WHAT IS LOCAL SEO?
Local SEO is the process of helping a business become more visible when people search for services in a particular town, city, area or region.
For a local business, simply having a website isn’t always enough.
Your website needs to make it clear:
- What your business does
- Which services you provide
- Where you provide them
- Who your services are for
- Which areas you cover
- Why people should consider your business
Local SEO brings these elements together to create a clearer online presence for customers and search engines.
HOW LOCAL SEO CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS
When someone searches for a service, they often include a location or expect search engines to understand where they are looking.
Examples include:
“website designer Crawley”
“pressure washing near me”
“SEO company Sussex”
“sandstone patio cleaning Surrey”
These searches have a clear local element.
A local SEO strategy can help your website communicate the connection between your business, your services and the areas you serve.
YOUR WEBSITE & LOCAL SEO
Your website is one of the most important parts of your local online presence.
It should clearly explain your services and the areas you cover without relying on repetitive keyword phrases.
This can include:
- Clearly structured service pages
- Relevant location information
- Useful local content
- Proper page titles and headings
- Internal links
- Contact information
- Business information
- Case studies
- FAQs
- Relevant structured data
The objective is to make the website genuinely useful to someone looking for your services locally.
LOCATION PAGES THAT ACTUALLY HELP
Location pages can be useful for businesses that serve multiple towns, cities or regions.
However, creating dozens of pages that simply replace one town name with another isn’t a strong long-term strategy.
A useful location page should contain information that is genuinely relevant to that area.
It could explain:
- Which services you provide there
- The types of customers you work with
- Relevant local considerations
- Examples of work carried out in the area
- Areas nearby that you also cover
- Answers to questions local customers may have
The aim is to create useful local resources rather than pages written purely for search engines.
GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE & LOCAL SEARCH
For many local businesses, Google Business Profile is an important part of their online presence.
Your website and Google Business Profile should support each other.
Your business information should be consistent and your website should provide useful information that supports what your business offers.
Local visibility can involve several different signals rather than one individual factor.
That’s why I look at the wider online presence rather than treating local SEO as simply a matter of adding a town name to a webpage.
LOCAL CONTENT & SEARCH INTENT
Local SEO content should answer questions that real customers are asking.
For example, someone looking for a local service might want to know:
- What does the service involve?
- How much does it cost?
- How long does it take?
- Do you cover my area?
- Have you worked on similar properties?
- What equipment do you use?
- Are you experienced with this particular type of work?
Answering these questions can make a website more useful while also creating information that search systems can understand.
INTERNAL LINKING FOR LOCAL SEO
Your location pages shouldn’t be isolated from the rest of your website.
They can be connected through sensible internal links between:
Services → Locations → Case Studies → FAQs → Contact
For example, a local location page could link to the relevant service page, while the service page could link back to important areas served.
This creates a clearer website structure for both visitors and search engines.
REVIEWS & LOCAL REPUTATION
Reviews can play an important role in how potential customers view a local business.
They can help demonstrate real customer experiences and provide additional information about the services a business provides.
Reviews should be genuine and come from real customers.
I don’t believe in creating artificial reviews or stuffing keywords into reviews simply for SEO.
A strong local reputation should come from doing good work and making it easy for genuine customers to share their experience.
LOCAL SEO FOR MULTIPLE AREAS
Some businesses operate in one town.
Others cover several towns, counties or a much wider region.
The website structure needs to reflect that difference.
For a business covering several locations, we can look at whether individual location pages are genuinely useful and how they should connect with the main service pages.
This can create a logical structure such as:
BUSINESS
↓
SERVICES
↓
LOCATIONS
↓
LOCAL SERVICE INFORMATION
↓
CASE STUDIES & SUPPORTING CONTENT
The structure should reflect the real business rather than creating pages simply because a particular keyword exists.
LOCAL SEO, GEO & AEO
Local search is also changing as people increasingly use AI-powered search tools to find businesses and ask questions.
This is where local SEO overlaps with GEO and AEO.
SEO helps your website communicate with traditional search engines.
Local SEO adds the geographical connection between your business, services and service areas.
GEO considers how your business information can be understood and retrieved by generative AI systems.
AEO focuses on providing clear answers to the questions people are asking.
A website with clear information about its business, services, locations, expertise and experience provides a much stronger foundation for all of these areas.
LOCAL SEO BASED ON REAL EXPERIENCE
I’ve worked on websites for local businesses and service-based businesses for many years.
One of my own examples is The Jet Wash Fella.
That website covers multiple services and locations while also providing real photographs, case studies, specialist knowledge and information based on actual work.
It’s a useful example of how a local business website can be developed around the real business rather than simply creating pages packed with location keywords.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
WHAT IS LOCAL SEO?
Local SEO is the process of improving a business’s online presence so that it can be more easily found by people searching for relevant services in particular locations.
DO I NEED A WEBSITE FOR LOCAL SEO?
A website isn’t the only part of local SEO, but it can provide an important source of information about your business, services, locations and expertise.
HOW MANY LOCATION PAGES SHOULD MY WEBSITE HAVE?
There isn’t a fixed number. Location pages should be created where they provide genuinely useful information for customers rather than simply being created to target every nearby town.
CAN YOU IMPROVE MY EXISTING LOCATION PAGES?
Yes. Existing location pages can be reviewed to identify duplicate content, weak information, poor structure and opportunities to make them more useful.
DO YOU HELP WITH GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE?
Yes. Google Business Profile can form part of a wider local SEO strategy alongside your website and other local online information.
DOES LOCAL SEO WORK WITH GEO AND AEO?
Yes. Clear information about your business, services and locations can provide a useful foundation for SEO, local SEO, GEO and AEO.
READY TO IMPROVE YOUR LOCAL VISIBILITY?
If your business relies on customers finding you in particular towns, cities or regions, your website should make those connections clear.
I can help review your existing website and develop a local SEO structure based around your actual services, locations and customers.
Design SEO Websites
Website Design • SEO • Local SEO • GEO • AEO
Build a website that makes it clear what you do, where you do it and who you help.
DESIGN SEO WEBSITES 