Author: Ryan Walsh

Date: 02/06/2025

Table of contents:

• What is local SEO?
• Why is local SEO so crucial for service-based companies?
• What is Google Business?
• How can we make our Google Business profile more visible?
• What is organic SEO?
• How can we obtain more local customers via organic SEO?

Right across the beautiful United Kingdom, every second of the day, people are looking for local businesses on Google.

Naturally, as a business, you will want to appear for these searches, such as “near me” or “recommend to me local businesses which offer [product name]”. In SEO circles, we call these “conversational searches” – there when people talk to Google as if they were asking a real human for advice.

However, the searches don’t have to be conversational; they could just be pretty blunt…

Such as asking, “barbers near me,” for example. (you know some people are just in a rush!)

So, regardless of what a customer wants, how do you make your business more visible, gain more clicks, and result in more people entering your shop?

This is where we step in; we understand local SEO better than most agencies.

Why is that so?

Well, we have lived and breathed it for well over 10 years now.

So, we know what’s what and what’s not, and we will give you all of this pearly wisdom in this article.

Therefore, whether you want to appear more often in the Google Business results, we can help.

We also have a dedicated and hardworking team that can help your business to rank higher in Google’s organic results as well.

Due to voice search / personal assistants now being incorporated into everything from smartphones to car entertainment systems, companies must invest in search engine optimisation. It used to be the reserve of just a few businesses, sometimes the larger local businesses that invested in this process.

However, now things are different. Most companies, large and small, invest in search engine optimisation because, well, when it’s done right, it works.

What exactly is local SEO?

If you want to serve just one city or a small geographic area, then local SEO is what you want.

For some businesses, a significant portion, if not all, of their sales and customers come from local companies and residents.

For example, solicitors can often work with anyone based anywhere in the United Kingdom; however, the vast majority of their business comes from people in the city where they are based.

It’s just human nature; we tend to trust a business if we can visit the business premises. To get to that point, we need Google, which is the signposting tool that can provide directions for someone to drive to your store.

In your experience, how important is local SEO to a business?

It depends on the business, specifically the industry in which it operates.

For some businesses, it’s an absolute must. If they’re not investing, they’re handing over a large competitive advantage over to their rivals.

For some other businesses, it may be less important because the search volume is lower. For example, in Cardiff, you might find that people searching for organic candles daily is minimal.

Then perhaps local SEO wouldn’t be right for that business, as theres not enough people locally searching for that product.

How can we use local SEO to attract even more businesses?

The truth of the matter is this: it’s more complicated than ever to get any business ranked high on Google.

But why is that?

The answer is that many businesses will have been diligently working on improving their search engine optimisation for many consecutive years.

Therefore, often you are directly pitted against companies that have experienced how effective good SEO is.

Therefore, they may have been working with a local or national marketing agency for, say, well over 10 years.

Thus, when you throw your hat into the ring and are up against these established businesses, you can see it’s going to be hard work, yet work that’s needed nonetheless.

The truth is that, based on experience, businesses that appear in Google’s Business 3 pack and are also high in the organic results can see significantly more business come their way.

How can we better optimise our company website to improve our local SEO?

So, slow and steady does win the race.

Before you start any search engine optimisation work on your website, you have to think about implementing white hat work.

When it comes to getting your business to rank in Google’s search engine results, our best advice is to use white hat optimisation methods.

You should pace yourself and set out a detailed marketing plan on how you’re going to reach your goals of getting ranked higher in Google’s SERPs.

Now, to reach those goals, it’s essential to take things slowly.

Don’t overdo it, don’t start building links quickly and don’t start writing blog posts as if your hands are on fire.

The reason is that for the best effect, it’s essential to implement your work over a long time frame. The reason baked into and part of Google’s algorithm is something called “link velocity”.
Google also wants to see quality work implemented over a sustained period. Our best advice is to take things slowly.

Set up a Google My Business Profile.

It’s essential to take your time and set up a Google Business Profile. Make sure you add as much detail about your company as you can. For example, the name, address, and phone number all match entirely with what is mentioned on your website. This is known as “NAP consistency,” and it is more crucial than some marketing agencies realise.

Once you’ve added the NAP information to your Google Business profile, make sure that you add other essential details, such as the opening hours for the business.

Add local keywords

This needs to be done in a white-hat way.

The reason why we state that all local keywords need to be written in a white hat way is that the written work could be deemed as “keyword stuffing” if you type keywords excessively.

Now, it is an ancient SEO method that no longer works, resulting in a business receiving an algorithmic penalty applied to the website- so don’t use keyword stuffing as a method of SEO!

However, companies that are just setting up and trying to improve their search engine optimisation themselves may fall into the trap of mentioning local keywords too frequently and excessively.

Now, this is something that businesses fall into when they use the wrong SEO tools. It’s too simplistic, too basic to follow an SEO tool that, for example, uses a traffic light system to tell how well optimised the page is, or gets you to write keywords to a specified percentage.

This approach we think doesn’t work; this is not effective. Instead, the work is to be well-written, white-hat content with a high Google E-EAT score.

Supersonic, fast, and good U.X on smartphones

It’s essential when improving both organic and local SEO that you have a well-designed mobile version of your company website.
For example, it may be super simple to use, but also consider loading times and optimising the website to run as fast as possible on mobile devices such as Android and Apple.

Many companies use A/B testing, a method that web designers employ to improve a website’s overall design gradually.

Positive reviews

In search engine optimisation, Google has issued an essential set of guidelines for businesses seeking to improve their SEO. That is called “Google E-E-A-T”.

A crucial aspect of this is enhancing the company’s trustworthiness. One way to improve a business’s trustworthiness is to earn positive business reviews.

Therefore, if you have a lot of positive business reviews left on your company’s Google Business account, this can significantly help improve your SEO.

Local business citations

For those who haven’t a clue what business citations mean, well, all they are off-page mentions of your business’s name, address and phone numbers. Now, what’s important to remember is that the citations need to be consistent. Also, discuss with your marketing company the websites from which you should gather business citations from.
You only want high-quality business citations.

Content marketing

It’s essential, of course, to have your Google Business account as optimised as you possibly can.

However, you also have to make your website as relevant as possible for the goods and services that you sell. This is to also improve where your company ranks in the organic results.

What do we mean when we talk about being relevant?

That means ensuring your website is packed with helpful advice and attempts to answer as many frequently asked questions as possible regarding the questions your customers often ask.

For example, there was a Google Helpful Content update, therefore this means businesses which really make serious effort to write helpful content marketing will be rewarded with ranking higher on Google.

Therefore, write helpful:

• Evergreen content marketing
• Create an FAQ page
• Write helpful main pages
• Write helpful blog posts

For example, a well-written product description, complete with answers to commonly asked questions, can mean the difference between clinching that sale or not.

Therefore, write helpful blog posts which will help your customers understand the services or the products you sell. For example, if you run a solicitor’s practice, answering and addressing frequently asked questions can help bring more visitors to your company website.

These visitors can then be turned into customers if they are impressed by how helpful and well-written your business’s content marketing is.

Should we keep our Google Business account up to date? Make regular changes?

Most certainly.

However, you don’t have to go overboard.

You don’t have to make changes as regularly as clockwork.

However, you have to make changes when something critical, such as the opening hours, changes for your store. For example, if the address changes or the company phone number, the Google Business account must be kept up to date.

What would you say is the single most significant factor that can get a Google Business listing displayed more often?

We would say that positive customer reviews are a key factor in driving business success.

The Google Business listings that tend to get displayed the most and more frequently are the ones with a lot of positive business reviews. The

Google Business listings that have been live for a long time also seem to displayed more often.

Is there a correlation between higher organic rankings on Google and being more visible in the Google Business results?

Now, many agencies would have you think the two algorithms are different.

Google’s organic algorithm is very different from the algorithm that decides which companies rank in the Google Business listings. However, there is some overlap; for example, positive business reviews can positively impact your organic rankings and increase the frequency at which your business is displayed in the Google Business results.

Is local SEO a slow or fast process?

This largely depends on the competitiveness of your business niche.

For example, if your business sector has numerous direct competitors all investing in SEO, this means you will all be competing for that top spot and it’s therefore harder to achieve.

This sustained effort by your competitors will make it harder for another business to reach the top.

However, if your business operates in a less competitive business sector, it will take less work and effort to reach the top of Google.

Generally speaking, it typically takes a minimum of six months to get a business on the first page locally.

What are the main differences between local and organic SEO?

Organic SEO and the organic results make up the majority of Google’s results.

However, there is a clear distinction that should be made between organic and local search engine optimisation (SEO).

Local SEO focuses on optimising the website for local keywords, such as the city in which the business is based.

National SEO, or organic SEO, is different; it focuses on non-geographic keywords, such as more generic terms like “running trainers”.

However, it is essential to keep in mind that national or organic SEO is significantly more complex, challenging, and complicated compared to local search engine optimisation.

Therefore generally speaking, it takes longer and more expenditure to get a business to displayed nationally when compared to locally. This stands to reason simply because there will be more competition nationally.

Why should my marketing company focus on Google E-E-A-T?

Understanding Google E-EAT is crucial to improving a company’s search engine optimisation. In terms of getting a business advertised more often in Google Business results, all of E-EAT must be optimised, with a focus on gaining positive reviews in particular.

In terms of the organic results, to get to the top of Google’s organic results, you must strengthen and improve all of the ranking factors.

However, Google E-EAT is also essential.

For example, having a strong backlink profile can improve a website’s authority. This can help enhance the company’s organic search engine optimisation (SEO).

About the author:

Ryan Walsh has written this article.

Ryan works with a wide range of Welsh businesses. As SEO experts, we are different from marketing companies that offer more general marketing services. We therefore concentrate on what we are good at: organic search engine optimisation.