How local SEO
actually works

Discovery

Understanding how Google ranks local businesses

• Google uses three main factors for local rankings: relevance, distance, and prominence.
• Relevance is how well your business matches what someone is searching for. This depends on your Google Business Profile, website content, and how consistently your business information appears across the web.
• Distance is straightforward — how close your business is to the searcher. You can't change your location, but you can optimise for the areas you serve.
• Prominence is your online reputation and authority — reviews, links, citations, and the overall depth of your web presence.

Audit

What we check in the first audit

• Website technical health — theme quality, page structure, speed, mobile-friendliness, indexing issues, and schema markup
• On-page SEO — title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, content quality
• Google Business Profile completeness and optimisation — categories, attributes, photos, posts, Q&A
• Local citations — NAP consistency across directories, missing citations, duplicate listings
• Backlink profile — local links, industry links, toxic links that may be hurting you
• Competitor analysis — what the top 3 ranking businesses are doing differently

First 14 Days

What typically gets fixed first

• GBP optimisation — completing all fields, adding photos, setting up posts
• Technical fixes — resolving crawl errors, improving page speed, fixing mobile issues
• NAP cleanup — ensuring your name, address, and phone are consistent everywhere
• Quick content wins — optimising existing pages with better titles and content
• Citation building — submitting to key directories your competitors are listed on

Ongoing

What realistic improvement looks like

• Weeks 1-4: Technical issues resolved, GBP optimised, initial citation work done. You may see small ranking movements.
• Months 2-3: Content improvements start taking effect, new citations are indexed, review velocity increases. Expect to see movement into page 1 for less competitive terms.
• Months 4-6: Authority builds through content and links, rankings stabilise higher, lead volume increases noticeably.
• Month 6+: Continuous optimisation maintains and improves positions. Focus shifts to expanding into new service areas or keywords.