Author: Ryan Walsh
Date: 03/09/2026

Search Engine Optimisation is now a form of marketing that some businesses simply can’t be without. That’s not an overstatement; some businesses can’t compete unless they generate a strong volume of sales and leads through organic traffic and Google Business profiles.

That’s why agencies like ours are hired: to improve a business’s visibility. We have some of the best and brightest SEO minds at our agency.

There are many ways to achieve this goal of generating greater visibility however, it often involves:

– Link building
– NAP or citation building
– Content marketing which incorporates E-E-A-T
– Entity building
– PR work
– Improving the website’s UX

For some businesses, the competition is so strong- think dentists, lawyers and construction firms- that if they don’t invest, they lose a strong competitive advantage to their rivals. For example, if a business decides not to invest, their direct competitors ranking at the top of Google could be harvesting more leads and sales. That’s why businesses can’t afford to ignore this form of marketing.

 

About the author- who is Ryan Walsh?

Before we dive further into this article, I want to explain my expertise and experience in this business sector. I have been a leading search engine optimisation consultant for over 14 years. I have worked with many local businesses, as well as e-commerce companies based throughout the U.K.

I now act as a lead SEO consultant for a national retailer. I also manage my own portfolio of clients.

Because of the volume of enquiries and work completed during that time, we can say confidently which industries typically enquire more regarding our services than any other. We are therefore in a good position to say which industries typically spend and enquire most when it comes to search engine optimisation.

 

Solicitors / Lawyers

We would say, by a country mile, that one of the business sectors that invests more in organic search engine optimisation more than others is solicitors and law practices. Lawyers need an extremely good online presence.

The reason is simple: sometimes a solicitor’s practice will only be used once in a customer’s lifetime. For example, someone may be going through a break-up and needs an expert family lawyer for advice. As a result, these solicitor practices often need help managing their Google AdWord accounts, building a strong Google Business profile, and ranking highly for a wide range of diversified keywords.

Plus, consider the value of these customers; they’re often high-value because legal services can often require ongoing work, perhaps requiring several months’ worth of advice. A customer may not hang about; they may see the abundant positive reviews on Google Business, they may see the high organic rankings, and that’s it an e-mail or phone call is made.

Therefore, from our extensive experience, we would say solicitors’ practices often need the best and brightest SEO minds to work on their accounts. Competition in this area, in any UK city, is fierce, which is why you need the best digital marketing agencies to assist.

 

Dental practices

Demand for cosmetic dental procedures has exploded. As a result, we see many enquiries from cosmetic dental practices. Plus, our team has experience taking one practice from practically nowhere on Google to the top for several different keywords.

However, just like solicitor practices, dental practices are deemed YMYL by Google’s algorithms. For those who don’t know, this means Google checks content marketing much more closely for overall accuracy.

So, the work needs to be detailed, accurate, and up to date.

 

E-commerce businesses

It’s no surprise that e-commerce businesses often need to invest heavily in SEO services.

In most business categories, competition is fierce.

Therefore, they often need extensive content marketing, on-page work, backlink building, and more to compete. Therefore, often the best of the best, that’s in terms of agencies, are normally employed to work on these accounts. A solid grasp of the best white-hat methods is needed.

 

Local restaurants

Just think of the number of visitors to any of the major cities here in the U.K, sometimes millions each year will be tourists visiting a UK city.

So, a Google Business Profile often needs to instantly show you are one of the best restaurants in town to dine. This is achieved by optimising the Google Business account and steadily gaining good business reviews over time. Then there’s NAP optimisation, relevant content marketing, and much more work besides, such as building quality links.

Local SEO is a different form of marketing from, say, e-commerce or international search engine optimisation. The reason is simple: you focus on link building, content writing, and NAP optimisation around the one city where the business is based.

 

Construction businesses

Construction businesses also fall into that category, where customers may only use the company’s services once in their lifetime. That could be for a property extension, such as a loft conversion. Therefore, the customer is likely to rely heavily on, for example, Google Business reviews and the website’s design. However, for the business to stand out, in a main city you will often be competing with hundreds of other construction businesses.

Therefore, competition is likely to be extremely high, so the SEO standard needs to be strong.

This often means a lot of link building; however, content marketing must be helpful and answer questions customers often ask.

 

Specialist manufacturing

In SEO, we call businesses that sell to other businesses B2B keywords.

Often these are specialised parts, let’s say for tractors, or lift components, or specialist tools such as mechanics racquets, for example. To optimise these often means e-commerce SEO or national search engine optimisation work is needed. This type of optimisation work is more complicated than local search engine optimisation.

 

Which business sector in your experience needs the most SEO work?

In our extensive experience, we would have to say solicitor practices often require the most work.

The reason is due to the level of competition. Quite often there will be many practices publishing content marketing guides and advice. Then there’s the backlink profiles normally these are strong, with a good number of authoritative links.

 

Do SEO prices vary by business sector?

Yes, for some industries and business sectors, the level of competition can be very low. This means the level of optimisation work is less.

For example, a gardening company, they often won’t be placing the same level of investment that solicitor practices are. Therefore, how hard it is, to get ranked on page one of Google does depend on how strong your competitors are.

 

Which business sector do you have the most experience of working with?

We work mostly with large e-commerce businesses, as well as solicitor practices.

Why are the Google YMYL business sectors often harder to optimise?

When you’re writing about YMYL topics, such as offering medical advice, this content marketing is checked for accuracy. This means that Google’s algorithms will check the accuracy of the work much more closely. If the work is not accurate, it simply won’t be displayed in Google’s organic results.

 

Why does good quality work take longer to implement?

There will always be agencies willing to cut corners. However, doing optimisation work the right way, through building say high quality links, this takes a lot longer. One of the reasons why Walsh & Partners has risen to such a respected and well-known digital marketing agency is simple, we offer high quality work.

 

Why does the cost of local SEO differ depending on the city in which my business is based?
Some cities are simply more competitive than others. For example, larger more affluent cities tend to invest more in organic search engine optimisation work. For example, in some cities there might be say 10 cosmetic dentists investing, in another, there might be over 100 investing in the process.

 

Why does national SEO cost more?

National SEO is much more time consuming than local SEO. The reason that national SEO requires more work, is due to the level of competition.

How we can help:

We are an established and highly experienced SEO agency.

To obtain a free quote, give us a call today.