Local SEO services that put you on the map
Three businesses appear in the map pack for any local search. Everyone else is competing for what is left underneath. We work on the profile, the citations and the reviews that decide which three, so the calls come to you instead of the competitor two streets away.
- Google Business Profile built out properly, not just claimed
- Citations cleaned up and consistent across every directory
- A review process that keeps working after we finish
Site health score after technical fixes
The local SEO checklist we work through
Local SEO is the work of getting a business found by people searching nearby, covering Google Business Profile optimisation, citation consistency, reviews, localised content and local link building. It is one part of our SEO services, and it is the part where a small business can outrank a national competitor, because proximity and relevance count for more than domain authority.
- Business Profile The single biggest factor in whether you appear in the map pack, and the one most businesses set up once and never touch again.
- Citations Your name, address and phone number listed consistently everywhere they appear, because inconsistency is read as uncertainty.
- Reviews Volume, recency and responses all count. A profile with forty reviews from two years ago performs worse than one with fifteen from last month.
- Local landing pages A real page for each area you serve, with content that could only have been written about that area.
Keywords ranking across the site
Google Business Profile and the map pack
The map pack is the block of three local businesses Google shows above the normal results, and for most local searches it takes the majority of the clicks. Which three appear comes down to relevance, distance and prominence. Distance you cannot change. The other two are almost entirely decided by your Business Profile, and most profiles are running at a fraction of what they could.
- Categories chosen deliberately Your primary category carries more weight than anything else on the profile. Most businesses pick the closest sounding option at setup and never revisit it, while a competitor ranking above them has picked a more specific one.
- Every field completed Services, attributes, opening hours, service areas and the description. Google rewards complete profiles, and a half-filled one signals a business that may not still be trading.
- Photos and posts kept current Profiles with recent photos get more interactions, and interactions feed back into prominence. This is the part that needs doing monthly rather than once, which is why it usually stops after the first month.
- Questions answered before customers ask them. The Q and A section is public and anyone can answer, including competitors. Seeding it with the questions you actually get is both a ranking signal and a way to control what appears there.
Backlinks from 184 referring domains
Citations and NAP consistency across the web
A citation is any mention of your business name, address and phone number online. Search engines use them to confirm you are where you say you are. When the same business appears with three different phone numbers and an old address across forty directories, that confidence drops, and so does the ranking.
- Every listing audited first We find where you already appear before creating anything new. Most businesses have listings they never made, built automatically from data aggregators, and several are wrong.
- Duplicates removed, not ignored Two listings for the same business split the signals between them. Merging or removing duplicates often does more than adding new citations.
- Corrected at the source Fixing a directory listing that pulls from an aggregator lasts until the next sync. We correct the aggregator so it holds, which takes longer but does not come back.
- Quality over quantity A listing in a relevant trade directory is worth more than fifty on sites nobody visits. Bulk citation packages mostly produce the second kind.
How our local SEO agency works
Local SEO moves faster than the rest of SEO because there is less competition per search and the signals are more direct. Profile changes can show up within days. The slower part is citations and reviews, which build over months.
- 01
Audit
We check your profile, find every citation that exists, run a map pack grid to see where you rank across the area, and compare all of it against the three businesses currently ranking above you.
- 02
Fix the profile
Categories, services, attributes, photos and description rebuilt. This is the fastest moving part of the work and usually the first place anything changes.
- 03
Clean and build
Duplicate listings removed, incorrect ones corrected at source, and new citations added where they are worth having. Local link outreach starts alongside.
- 04
Reviews and reporting
A review process set up so requests go out automatically, with monthly reporting on profile interactions, calls, direction requests and map pack position across the area rather than from a single point.
Every claim here comes with the dashboard behind it
Search visibility, domain authority and local presence, pulled straight from the reporting we send clients each month. Click any screenshot to see the raw data for yourself.
Search Console screenshot
2.32M impressions converted into 25.1K clicks at a 1.1% average CTR, with an average position of 11.3 across all tracked queries. Daily clicks and impressions both climbed from a flat baseline to sustained highs across the 16 month window.
Semrush screenshot
3.6K monthly organic visits, up 3%, drawn from 2.3K ranking keywords. The profile is backed by 475 backlinks across 184 referring domains, with AI visibility at 278 cited pages and 9 mentions.
Business Profile screenshot
3,359 Business Profile interactions across the period, climbing from 462 in the opening month to 843 by June 2026. Calls, bookings, direction requests and website clicks all trended upward together after the first quarter.
Frequently asked questions
Local SEO focuses on being found by people searching nearby, which is decided by different signals: your Google Business Profile, citation consistency, reviews and proximity. Normal SEO is about ranking in the standard results, where domain authority and content matter more. A local business usually needs both, but the map pack is where the calls come from.
Google picks the three businesses it considers most relevant, closest and most prominent for each search. Distance is fixed. Relevance comes mostly from your Business Profile categories and services, and prominence from reviews, citations and links. Most businesses are losing on relevance because their profile is half-completed, which is the cheapest thing to fix.
Faster than most SEO. Business Profile changes can show up within days to a few weeks. Citation cleanup and review building take two to three months to show properly. If you are starting from an unclaimed or neglected profile, the first month is usually the biggest single jump you will see.
Ask whether they will show you a map pack grid rather than a single ranking position, because ranking varies across a service area and one number hides that. Ask who owns the Business Profile and the citations at the end, which should be you. Ask what happens to the review process if you stop working with them. Any answer that involves keeping access after the engagement ends is a problem.
Usually proximity to the searcher, or a better completed profile. Reviews are one factor among several, and a competitor with fewer but more recent reviews and a fully built profile will often outrank a business with more reviews and a neglected one. The map pack grid in the audit shows which it is.
Find out why competitors outrank you locally
Get a free local SEO audit covering your Business Profile, every citation we can find, your review position against the three businesses currently ranking above you, and a map pack grid showing where you sit across your service area. Yours to keep either way.