“Local SEO” gets used as a catch-all term, which makes it hard to know what actually to do. Stripped down, it’s the combination of signals that tell Google which businesses to show for searches with local intent – “near me,” a town name, or just an implied local intent Google infers from the searcher’s location.
The three pillars Google actually weighs
Relevance – does your business genuinely match what was searched. Distance – how close you are to the searcher or the location implied in the search. Prominence – how well-known and well-reviewed your business is, both on Google and across the web. You can’t move distance, but relevance and prominence are both very much in your control.
Get the foundations right first
- Google Business Profile – fully completed, correctly categorised, actively maintained. See our Google Business Profile checklist for the full breakdown.
- NAP consistency – your name, address and phone number matching exactly across your website, GBP, and every directory you’re listed on.
- Location-specific pages – a page per area you genuinely serve, written for that area rather than a copy-pasted template with the town name swapped.
Reviews are a ranking factor, not just social proof
Review volume, rating and recency all influence local rankings, separately from what they do for conversion once someone lands on your listing. A simple, consistent ask after a job is finished outperforms occasional bulk review pushes.
Citations still matter, even if they’re less flashy than they used to be
Citations are mentions of your business (usually name, address, phone) on other sites – directories, local press, industry bodies. They’re a trust signal. They don’t need to be exotic: getting the basics consistent across the directories that actually matter for your industry beats chasing dozens of low-quality ones.
Content that’s actually about your area
Generic “we serve the whole county” content does very little. Content built around genuine local relevance – projects you’ve delivered locally, area-specific guides, local case studies – gives Google (and readers) a real reason to associate you with that place.
Local SEO is maintenance, not a project
The businesses that win locally tend to be the ones treating this as an ongoing discipline – a review request here, a GBP post there, a new local page when they genuinely expand into an area – rather than a one-off audit that gets shelved.
We handle Local SEO end to end, and build the location-specific pages themselves as part of our web design work for businesses across the region:
We work with businesses across Poole, Bournemouth and the surrounding Dorset towns, including
Poole,
Bournemouth,
Christchurch,
Ferndown,
Ringwood and
Wimborne.
Get in touch for a free quote if you want a proper look at where your local presence currently stands.