Local SEO, for the people near you.

How local results are decided

When someone searches for a business near them, Google shows local results on Search and Maps. A business takes part in them through its Business Profile: the listing it keeps with Google. Google says the order depends mainly on three things. How well a profile matches the search. How far the business is from the person searching. How well known the business is. It also says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

Distance you cannot change. Being well known takes time. The part you can act on today is the first: Google states that businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results. So local SEO is mostly the work of being exact.

What we do, and what we refuse

The profile. Claimed, verified, and named exactly as the business is named on its sign. Google asks for the real-world name and may suspend a profile that adds extra words to it.

The same facts everywhere. Name, address and phone written one way on the site, the profile and every directory. A customer who finds two phone numbers does not know which one to call.

Location pages. One for each place you actually serve. Each needs something to say that is true of that place alone: the address, the way in, who works there, what is offered there. Pages that differ only in the name of the town, made to catch searches and send everyone to the same place, are what Google calls doorway abuse. We do not make them.

Reviews. Google’s rules are short. A review must reflect a real experience. A business may not offer anything in exchange for one, and may not ask only its satisfied customers. So we set up a simple way to ask everyone, and help you reply to what comes back.

Structured data. Code on your site that states your address and opening hours in a form a machine can read. We add it when both are real and public, and not before.

Look at your own listing first

Search for your business by name on a phone. Check four things. Is the name the one on your sign? Is the address right? Are the hours the ones you keep? Does the phone number ring where it should? Then compare all four with your website.

If any of them differ, that is the first job, and you can do it yourself today. For the rest, tell us where you are and who you serve. How this fits the wider work is on the SEO page; how the markup is checked is under technical SEO.