Building websites for small/medium sized businesses to help them rank locally, how important is backlinking really?

Whenever I look at SEO guides, I always see backlinking. And I get why that’s important and the benefits of writing a blog but if I’m building sites for plumbers, carpenters, cafes, etc… there is no way those people will be bothered writing a blog post every week. They will just wanna get a website that gets people making bookings.

On-page SEO, knowing my keywords, connecting a Google my business account and getting on the main local listing sites, is that usually enough to get these sites popping up on ___ near me?