Local SEO, Mansfield & Nottinghamshire

When someone searches for a plumber, accountant or café near them, Google usually shows two things: a map with three or so businesses at the top, and the normal list of websites below. Local SEO (search engine optimisation, meaning the work that helps you appear in those results) covers both.

Google says it decides local results using three factors: relevance (does your business match what was searched for), distance (how close you are to the searcher) and prominence (how well known and trusted you appear, including reviews and mentions across the web). You cannot change distance, but you can do a lot about the other two. I work on your Google Business Profile, your website pages and your business details, and I report on the results every month. It is done remotely, from Mansfield, and it starts from £300 a month on a rolling basis. Results depend on your area and your competitors, and I will not promise a position.

Local SEO is a mix of set-up work at the start and steady work after that. The main pieces are:

• Google Business Profile: set up or tidied so that categories, services, opening hours, photos and description are complete and accurate. It stays in your ownership, under your Google account.
• On-page work: titles, headings and page content that say clearly what you do and where.
• Schema: a small piece of hidden code that tells search engines your business name, address, services and opening hours in a form they can read easily.
• Consistent details: your name, address and phone number matching across your website, Google and business directories, because mismatches create doubt.
• Reviews: a simple, honest way to ask real customers, with no fake or bought reviews.

You get a monthly report in plain English showing what changed and what I am doing next. Because the map results lean on your profile and the normal results lean on your website, I work on both together. A fast, well-built site helps, so web design and local search go hand in hand.

If you serve several towns, a page for each can help you appear in each one. The trap is copying one page and swapping the town name. Google can see that, and customers can too, and it rarely does anyone any good.

A useful location page has something genuine to say about that place. That might be the kinds of jobs you do there, the local questions people ask, the roads or estates you cover, or work you have done nearby (with permission). I write each page around those details, and only for places you really serve. Sometimes that means fewer pages than you expected, and I would rather do five good ones than fifty thin ones.

I work with businesses across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, but SEO is done remotely, so I can also help businesses elsewhere in the UK. Look at the areas I cover if you want to see where else I work.

Local search does not respond overnight. Movement usually shows within two to three months, and it builds from there. Anyone promising faster is guessing.

How quickly it moves depends on several things I cannot control: how many competitors there are in your area, how well your profile and website are doing when we start, how many genuine reviews you have, and how often people search for what you do. In a quiet market, changes can show sooner. In a crowded one, it takes longer.

That is why the monthly report matters. It shows what has changed in rankings, profile views and enquiries, so you can judge whether the money is working. The plan is rolling, and you can stop at any time, with no long contract. I would rather you stay because it is working than because you are stuck. If you would like to talk it through, send me your website address and the towns you want to be found in.