Local SEO for businesses that serve real places
Local SEO helps businesses that serve customers in specific places (a shop, a clinic, a trade covering several towns) appear in local search results and Google Maps, through an accurate Google Business Profile, consistent business details, genuinely useful location content, and local structured data.
This is a service for your business if you have a physical location customers visit, or you travel to customers within a service area. If you only serve customers remotely, local SEO matters less, and we’ll tell you so.
How local results are decided
Google says local results are based mainly on three things (source):
- Relevance: how well your Business Profile matches what someone searched for.
- Distance: how far your business is from the searcher or the location in their search.
- Prominence: how well known your business is, from reviews, links, articles and other information Google finds.
You can’t change distance. Relevance and prominence are where the work goes.
Consistent business details
Your business name, address and phone number (often called NAP) should be the same everywhere: your website, Business Profile, directories, social profiles and industry listings. Inconsistencies (an old address on a directory, a different phone number on Facebook) make it harder for search engines to trust which details are correct. We audit the main listings and help you correct them.
Location pages done right
If you genuinely serve several areas, a page for each can help, as long as each page is useful in its own right: who you serve there, specific services, local projects, directions or coverage details, and real differences. What doesn’t work, and breaks Google’s spam policies, is doorway pages: dozens of near-identical pages with only the town name swapped.
Useful location page
- Real address or genuine coverage of that area
- Local details: parking, access, coverage map
- Local examples and specific services
- Unique content written for that place
Doorway page
- Same text with the town name swapped
- Areas you don’t really serve
- Created only to rank, not to help
- No real local information
Local structured data
LocalBusiness structured data (or a more specific type, such as Dentist or Plumber) on your website describes your business name, address, phone, hours and service area in a format search engines read easily. It must match your Business Profile and what’s visible on the page. We add and validate it, and make sure your contact page shows the same details.