Local SEO Explained

The question is where do you get these website visitors from? How do people find your business online?
The source of good website traffic (the website visitors) can come from many places. The most common ones are : Facebook Ads, Google Ads or directly from Search the list of Search results with help of SEO.

As Experts in Search Engine Optimisation we are big fans of traffic from search engines, mainly the organic search results. To explain why we are fans of Search Engines it is best to see how a person that comes from a specific sources converts into a lead or client.

Traffic from social Media Ads: Somebody that is just thumb scrolling on Facebook might see an ad for a solution of a problem they have. Clicks on the ad, fill out name and email to get access to a downloadable pdf the explains for free how to solve the problem, goes to their email clicks on the link to agree to the GDPR conditions, then reads it the pdf and after tht has to take further action to still buy a product or service that helps them solve the real problem they have.
This process has many steps and a lot of people will not continue all the way through, after all they were not actively trying to solve the problem.

Traffic from Google AdWords Somebody is searching for a solution to a (urgent) problem they are having and doesn't scroll down before they see the organic results, they want satisfaction now and click on the first few Ads. They land on a webpage that explains how their problem can be solved with easy access to a phone number, web form, booking form and within 2 minutes this person as taken further action or moved on to an other service provider.
People that click on ads often want quick results. The main problem with ads is that on average only 5% of the people searching click on them. Add to it that if you have 12 competitors bidding for the ads you don't show up all the time. This causes an advertiser to miss a lot of opportunities. Google Ads can work well if the problem is urgent as more than 5% will click on the Ad.

Traffic from Local Map SEO Somebody is searching for a solution to a problem they are having and automatically scrolls past the first four ads and then sees Local Map Listing also called the Snack Pack or 3-Pack. The person checks the review scores sees the business closes in 30 minutes and directly clicks to call from their mobile phone.
The snack pack has the most amount of people clicking on any or all of these 3 businesses. Often around 30-40% of the Searchers click on these listings. We as Local SEO Experts, love them.

Traffic from Organic Search Results Somebody is searching for a solution to a problem they are having and automatically scrolls past the first four ads, might not see any snack pack listing or can't find a reputable enough business in the map listing and continues down in the results below. They read/skim the title and descriptions of the sites and click on what they think is a website that will bring them closer to the solution they have been looking for.
A lot of searchers still click on the top three in that listing but the amount of people scrolling further and further is less and less. Websites on position 1 can expect 25-35% of the searchers visiting where the website on position 10 gets around 2-3% of traffic from the same search result.

Why we love Search

If you compare 100 visitors from search results to 100 visitor from social media ads you can expect 4 to 5 times more results (leads, bookings, sales, ..) with SEO, simply because people actively searching to solve a problem don't need to be convinced they need a product/service.

automotive industry - Alex was looking for a one stop solution and went for our Website + SEO package were we build a website from the ground up, write all the content, create the Sales funnel and do the SEO. Because the competition was very strong we knew it would take probably take 9 months before most keywords would be on page one. This is why during the web design process we already started with the Local SEO for Google My Business. Within 5 weeks the Maps listing was already on the first page of Google for some important keywords and calls started to come in. Those clients in the first few months really helped Adam to trust the process.
Results after 12 months: new side business from £ 0 to £ 50k Turnover
Results after second year: £ 170k Turnover

Property industry - Estate agent Paul had a website with around 120 visitors a month. The website was on page 3 for his main keyword. We offered our Full Local SEO package where we would also improve his google My Business listing. Within 6 weeks we improved rankings of keywords that were stuck on page 2 this already doubled the traffic to his website. Within 3 Months his main keywords was on page and after a total of 5 months the website was ranking position 1 for the main keyword.
Results after 4 months: from 120 visitors to 500 visitors a month
Results after 6 months: a stable 1100 visitors a month and 5 times more clients then before.

r and unhappy how is current website was working for him. During the strategy session we discovered how to specialise his business, consulted on the changes needed on the website got the website workwas looking for a one stop solution and went for our Website + SEO package were we build a website from the ground up, write all the content, create the Sales funnel and do the SEO. Because the competition was very strong we knew it would take probably take 9 months before most keywords would be on page one. This is why during the web design process we already started with the Local SEO for Google My Business. Within 5 weeks the Maps listing was already on the first page of Google for some important keywords and calls started to come in. Those clients in the first few months really helped Adam to trust the process.
Results after 12 months: new side business from £ 0 to £ 50k Turnover
Results after second year: £ 170k Turnover

We have a proven SEO system that helps us to take on any campaign with confidence. SEO constantly evolves and changes and so does this system. We run over 120 websites purely for testing purposes, we will never experiment with our clients websites. This keeps our SEO system adaptive to changes in the Google algorithm while making sure our clients websites will rank.

Waiting for results is the hardest part of SEO. We have a tiered system that makes sure that we can see results quickly with the easier keywords while at the same time the high rankings of these easier keywords proof to the search engines we are worthy and will make it easier for the keywords that follow.

Every of our SEO Campaigns is build to be able to beat the competition and at the same time still adaptable to fit your budget. We have a great pricing tool that calculates what is needed to beat your local competition. If our pricing tool doesn't fit within your budget please get in touch as we might be able to create a small campaign for you. If your budget is much bigger than calculator returns we work on a much stronger SEO campaign where we or go after a bigger area or we can create a campaign where we take multiple rankings on page one, basically forcing a lot of your competitors down to page two.

We only work with one business type in one region. If we already serve your local competitor we won't be able to work with you. Working with two business and get them both to the same position (no. 1) doesn't align with our moral compass.

Our Local SEO system works to rank businesses in the snack pack and in the organic listings. This is important as not all searches show a map listing and only targeting targeting a Maps listing or Google My Business listing will cause a lot of missed opportunities. The same holds true for only going after organic search result and ignoring snack pack opportunities.

We are a result-orientated business and understand that the real results our clients care about is business growth, not leads, visitors, rankings or backlinks. To be able to make sure our clients are better off we take measurements at the start of the campaign so that we have a baseline. We also take a baseline during a strategy session so that we can work out a strategy that can meet your goals. After all who wants to find out after four months of SEO that ranking no. 1 will only get them 2 more clients a month?

Although we are an agency we never lost that personal touch. All our Local SEO clients get a Dedicated Campaign Manager that reports to them. Some of these are Local SEO Experts themselves in other cases the managers are directly supported by our SEO experts. This is not just nice for communication but by having a dedicated SEO Campaign manager this person can see if the campaign is preforming as it should or if there are any problems.

Communication is not just a one way street and we do ask our clients on feedback and sales numbers to be able to measure progress. In some cases this has helped to find website problems like web-forms not arriving or ending in the businesses spam folder or even malfunctioning shopping carts.

Investing in SEO only makes sense if a business gets more business from it. If after half a year of paying for SEO your website rankings improved but it is still stuck on page two of Google (or worse) than justifying to continue with that madness will be hard to do.

This is why our main form of reporting is on the rankings of our clients websites and the traffic generated from those rankings. All our SEO Campaigns are targeted to get a website in the top 5 of the Search results for the main keyword. We see the bottom of page one as a not good enough target.

What is the right keyword?
We specialise in SEO for high competition keywords and believe going for the big keywords is in most cases the best strategy. When a budget doesn't allow going after the most competitive keywords with a lot of monthly search then our years of experience in advanced keyword research can find the keywords that the competition completely forgot about and can get good page one results in a timely manner and within budget.
The worst mistake that can be made at the start of an SEO campaign is trying to go after the high competition keywords with a small budget. If you bet everything on that one big keyword but the SEO efforts don't get it beyond page two of the search results that investment was waste.

All our Local SEO Campaigns all have one main keyword? this is the most competitive keyword in the campaign. This main keyword often is the most obvious search phrase that exists of a combination of service+location
e.g.: plumber oxford, osteopath canary wharf, campervan rental devon,..
these search phrases have the most amount of people searching for it and due to that high search volume they have a lot more potential but also more and more established competition.

The rest of the keywords that are included in a Local SEO campaign are often fall into one of two categories:

Smaller locations

Service variant

Generic SEO Pricing Packages are Lies. Although less and less SEO Agencies are using Packaged pricing. Claiming that page one rankings can be achieved for the same price no matter what the keyword or the industry is flat out lying. With most SEO providers that offer SEO packages at a fixed price they won't even report on rankings and check for rank improvements they simply show monthly reports that they have been busy.

From an SEO perspective you can't give a price before you know how much is needed to beat the competition. That is like claiming you can win a race before you know if you will be running against someone in a Rhino suit or if you are up against Usain Bolt. Some industries solicitors for example are far more competitive than others (e.g.: a man and van business). Even in the same industry ranking high on page one for a city like London will require a lot more resources and effort than for a city like Oxford.

We used to have a complex manual process in place before we could send a quote to one of our prospects. The more we developed our SEO system the smoother this manual process became. After years of work we now have a fully automated quoting system in place. The system will compare your local competitors, the strength of your website and even check for some long tail keywords that can some quick wins in the SEO campaign.

We understand that knowing what SEO costs is important to you and we don't require you to submit an email to find out what the price for a realistic SEO Campaign is. We try to keep things simple and transparent. It could be that your industry is not yet in our list, in that case the process requires a bit of manual work will take longer and we would need an email so that we can get back to you.

Our SEO campaigns are all targeted to get a website high on page one of Google. As there is a big difference on being at the bottom of page one or number one. At least 10 times more visitors, and a better quality of visitors that tends to buy quicker.