How does Google decide local rankings?
Google says local results are based mainly on three factors: relevance (how well your profile matches the search), distance (how far you are from the searcher or the place named) and prominence (how well known your business is, including reviews, links and articles). You cannot change distance, so local SEO focuses on relevance and prominence.
Your website supports all three. A clear, fast, well-structured site tells Google what you do and where; our SEO services cover local search alongside technical and content work.
How do you set up a Google Business Profile properly?
Claim and verify your free Google Business Profile, choose the most accurate primary category, add secondary categories sparingly, list your services, opening hours, phone number and website, and upload real photos. Use your real business name with no added keywords, as keyword stuffing names breaks Google's guidelines and can get a profile suspended.
- Primary category: the single most important choice; pick what you are, not everything you do.
- Services and description: plain descriptions of what you offer and where.
- Photos: your own work, premises, vehicles and team, not stock images.
- Posts and updates: offers, news and seasonal updates keep the profile current.
- Questions and reviews: respond politely and promptly, including to criticism.
What if you work from home or travel to customers?
If you serve customers at their address and do not receive them at yours, set up your Google Business Profile as a service-area business. You hide your address and list the towns or areas you cover instead. This is common for trades, cleaners, mobile hairdressers and similar businesses, and it keeps a home address private.
Google advises keeping the service area realistic, broadly within a couple of hours' drive of where you are based. Listing the whole country rarely helps, because distance still applies to map rankings.
Why does NAP consistency matter?
NAP stands for name, address and phone number. When these details match exactly across your website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, social profiles and directories, search engines can be confident they all describe the same business. Inconsistent or outdated details, such as an old address or a different number, create doubt and confuse customers.
- Decide the exact canonical format of your business name, address and main phone number.
- Put it in your website footer and contact page, ideally with LocalBusiness structured data.
- Update Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and your social profiles to match.
- Correct the main UK directories and industry bodies that list you; skip low-quality directories.
- Record where you are listed so you can update everything if you move or change number.
Limited companies must also show their registered name, company number, registered office and place of registration on their website under the Companies Act 2006 trading disclosure rules.
How do you create local pages without making doorway pages?
Create a location page only where you can say something genuinely specific about serving that place: the areas covered, local projects, relevant rules or conditions, and honest details of how you work there. Pages that swap one town name for another in otherwise identical text are doorway pages, which break Google's spam policies and can harm the whole site.
Our own location pages follow this approach: each one says plainly that we are London-based and work remotely, and describes what matters for websites in that city.
| Helpful local page | Doorway page | |
|---|---|---|
| Content | Specific to the place and the customers there | Same text with the town name swapped |
| Honesty | Clear about where you are based and how you serve the area | Implies offices or teams that do not exist |
| Number of pages | A handful of areas you genuinely serve | Dozens or hundreds of near-identical pages |
| Purpose | Helps the visitor decide and enquire | Exists only to catch search traffic |
How should a small business get reviews legally?
Ask every genuine customer for a review, make it easy with a direct link, and reply to reviews politely. Never write fake reviews, pay or reward people for positive ones, or hide negative ones. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, fake reviews and concealed incentivised reviews are banned in the UK from April 2025.
- Send the review link by text or email shortly after the job is finished.
- Ask everyone, not just customers you expect to be happy; selective asking ("review gating") breaches Google's policies.
- Reply to negative reviews calmly with the facts and an offer to resolve the issue offline.
- Show genuine reviews on your website, and never edit their wording.
What local links and citations actually help?
The local links that help are the ones real customers might follow: local business associations and chambers of commerce, trade bodies and accreditation schemes you belong to, local news coverage, sponsorship of local clubs and events, and suppliers or partners you genuinely work with. Buying links or swapping them in bulk breaks Google's spam policies.
What should your website do for local SEO?
Your website should state clearly what you do and where, with a page for each main service, your NAP in the footer, an embedded map or service-area description, local proof such as genuine project photos, and fast, mobile-friendly pages with click-to-call. Do not forget Bing Places, which feeds Bing and Microsoft products such as Copilot.
Most local customers search on a phone, so speed and simple contact options matter as much as content. If your current site is hard to update or slow, our small business website design service builds these foundations in from the start. For the technical side, see our SEO-friendly website checklist, and for turning visits into enquiries, our guide on how to generate leads from your website.