Here's how I'd explain this to a relative who has no idea what "SEO" means and doesn't much care to find out.
I build websites and manage Google listings for trade businesses — plumbers, builders, that sort of thing — mostly around Kent, where I'm from originally (Dover, if you want the exact spot). Most of these business owners are brilliant at their actual trade and have no interest in fighting with a website at 9pm after a full day on site. So I do that bit instead.
I've spent the last while building this out properly — not just knocking together templates, but actually studying why some local businesses show up on Google and others don't, and building a repeatable structure around it. You can see some of that thinking in how I write about it, if you end up reading the blog.
These days I'm based in Thailand, which sounds like an odd place to run a Kent-focused business from — and it is, a bit — but the work's entirely remote anyway. Your plumber in Folkestone doesn't need me standing in his kitchen to build him a website that works.