Proximity
How close you are to the searcher. You can’t change your address, but you can make sure Google knows exactly where you are and which towns you serve — which is where most local businesses lose ground without realising.
Local SEO
Being found in Clacton and Colchester is a different job from ranking nationally.
National SEO is a fight over keywords. Local search is a fight over a map, three listings and a radius. Different signals, different tactics, different competitors — and local is the only kind I do.
How local search works
Google is answering “near me”, not “who is best”
When someone searches with a place attached — or from a phone in Clacton — Google weighs three things before it weighs anything else.
Relevance
Whether your listing and your site clearly say you do the exact thing being searched for. “Builder” and “loft conversions in Clacton” are not the same signal, and vague service descriptions cost you the specific searches worth the most.
Prominence
How well known you appear to be: reviews, mentions on other local sites, consistent listings, links from places Google already trusts. This is the part that takes months and the part competitors rarely bother with.
What’s included
The four strands of the work
Every month splits across these. The mix shifts — heavy on profile and citations early, heavier on content and links later.
1. Google Business Profile management
Your profile is the single biggest lever in local search, and most are half-filled and then ignored. Ongoing management means:
- Categories set properly — primary and secondary, which is where most listings quietly go wrong
- Every service listed individually with its own description
- Service areas defined to match the towns you actually cover
- Hours kept current, including bank holidays and seasonal changes
- Photos added regularly, because dormant profiles slide
- Posts and updates published so the listing shows recent activity
- Questions answered before a competitor or a stranger answers them for you
- A system for asking customers for reviews, and a reply to every one that arrives
2. Local citations and consistency
A citation is any listing of your name, address and phone number — directories, trade bodies, local business listings. Google cross-checks them, and mismatches undermine everything else.
- Audit of everywhere your business is already listed, including old entries you’d forgotten
- Fixing the mismatches: an old address, a disconnected number, three versions of the business name
- Claiming the listings that matter for your trade rather than blasting three hundred junk directories
- Duplicate listings merged or removed — they split your signal in half
3. On-page and technical work
The listing gets you seen; the site has to back it up. This runs on whatever site you have — you don’t need a new one to start.
- A real page per service and per main town, rather than one page trying to rank for everything
- Titles and descriptions written for the searches that carry buying intent
- Correct business schema so your address, hours and services are machine-readable
- Internal linking so the important pages are actually reachable
- Speed and mobile fixes, since most local searches happen on a phone
4. Link building — the local kind
No private blog networks, no bought packages, nothing that risks a penalty. Local links are slower and duller than the stuff sold in bulk, and they’re the ones that hold.
- Suppliers, trade associations and accreditation bodies you already belong to
- Local news, community sites and event listings where there’s a genuine reason to mention you
- Sponsorships you already pay for — the club shirt often comes with a link nobody claimed
- Partner businesses that refer work to you anyway
Handful a month, each one explainable to a person. If a link couldn’t be justified out loud, it doesn’t get built.
Reporting
How you know it’s working
Rankings are a proxy. Enquiries are the point, so both get reported.
Rankings by town
Positions tracked separately for each town you care about, because ranking first in Clacton and nowhere in Colchester is a very different picture from an average.
Profile activity
Calls, direction requests and website clicks straight from your Google Business Profile — the clearest signal that local search is producing real contact.
Enquiries
Form submissions and click-to-call events from the site, tracked from the start, so the monthly conversation is about work won rather than positions on a chart.
A short written summary each month: what was done, what moved, what’s next. No forty-page automated PDF nobody reads.
Where I work
The towns I know
Local SEO is easier when the person doing it knows the area — which trades are saturated, which towns share a search radius, where your customers actually come from.
Clacton on Sea
Where I’m based, and where the seasonal swing genuinely changes the SEO calendar.
Clacton on Sea SEO & web designColchester
Bigger town, more competition per search, and a harder map pack to break into.
Colchester SEO & web designAlso working across Tendring, Frinton, Walton, Harwich and the wider north Essex area.
Cost
Roughly what ongoing local SEO runs to
Local SEO
Typically from
£200 / month
Ongoing: profile management, citations, on-page work and local links. Competitive trades and multi-town targeting cost more.
See full pricingStart with the audit
Before committing to anything monthly, get the free audit. It shows what’s actually holding you back locally — and occasionally the answer is that you don’t need a monthly campaign at all.
What the audit coversThat figure is indicative, shown so you aren’t left guessing. It is not a quote — the confirmed price comes in writing once I’ve seen your market.
Common questions
Questions about ranking and visibility
Questions about how a site gets built are answered on the websites page.
How long until I rank?
Google Business Profile fixes can shift the map pack within a few weeks, because you’re correcting signals rather than building new ones. Organic positions for competitive local searches realistically take three to six months, and longer in a saturated trade. Anyone promising page one in thirty days is either targeting searches nobody makes or about to do something that gets you penalised.
What’s included in Google Business Profile management?
Categories and services set up properly, service areas matched to the towns you cover, hours kept current, photos and posts added regularly, questions answered, and a review process so new ones keep arriving — each with a reply. It’s ongoing rather than a one-off tidy-up: dormant profiles lose ground to active ones in the same town.
Do you build backlinks, and is it safe?
Yes, and only the local kind: suppliers, trade bodies, community and news sites, sponsorships you already pay for, partners who already refer to you. No purchased packages, no link networks, nothing automated. It’s slower — a handful a month rather than hundreds — and the test is whether I could justify each link to a human being. Links that fail that test are the ones that come back to bite.
Do I need a new website to do SEO?
Usually not. Most sites can be worked on as they stand, and I’d rather improve what you have than sell you a rebuild you don’t need. The exception is a site so slow, so broken on mobile, or so impossible to add pages to that the SEO work can’t land — then a rebuild comes first and I’ll say so plainly. That’s covered on the websites page.
What’s the difference between local SEO and a general SEO campaign?
General SEO targets searches with no place attached and competes nationally, mostly through content volume and links. Local SEO competes inside a radius, where your Google Business Profile, your address, your reviews and your local citations often matter more than your blog. The tactics barely overlap. Local is what I do, and if you sell nationwide I’ll tell you I’m the wrong fit rather than take the work.
Do I have to sign a long contract?
No. It’s a rolling monthly arrangement with a month’s notice either way. I’d ask you to give it three months before judging it, because that’s the honest minimum for local movement — but that’s a request, not a tie-in. Everything built in that time, including the profile work and citations, stays yours.
Find out where you actually stand
The free audit covers your site, your Google Business Profile and who’s currently beating you locally — in writing, with no obligation.