SEO – Local (GBP)

Three slots on a map, and how you get one

Local search is a different competition from the ordinary blue links. When somebody searches for a plumber, a dentist or a bakery, Google shows a map and three businesses. Almost everyone picks from those three. Ranking fourth in the map pack is, in practice, not ranking.

Google decides those three on relevance, prominence and distance — and distance is the one nobody can sell you. What is left is a profile that says exactly what you do, a business that looks well-established wherever Google checks, and a steady trickle of recent reviews. That is the work.

What actually moves the needle

• Your categories. The single most under-used setting on a Google Business Profile. The primary category is closer to a ranking decision than anything else you control, and most profiles have the wrong one.
• Reviews, recently. Volume matters, but so does recency — forty reviews from three years ago reads as a business that has gone quiet. A simple habit of asking beats any campaign.
• Consistent details everywhere. Your name, address and phone number should be identical across your site, your profile and every directory that lists you. Two versions of your address is a small thing that quietly costs you.
• The pages behind the profile. A profile pointing at a homepage that never mentions the town or the service is doing half a job.
• Photos and posts. Not a ranking silver bullet, but they are what makes someone choose you once all three of you are showing.

Two things we will be straight about

Proximity is real and it is stubborn. If your unit is on the edge of town, you are unlikely to outrank a competitor sitting in the middle of it for searches made downtown. What can be done is to own the area around you and widen it outwards — which is why a single "rank" number is meaningless locally, and why the tracking on these plans is done as a grid of points across your area rather than one figure.

We will not touch the tricks. Keyword-stuffed business names, addresses at places you do not trade from, review incentives. They work until the profile is suspended, and getting one reinstated is a far worse month than never having ranked.

The plans below are a starting point rather than a fixed menu. Tell us the town you want to win and what you do there, and we will come back with a recommendation and an exact price.