Your head might be full of AI, GEO and LLM, and as we enter 2026, you might be thinking, well, is local SEO still relevant?

Is it still a good way to bring shoppers to your website and to throw the door open?

Well, the truth of the matter is this: AI is becoming more widely used; however, the most common way people find local businesses is via Google. Around 46% of all Google searches will have local intent.

What is local SEO?

Whether you’re a hotshot lawyer or you’re an independent shop selling magnificent items, you’re going to make more sales. To do that, you must be more visible. You might have tried posting numerous times on social media; however, this might not have generated the amount of business you wanted. Google states that 76% of people who search for something nearby, say in Cardiff on their smartphone visit a business within one day.

This is where Google comes in; this is where we help. Monthly fixed price packages start as low as 1k a month with us, and we can offer the following:

 

Enhanced visibility

What you will want is for your business to shine bright like a diamond, here’s how we can help with that process.

 

Google Business

If you run a business, your going to what it to appear in Googe Business results. Normally for this to occur, you need a lot NAP citations, positive business reviews, plus also, right from the start the Google Business listing must be created with as much detail added as possible.83% of consumers use Google to read reviews of local businesses.

We can of course help with that process, in perfect scenario what your business will want is to rank high on Google Map Results, also know as the Google Business results, but also, to be ranked as high as possible in Google’s organic business results, which SEO consultants call the organic SERP’s.

 

Google AdWords

A lot of businesses across the globe, they recognise that investing in organic search engine optimisation improvement takes a great deal of time and effort.

However, in the meantime, businesses still have overheads that they need to cover. This is where businesses take the clever marketing strategy, of using Google AdWords to bring in immediate revenue to the business.

Once that revenue comes in, the business has to use and pay for pay per click. However, some businesses do not want to pay Google

AdWords over the long-term, so what they do, is they pay top SEO agencies like Walsh & Partners to work hard and diligently to rise the business up in Google’s organic ranks and to help that company to gain more sales organically, then over time they may wish to decrease their Google AdWords spend.

 

Google’s organic results

We are the experts at organic SEO improvement; we are one of the best in Cardiff at this process. That is improving a business ranking factors, using the very best white hat methods to really enhance, to improve and to strengthen the businesses ranking signals, such as backlinks for example.

How can I improve my businesses visibility in Google Maps?

The number of positive reviews on Google Business, as well as how recenct they were left, and the accuracy remain among the strongest factors influencing local rankings and buyer trust.

Relevance

Relevance relates to both organic as well as optimising for the Google Business results. Google is always going to want to send shoppers to a shop or a website, where what they want to buy will be stocked there. For example, if you looking purchase a certain brand of hiking jacket, and that stockist makes it clear on their Google Business account that you are retailer of that item, they you have improved the Google Business relevance for that keyword, such as “Raab rain jackets”.

Distance

If your businesses Google Business account is displayed is often based on far the customer from your business. What this means is, that somebody in Cyncoed Cardiff will get a different set of results from say a shopper who is Cardiff Bay. The reason is simple, using location data, on say your Google Pixel phone, Google is able to tell where you are, therefore they can recommend businesses that are just sometimes metres from your direction.

Prominence

Google always wants to offer a quality answer to any query. For example, in terms of the organic business results, businesses that have a high Google E-EAT are generally the websites which rank much higher. In terms of local SEO and also Google Business, it the businesses that a lot of positive 5-star reviews that often get ranked more often in Google’s Business results.

This just makes such perfect sense, say for example you and your partner want to go out to a Greek restaurant in the afternoon. If Google’s algorithms can pick from say 17 different restaurants in the city, and there is only space to display 3 businesses, then it’s the businesses with the best reviews which often get displayed much more often.

What about Google’s organic results? How can our business improve our organic SEO?

What you might not know, is that Google’s algorithms are different whether you are optimising for organic or the Google Business results.

What this means is that Google ranks the businesses different.

The algorithm which is used, to sort where businesses should be placed in Google’s organic results is more complex than the Google Business algorithm.

For example, in terms of Google’s algorithm that’s used in organic results, its thought to be in excess of 200 ranking signals. What this means is a business to be placed in the number one position in the SERP’s, they need to enhance their backlinks, content marketing and much more.

However, with that said, the 200 ranking factors can be broadly split into three categories again.

Lets now have a look at some of the aspects that a business could improve, in order to also improve it local organic SEO in 2026.

 

Relevance

You have to make your website relevant for the products and services your selling. Google wants to send shoppers who want to buy that exact item, for that to happen, what you need to do, is to make sure that on-page SEO is very good, plus to supplement that with high quality content marketing.

The author of the content marketing, must always keep Google EEAT and Google Helpful Content Update at the front of their mind, when writing the content marketing. Today, for any piece of content marketing, whether you’re writing about e-bikes, or giving legal advice, the work must be top quality, it must be very helpful to the customer.

Google EEAT is now very important, Google wants to understand the authors expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness when publishing the content marketing. Google wants to rank blog posts, pages and evergreen content marketing, that is very helpful to the customer, where the information has been written by an expert.

 

Quality

As we mentioned earlier, quality is very important. No matter if you’re writing about the best car to buy, or the best candles to buy, the information must be quality. It must be unique, so never duplicated, plus on of that, it must push the boat out, to really help the customer to buy and select the right product for them.

Useability

Here your business needs to consider Google Core Web Vitals. Now this just means, how quick is your website? How fast a shopper start clicking on different pages? Or is the website super slow, and it therefore infuriates the customers, so that they leave, causing very low dwell times, but super high bounce rates. Google algorithms will note this, and report in Google Analytics, and this means the website may offer a bad U.X, leading to useability issues.

 

Enhance your businesses on-page SEO

In order to improve both organic and your local search engine optimisation, its important to get the fundamentals right first. This means improving the on-page signals, some of the most important we will note below:

H1 tags

Each page, you may wish to add a H1 through to H6 tag, depending on how much text is on that page. Obviously if its just a few paragraphs, your not going to need the full range of titles.

However, using H1 through to say H6 in a blog post, what it allows is for Googlebot to go in and then to just simply crawl and index the page. Googlebot will know if most of the titles, are regarding say to do with employment law, that your writing a article regarding this. Its therefore a very effective way of helping Google to understand what you are writing about.

Alt text

If you sell items, or just are a local business offering a service, such as a dentist or a solicitors practice, then you should use the alt text, as a way of adding to a picture, to explain to Google’s algorithms more about what your business sells.

For example, lets say you’re a leading dentist, and you add alt text, regarding a teeth straightening procedure and brand of teeth straightening, then what you will be doing is helping Googlebot as well as Google’s algorithm to understand more about your business and the services you offer. For example, if the logo shows that you’re an approved dental practice for a certain brand of veneers, or perhaps a teeth straightening procedure, you can add the brand name to the alt text.

Content marketing

Regardless of whether your business wants to appear high on Google Map results, or also high in Google’s organic results, what you will is good quality content marketing. The work should be orginal, well written and also, it should be very helpful to customers. Again, having a high Google EEAT is important. But also, you should support main pages, with having a large amount of quality links.

Dwell time and bounce rates.

Do use your business Google Analytics account, and keep eye on the engagement on key selling pages, including also the homepage.

For example, what you need to do is, make the bounce rate is as low as possible.

 

Optimise your businesses Google Business listing

Now it doesn’t matter if the year is 2026 or we go back 10 years ago, some SEO principles just remain the same. Some therefore do not change. So for example, its always a good idea to add much information as you can to your businesses Google Business account. Take the time to add as much detail as possible. Plus, also return to change any information that may go out of date, for example, your coffee shop might become the “go-to” place to hangout in Cardiff, therefore you might want to extent your opening hours.

Nap Business citations

In 2026 its still important to build business citations.

You can build business citations on websites such as Yell.com

What this does is it can confirm to Google your businesses NAP information which stands for name of business, the businesses address as well as also the phone number. This can then get read by Googlebot, as it crawls and indexes the companies NAP information. This then sends a crystal clear message where the business is based, and contact details.

For example, if the business has say 100 NAP listings, all stating that the business is located in Cardiff Bay, then Google via Google Business and Google organic results will direct local customers to that business if they are looking for say local plumber in Cardiff Bay.

Backlinks

Backlinks are going to be very important in 2026. There has been some conversation that backlinks are becoming less important, however, we don’t think this at our agency. In matter of fact, even since Google’s PageRank algorthim used, and fast-forward to now in 2026, backlinks are still very important.

For example, if global brands were to link to say the homepage, sending a large amount of link equity then normally it’s the businesses with the strongest links that rank highest organically. A lot of the top SEO companies in the whole world, also think that strong backlinks, can mean that your business also gets displayed more often in Google’s Map and Google Business results more often.

Mentions of your business (unstructured citations)

Just mentions of your business, your companies brand name, that’s sometimes all that is needed for Googlebot to crawl and index those brand mentions, and therefore the more your company is mentioned, the more it can improve your organic SEO.

Blog posts

Do write high quality blog posts, these can help improve your businesses organic search engine optimisation in 2026.

How we can help improve your businesses marketing in 2026

This agency is run by Ryan Walsh.

Ryan is one of the best SEO experts in the U.K.

 

We have had our work repeatedly linked to by Search Engine Land, which shows that we offer quality advice.