Local SEO
Local SEO for businesses that serve a town, a city or a handful of postcodes. We work on your Google Business Profile, the pages behind place-name searches, and the technical detail that ties the two together.
What the work covers
These parts overlap, so we treat them as one job rather than a menu.
Google Business Profile
Primary and secondary categories, the services list, service area or address, opening hours, photos and Q&A, set up properly and kept current. Plus a routine for requesting reviews and replying to them.
Local Keyword Research
Working out which searches in your area lead to enquiries rather than browsing, which ones are already crowded, and which page should be the one answering each of them.
Location and Service Pages
Pages built around the services you want more of and the areas you genuinely cover, written with detail specific to each one instead of a swapped-out town name.
Local Signals and Consistency
Matching name, address and phone number wherever your business is listed, plus local structured data on every page so search engines read your details rather than guess at them.
What local SEO is
Local SEO is the work that decides whether you show up when somebody nearby searches for what you do. It covers two connected surfaces: the map results, driven mostly by your Google Business Profile and the signals around it, and the ordinary blue-link results, driven by your website. They feed each other. Your site is one of the inputs behind the map listing, and the listing is one of the routes people take to your site, so working on either one on its own leaves the other carrying the job alone.
Most of it is unglamorous. Categories, service areas, opening hours, consistent contact details, pages that answer a specific question, and the habit of keeping all of it current.
Your Google Business Profile
We start with the profile, because it is the quickest thing to get wrong. We check the primary category against the work you want enquiries for, add the secondary categories that fit, and fill in the services list properly rather than leaving it empty. We set either a service area or an address, depending on whether customers come to you or you go to them, and we make the opening hours match reality, including the days you are shut.
Then we look at what the profile is missing: photos of the real place and the real work, the services people compare on, and answers to the questions that keep coming up. Reviews sit here too, so we set up a routine for asking and, more importantly, for replying.
How this is priced
For sites we build and host, local SEO is part of the monthly fee rather than a separate bill. If your site is on another platform, the way to get this is to move onto ours, because the local groundwork is built into the platform rather than added to a site we did not make. How pricing works.
More information
Pages for the places you work
Map results are only part of it. For a search with a place name in it, Google is usually ranking a page as well, and that page has to be worth ranking. We plan those pages around the areas you genuinely cover and the services you want more of, then write them with the specifics only you have: how the job differs there, what people in that area tend to ask for, where you have worked before.
Pages that differ only by a swapped-out town name give a reader nothing new and give a search engine nothing to tell them apart, which is why we would rather build fewer of them and put something real in each.
What we build into the site
We build on our own platform, so the technical layer is part of the product rather than a plugin you hope stays updated. Every page carries local structured data: the business, the address or service area, the opening hours, and the service being described, so search engines can read your details instead of guessing at them. Sitemaps, canonical URLs and metadata are generated from the content rather than typed in by hand and forgotten.
We keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere they appear, on the site and off it, because inconsistency is one of the easier ways to confuse a search engine about which business you are. Then we watch what comes back: the queries you appear for, the pages people land on, and which of those turn into calls and enquiries. That is what tells us where the next round of effort should go.
Sites we built for local search
Businesses we have designed, built and now keep working on for the searches people make in their own town.
R.K Plumbing & Heating
Plumbing, heating and bathroom installation in Brighton. Live at rkplumbingandheatingservices.com.
21 Russell
Training salon in Crawley, West Sussex. Live at twentyonerussell.com.
Elements Hair Salon
Hair salon in Oxted, Surrey. Live at elementslifestyle.co.uk.
Park Row Hair and Beauty
Hair and beauty salon in Brighouse, West Yorkshire. Live at parkrowhairandbeauty.com.
HLS Accounts
Chartered accountants in Cardiff. Live at hlsaccounting.co.uk.
McCrory Hair
Curly and textured hair specialists in Manchester. Live at mccroryhair.co.uk.
From the blog
How many pages should a small business website have?
How many pages should a small business website have? Not a fixed package. It is your services times your areas. Here is how to work out your real number.
Why isn't my business showing up on Google?
If you can only find your business on Google by name, here are the common reasons your business is not showing up for the searches that bring customers.
Local landing pages: how to get found in every town you cover
Local landing pages help you rank in every town you serve, not just your home town. Here is what they are, why they work, and how to build them well.
You might also need
SEO Reporting
Plain-English SEO reporting built on data you own, covering search visibility, traffic and enquiries in one place.
SEO Reporting→Technical SEO
Audits and fixes for the things that stop search engines crawling, indexing and understanding your site.
Technical SEO→SEO for Aesthetic Clinics
Search optimisation for aesthetic and cosmetic clinics, built around your treatment menu and your local search presence.
SEO for Aesthetic Clinics→SEO for Beauty Salons
Local SEO for salons, barbers and clinics, aimed at the searches that end in a booking.
SEO for Beauty Salons→Common questions
What is the difference between local SEO and ordinary SEO?
Can you guarantee a place in the map pack?
How long does local SEO take to work?
We have no shopfront. Does local SEO still apply?
What do you need from us?
Talk to us about local search
Tell us the services you want more of and the areas you cover, and your website if you have one. We will look at your profile and your site and tell you what we would do first. No obligation.
Tell us about your business