Local SEO for small businesses, in plain English

Somebody nearby needs what you sell. They type a few words into Google on their phone and get a map, a short list of businesses and a page of websites. Local SEO is everything that decides whether you're on that screen.

SEO stands for search engine optimisation, which is a long way of saying "helping Google understand what you do and where". You don't need the technical words. Most of it is being clear, complete and consistent, and asking customers for something they're usually happy to give.

What local search actually is

Search for a business or service nearby and Google shows two kinds of result.

The map results. A map with a short list of businesses under it, each with a rating and buttons to call or get directions. These come from Google Business Profiles, and the same listings appear in Google Maps. People in the trade call it the map pack or local pack.

The normal results. The list of web pages underneath, which come from websites, including yours.

Google's own example is someone searching "Italian restaurant" on their phone and being shown places nearby. Nobody types "plumber within a sensible distance of where I'm standing". They type "plumber", and Google fills in the rest.

So local SEO is two jobs that help each other: your Business Profile for the map, your website for the rest.

The three things Google says decide local results

Google's Business Profile help, under tips to improve your local ranking, names three things.

• Relevance: how well your profile matches the search. Google says complete, detailed information helps.
• Distance: how far you are from the person searching.
• Prominence: how well known your business is. Google says this draws on things like how many websites link to you and how many reviews you have, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help.

Short of moving premises, there's not much to be done about distance, and we wouldn't recommend moving premises for SEO. That leaves relevance and prominence, which is where everything below comes in.

Before anyone offers you a shortcut: the same page says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking, and Google's advice on hiring an SEO says advertising with Google has no effect on the normal results.

Start with your Google Business Profile

A Business Profile is free, and for many local searches it's the first thing people see. Google's Business Profile guidelines set the rules. The essentials:

1. Claim and verify it. Google says verifying makes the profile more likely to show up.
2. Use your real name, as it appears on your sign, website and invoices. Google doesn't allow extra words in it, and says adding them could get the profile suspended. "Smith and Sons" is fine. "Smith and Sons Emergency Plumbers Open 24 Hours" is not.
3. Pick the most specific category for your main business. Google says categories mustn't be used just as keywords.
4. Get the address right, or hide it. If customers come to you, give your full address. If you travel to them and they can't visit you, Google's guidelines say to hide your address and set a service area, which also keeps a home address off the map.
5. Fill in everything else: hours, including bank holidays, your services, a description, your website and your phone number.
6. Add real photos of your premises, your team and your work.
7. Keep it current. Wrong opening hours on Google are a reliable way to meet a disappointed customer in a car park.

If you run a pub, bar or restaurant, our Business Profile guide goes into more detail for that trade.

Reviews: ask everyone, and ask properly

Reviews feed prominence, and customers read them before deciding who to call. Google's rules on asking for them are stricter than most people expect.

• Make it easy. Google lets you create a link or QR code to your review form, as its tips on getting more reviews explain. Put it in your follow-up email, on your invoice and by the till.
• Ask everyone, not just the happy ones. Google's content policy doesn't allow businesses to ask only for positive reviews, or to discourage negative ones.
• Never offer anything in return. A discount, a freebie or a payment for a review counts as fake engagement, and it isn't allowed.
• Don't push or script it. The same policy says not to pressure customers to review while they're on the premises, or ask them to mention particular things, such as a staff member.
• Reply briefly and politely. With a bad review, put right what you can and never share the customer's details.

The hardest part is the asking. It feels awkward the first few times, then it becomes a habit, like saying thank you on the way out.

Your website: one strong local page, not a page for every town

The normal results come from websites, and Google says it can also read what kind of business you are from your own site, so the site and the profile should agree.

• Say plainly what you do and where, in the words customers use. "Boiler repairs in [your town]" tells Google and a customer more than "complete heating solutions".
• Give each main service its own page, so Google has something specific to match each search to.
• Put your name, phone number and, if customers visit you, your address on every page as text, usually in the footer, matching your profile exactly.
• Make it easy on a phone, quick to load with the number one tap away.

If you cover several towns, the tempting shortcut is a page for each, with the town name swapped. Google's spam policies call that doorway abuse: their examples include town or city pages that all lead to the same place, and sites that break those policies may rank lower or not appear at all. Twenty pages that differ only by the town name read like a mail merge, because that's what they are.

The better route is one strong local page about where you work. Name the towns you cover once, in a sentence rather than a long list, and add real detail about the jobs you do there. Separate premises are different: each is a real place with its own address, staff and hours, and deserves its own page.

Keep your name, address and phone number the same everywhere

People in SEO call this NAP: name, address, phone. Your details turn up in places you may have forgotten: directories, trade association listings, social media profiles and old adverts.

Pick one version and use it everywhere: the name you're known by in the real world, as Google's guidelines ask; one address format, or none if you're a service-area business; and one main phone number that you control. Google prefers a local number to a call centre.

Then search for your business name and old phone numbers, and fix every listing you find. Whether every small directory matters to Google is argued about endlessly. Meanwhile, the old mobile number is still out there, being rung by people who wanted to give you money.

How long does local SEO take to work?

Honestly, it depends, and anyone who gives you a date is guessing. Google doesn't publish a timetable.

What Google does say, in its SEO starter guide, is that some changes take effect within a few hours and others take several months, and that it's usually worth waiting a few weeks before judging whether a change has helped. Its advice on hiring help is blunter: nobody can guarantee a top ranking.

In practice, the work moves at three speeds:

• Fixing what's wrong tends to show first: an unverified profile, the wrong category, missing hours, a website that never says where you work.
• New and better pages take longer, because Google has to find them, read them and work out where they fit.
• Prominence builds slowly by nature, one review and one link at a time.

A busy market, with plenty of competitors after the same searches, takes longer than a quiet one.

To see what's working, your Business Profile's performance report shows the searches people found you with and how many called, asked for directions or clicked through to your website. Google Search Console, which is free, shows the searches your website appeared for. Then count what matters most: enquiries.

What it costs: doing it yourself, or getting help

The tools cost nothing: the Business Profile, its review link and Search Console are all free. Google's own advice is that a small local business can probably do much of the work itself. The cost is your time. A sensible rhythm:

• Once: set up and verify the profile, correct your details everywhere, and make your website say clearly what you do and where.
• Every week: ask every customer for a review, reply to new ones, and add a photo.
• Every month: check your profile's performance and Search Console, and improve one page.

Help is worth paying for when the time isn't there, when the website is holding you back, or when you want someone working on it steadily. Before you hire anyone, ask what they'll do each month and, as Google suggests, how they'll measure success and whether they'll share every change they make.

Our growth plans are that steady work. Improve is £350 a month, Grow is £600 a month and Accelerate is £1,100 a month, all plus VAT on 12-month agreements. Each includes Care, which keeps your website hosted, secure and working, and a set number of hours of our time every month, mostly on search growth work, local search included. Work outside a plan is charged at our one hourly rate, £62.50 an hour plus VAT. The pricing page has the detail.

If your current website was built by someone else, we're happy to take a look and tell you honestly what we think. We don't take over looking after websites someone else built: in most cases we recommend a rebuild, so the site can be improved quickly and kept up to date properly.

Where Orange Jelly comes in

At The Anchor, our own venue, the old website used the business's own words while people nearby searched in different ones. Rebuilding it around what people actually search for grew its Google Search visibility by 828%. That's our own business, so read it as an example, not a forecast for yours.

If you'd rather spend your time running the business, our local SEO page sets out how we do this work for you. Orange Jelly is based in Stanwell Moor, Staines, and works with businesses across Surrey, Berkshire and beyond. The first chat is by phone or video call, and it's free. Let's chat.

The short version

• Relevance, distance and prominence decide local results. Work on the first and last.
• Verify and complete your Business Profile, under your real name.
• Ask every customer for a review, and never offer anything for one.
• Build one strong local page, not a copy per town, and keep your details identical everywhere.
• Give each change a few weeks, and be wary of anyone who promises a ranking.