Local SEO for Liverpool businesses.

How local search works

Word to the wiseSearch for a plumber, an accountant or a café in Liverpool and Google shows a map with a handful of businesses, then the normal results underneath. Both are worth being in, and they feed each other.

Google says local results are based mainly on three things. Source: Google.

• Relevance. How well your business matches what the person searched for. This is the one you have most control over.
• Distance. How far you are from the searcher, or from the place they typed, like “Allerton” or “L18”. You can’t change this much, so don’t try to fake it.
• Prominence. How well known you are, online and off. Google looks at reviews, links, articles and directories, and says your position in normal web results counts too, so ordinary SEO matters.

Google doesn’t publish how much each one counts, and it varies from search to search. Anyone who tells you the exact formula is guessing.

Start with your Google Business Profile

Your profile is what appears on the map. If you only do one thing, do this properly:

• Claim and verify it. Google says verified businesses are more likely to show up in results. Source: Google.
• Use your real business name. No keywords, and no “Liverpool” unless it’s genuinely part of the name. Source: Google.
• Pick the most specific primary category you can, not the broadest one.
• Fill in everything: hours, services, description and real photos of your work.
• Keep your hours right, especially over bank holidays.

We’ve written a full step-by-step on this: how to get your business on Google Maps.

Make your website do its share

Your profile links to your website, and Google reads both. A website that backs up what your profile says helps with relevance and prominence.

1. One page per main service. A page that’s all about boiler servicing has a better chance of showing for boiler servicing than one line on a page that lists everything you do.
2. Say where you work. Mention Liverpool and the areas you actually cover in plain sentences. Write it for people, not as a list of fifty place names at the bottom of the page.
3. Use the words customers use. If people search for a “roofer” and your site only says “roofing contractor”, you’re making Google work harder than it needs to. Put those words in your page titles and headings. Source: Google.
4. Put your details on every page. Your name, phone number and address (if customers visit you) in the footer, written exactly as they are on your profile.
5. Make it work on a phone. Plenty of local searches happen on the move. Pages should load quickly and your phone number should be one tap away.
6. Add LocalBusiness structured data. It gives Google your business details in a format it can read without guessing. Source: Google.

Keep your name, address and phone number the same everywhere

Your website, Google profile, Facebook page, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yell and any trade directories should all show the same details, written the same way. If you’ve moved or changed number, chase down the old listings too. Mismatched details confuse customers and give Google less confidence in which version is right.

Reviews

Google says review count and score are part of local ranking, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help. Source: Google. They also do a lot of the selling once someone finds you.

• Ask every customer, not only the ones you think are happy.
• Send the link the same day, by text or email, while the job’s fresh in their mind.
• Reply to reviews, good and bad, politely and like a person.
• Never pay for reviews or offer anything in return. It’s against Google’s rules. Source: Google.

Get mentioned by other local businesses

Prominence includes what the rest of the web says about you. Genuine local mentions are worth chasing. Good places to start:

• Your chamber of commerce, business improvement district or trade body, if you’re a member.
• Suppliers, partners and clients who’d happily link to you.
• Local sponsorships, charity work and events you’re genuinely part of.
• Local news sites, when you’ve got something worth saying.

Skip anyone selling “100 local backlinks”. Google’s spam policies treat buying links to manipulate rankings as link spam. Source: Google.

Covering more than Liverpool

If you work across the city region, say Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley or St Helens as well, set those as service areas on your profile and write about them honestly on your site. What you can’t do is invent addresses: Google doesn’t allow a virtual office on a Business Profile unless it’s staffed during business hours. Source: Google.

Be realistic, too. Distance is part of the ranking, so a business based in Garston will find it easier to show up near Garston than in Southport.

And avoid copying one page dozens of times with only the town name swapped. Google treats pages like that as doorway pages, which break its spam policies. Source: Google.

Checking it’s working

• Your Google Business Profile performance. Shows calls, website clicks, direction requests and the searches people used to find you.
• Google Search Console. Free, and shows which searches your website appears for and how often people click.
• Your enquiries. Ask new customers how they found you. It’s the number that pays the bills.

Local SEO takes months, not weeks, and nobody can guarantee a position. Anyone promising number one on Google is promising something they don’t control.

Mistakes that hold local businesses back

• Adding “Liverpool” or keywords to the business name on Google.
• One page that lists every service, and nothing else.
• Dozens of town pages with the same text and the town name swapped.
• Old addresses and phone numbers left on directories.
• Asking for reviews once, then forgetting.
• Buying links or reviews.

Getting help

This is what our SEO and local search work covers, for businesses across Liverpool and the North West. If you’re not sure why you’re not showing up, get in touch and we’ll take a look.