text alongside the badge — "4.8 stars from 60 reviews on Rated People" — which provides E-E-A-T context without triggering the third-party review schema restriction. DeepSEOAnalysis checks for membership schema signals in your LocalBusiness markup and flags image-only badge implementations that miss the structured data opportunity.