Local SEO, Google and AI Search: What Changes Now?

For years, the basic search journey looked familiar.

Open Google.

Type a question.

Click a result.

That behaviour hasn’t disappeared.

But it now has company.

People ask ChatGPT questions.

They use AI-generated answers.

They ask longer, more conversational questions.

They expect summaries.

Recommendations.

Comparisons.

And this creates an obvious question for local businesses.

Does normal SEO still matter?

Yes.

Very much.

But the way people discover you is becoming broader.

Search Is Becoming a Conversation

Someone might once have searched:

SEO agency Lichfield

Now they might ask:

Who is the best local SEO company for a small business near Lichfield that doesn’t want a huge agency?

That’s a very different query.

It’s detailed.

Contextual.

Almost conversational.

AI tools are built for that style of question.

Businesses need content that clearly explains who they help, what they do and where their expertise sits.

Vague marketing language becomes even less useful.

Clear Beats Clever

Suppose your homepage says:

“We empower ambitious organisations through data-led digital excellence.”

What do you do?

SEO?

Software?

Accounting?

Management consultancy?

Now compare it with:

“Cocoonfx provides SEO consultancy for businesses in Lichfield and across the UK.”

Not glamorous.

Very clear.

Search engines appreciate clarity.

AI systems do too.

Customers definitely do.

Does AI Mean Keywords Are Dead?

No.

People still search using words.

Those words still reveal intent.

But obsessing over one exact phrase is increasingly unhelpful.

A useful page about local SEO should naturally cover related questions.

What does local SEO cost?

How long does it take?

Do reviews matter?

What does a Google Business Profile do?

Should you use an agency?

That’s why we’ve built this series as connected subjects rather than ten copies of the same keyword page.

Topical Authority Without Content Spam

There is a difference between depth and volume.

Publishing 500 weak articles doesn’t automatically make you authoritative.

A smaller set of connected, useful resources can be far stronger.

Think of a library.

A thousand empty book covers don’t make it useful.

Content needs substance.

This ten-part series covers:

local SEO fundamentals,

choosing an agency,

finding the best local SEO company,

local SEO checks,

Google Business Profiles,

agency versus freelancer,

SEO costs,

SEO timescales,

agency warning signs,

and AI search.

Each subject supports the others.

That’s the point.

AI Needs Something Worth Finding

There’s a lot of talk about “optimising for ChatGPT”.

The phrase makes it sound like there’s a secret field somewhere in WordPress.

There isn’t.

A better question is:

Does the web contain enough clear, credible information about your business for an AI system to understand it?

Who are you?

What do you do?

Where do you operate?

What subjects do you know well?

Who mentions you?

What evidence supports your claims?

Those questions are familiar to anyone who’s worked seriously in SEO.

Third-Party Mentions Matter

Your website is what you say about yourself.

Other websites provide additional context.

Industry publications.

Business directories.

Partners.

Customers.

Associations.

News sites.

Professional profiles.

These references help create a wider picture.

This doesn’t mean chasing thousands of junk backlinks.

Quality and relevance matter.

A genuine industry mention can say far more than fifty directory submissions nobody visits.

Original Experience Becomes More Valuable

AI can produce generic explanations quickly.

That makes generic information easier to create.

So what becomes more valuable?

The things only you know.

Real case studies.

Customer questions.

Internal data.

Opinions formed through experience.

Failed experiments.

Market observations.

Actual numbers.

Specific examples.

If every article could have been written without knowing anything about your business, you may be missing an opportunity.

Local Businesses Have an Advantage Here

Local businesses possess information large generic publishers don’t.

You know your customers.

You know the area.

You know the questions people ask before buying.

You know what mistakes they make.

You know what happens after the contract is signed.

Use that.

Local knowledge is content.

Experience is content.

What About “Who Is the Best Local SEO Company?”

AI recommendation searches make this particularly interesting.

Someone asking Google for a list of SEO companies may inspect ten websites themselves.

Someone asking an AI assistant may receive a shortlist immediately.

That raises the value of having a strong, consistent footprint across the web.

You want your business to be understandable beyond one landing page.

That’s why company profiles, expertise, case studies, reviews, industry mentions and useful content all matter.

Does Schema Matter?

Structured information can help search engines understand websites.

Use appropriate organisation, service and other relevant structured data where it genuinely applies.

But don’t expect schema to compensate for weak content.

Markup describes information.

It doesn’t create credibility from nowhere.

What Should Businesses Do Now?

Nothing dramatic.

That’s perhaps the most reassuring answer.

Make your website better.

Make your business easier to understand.

Publish genuinely useful material.

Strengthen important service pages.

Develop real-world authority.

Collect genuine reviews.

Earn relevant mentions.

Keep technical SEO healthy.

Measure commercial outcomes.

Pay attention to how people search.

That’s a good strategy for Google.

It’s also sensible preparation for AI-driven discovery.

Don’t Throw Away Everything You Learned About SEO

New technology tends to produce extreme predictions.

SEO is dead.

Google is dead.

Websites are dead.

Content is dead.

We’ve heard versions of this before.

Search changes.

Good marketing principles have a stubborn habit of surviving.

Understand your audience.

Answer their questions.

Build trust.

Explain your value.

Be visible when they’re looking.

The channel may evolve.

The logic remains surprisingly familiar.

Where This Series Leaves Us

We started with a simple question:

What is local SEO?

From there, we looked at choosing an agency, comparing providers, checking your own website, improving Google visibility, understanding costs and recognising when SEO isn’t working.

And now we’ve reached AI search.

Different technology.

Same underlying challenge.

Your potential customer has a problem.

Will they find you when they look for an answer?

That’s the job.

Looking for an SEO Agency in Lichfield?

If you’ve reached the end of this series because you’re researching SEO companies, you’ve probably gathered enough information to ask some awkward questions.

Good.

Ask us those questions too.

Cocoonfx provides SEO consultancy for businesses in Lichfield, Staffordshire and across the UK.

We’ll look at where you are now, what you’re trying to achieve and whether SEO represents a genuine commercial opportunity.

If we think it does, we’ll explain where we’d start.

If we don’t, we’ll tell you that too.

You can read more about our approach here:

SEO Agency Lichfield – Cocoonfx

Or get in touch and tell us what’s not working.

Sometimes that’s the easiest place to begin.

Nobody likes admitting a supplier relationship isn’t working.

Especially after months of invoices.

Maybe you tell yourself SEO takes time.

Maybe next month will be better.

Sometimes that’s true.

SEO genuinely does require patience.

But patience shouldn’t mean blindness.

Here are seven warning signs worth paying attention to.

1. You Don’t Know What They’re Doing

Ask:

“What did my SEO agency do last month?”

If you genuinely don’t know, that’s a problem.

You don’t need every technical detail.

But you should understand the work.

“We did SEO.”

Doesn’t count.

2. Every Report Is About Rankings

Rankings matter.

We’ve said that throughout this series.

But if the entire conversation revolves around moving keyword number 47 from position nine to position seven, something is missing.

What about enquiries?

Conversions?

High-value services?

Revenue?

SEO should eventually connect with the business.

3. Traffic Is Rising, But It’s Useless

This one catches people.

Your organic traffic graph is beautiful.

Up and to the right.

Lovely.

But sales haven’t changed.

Dig deeper.

Perhaps the agency is generating traffic from broad informational articles that have little relationship with your customers.

More isn’t always better.

Relevant is better.

4. They Publish Content Nobody Would Read

You know the type.

“What Is Marketing?”

“Ten Benefits of Having a Website.”

“The Ultimate Guide to Business Success.”

Generic content doesn’t become valuable because it’s 2,000 words long.

Ask who the page is for.

Ask what search intent it targets.

Ask what role it plays in the wider strategy.

If nobody can answer, why publish it?

5. They Never Challenge You

You ask for something.

They do it.

Every time.

That sounds like excellent service.

It might not be.

Sometimes you need an expert to say:

“I don’t think that’s the best use of budget.”

Good consultancy includes judgement.

6. You Can’t Access Anything

Red flag.

You should have appropriate access to your:

website,

analytics,

Search Console,

Google Business Profile,

advertising accounts,

and other important marketing assets.

Don’t allow your entire digital presence to become hostage to one supplier relationship.

7. There’s No Plan

Ask what happens during the next quarter.

If the answer is vague, dig deeper.

SEO work changes, yes.

But there should still be a strategic direction.

Which topics matter?

Which pages?

Which technical issues?

Which markets?

Which commercial objectives?

Activity without direction is just activity.

Before You Fire Anyone…

Talk to them.

Seriously.

There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for disappointing results.

Maybe development changes were never implemented.

Maybe your internal team hasn’t approved content.

Maybe the market changed.

Maybe a competitor increased investment.

Supplier relationships need two-way communication.

Get a Second Opinion

If you’re still unsure, ask another consultant to review the work.

Not to create a hit piece.

To provide an independent assessment.

Sometimes they’ll confirm the strategy is sound and simply needs more time.

Sometimes they won’t.

Either answer is useful.

And Then There’s AI

Another warning sign is an agency pretending nothing has changed in search for ten years.

Search behaviour is changing.

AI is now part of the picture.

But equally, you shouldn’t abandon every proven SEO principle because someone put “AI” in a sales presentation.

So what actually changes?

That’s where we’ll finish this series.

Next in the series

Read: Local SEO, Google and AI Search: What Changes Now?

How Long Does SEO Take to Work?

Three months.

Six months.

Twelve months.

You’ve probably heard all three.

The real answer?

SEO starts working when the changes you make begin affecting how people and search engines interact with your website.

Some changes can show movement quickly.

Others take considerably longer.

Why There’s No Fixed Timescale

Imagine two websites.

Website A has operated for fifteen years, has hundreds of strong links and already ranks on page two.

Website B launched last Tuesday.

Should they expect the same timescale?

Of course not.

SEO depends on your starting point.

Things That Can Change Quickly

Technical fixes can sometimes have a fairly fast effect.

Perhaps an important page was accidentally blocked from Google.

Fix it, and visibility may change once Google recrawls the site.

Maybe your page title is completely irrelevant.

Improving it can help.

Perhaps two pages are competing with each other.

Consolidating them may produce movement.

Not every SEO win needs twelve months.

Things That Usually Take Longer

Building authority.

Developing a body of useful content.

Earning links.

Establishing local reputation.

Competing against established websites.

These things take time because credibility itself takes time.

You wouldn’t trust a brand purely because it published 60 articles last Tuesday.

Search engines shouldn’t either.

Watch the Direction, Not Just the Destination

Suppose your target keyword starts at position 63.

Then moves to 41.

Then 26.

Then 14.

You haven’t reached page one.

But something is clearly happening.

Likewise, impressions may rise before clicks.

Longer-tail searches may improve before the big target phrase.

SEO progress often appears in stages.

Don’t Change Strategy Every Fortnight

This is difficult.

You’ve paid money.

You want results.

Fair enough.

But repeatedly ripping up the strategy because rankings haven’t changed after ten days can create more problems than it solves.

Give sensible work time to generate data.

Then make decisions.

But Don’t Use “SEO Takes Time” as an Excuse Either

This matters.

An agency shouldn’t be able to say “SEO takes time” for twelve months while doing nothing visible.

You should still know:

what’s been completed,

what’s changing,

what early indicators show,

and what happens next.

Patience and accountability can coexist.

Local SEO Can Move at Different Speeds

Local competition varies dramatically.

A niche B2B company may see improvement relatively quickly.

A highly competitive service category could take much longer.

Your proximity, Google Business Profile, reviews, website and competitors all play a part.

What Should You See After Six Months?

Not a guaranteed ranking.

But you should normally have enough information to assess direction.

Have relevant impressions increased?

Are important pages improving?

Are more useful searches appearing in Search Console?

Has local visibility changed?

Are enquiries improving?

If nothing has moved anywhere, investigate.

What If SEO Still Isn’t Working?

Now we reach an uncomfortable topic.

Sometimes the problem isn’t time.

Sometimes the SEO simply isn’t very good.

How can you tell?

That’s exactly what we’ll look at next.

Next in the series

Read: 7 Signs Your SEO Agency Isn’t Working

Here comes everyone’s favourite marketing answer.

It depends.

Annoying, isn’t it?

But SEO pricing genuinely varies because businesses have different starting points.

A five-page website serving one town doesn’t need the same resources as a 15,000-page ecommerce website.

A company operating in a low-competition niche doesn’t face the same challenge as a solicitor trying to rank for valuable legal searches.

So rather than inventing a neat universal price, let’s look at what you’re paying for.

What Determines the Cost?

Several things.

Competition

The stronger your competitors, the more work may be needed.

Website size

A small brochure site can be reviewed relatively quickly.

A large ecommerce platform cannot.

Current condition

A well-built website with strong content may need refinement.

A neglected website with indexing problems may need considerable work before growth begins.

Your ambitions

Trying to become visible across one town is different from targeting customers nationally.

Content requirements

Some businesses need regular specialist content.

Others already have plenty and need it reorganised.

Why Very Cheap SEO Can Be a Problem

Let’s imagine you’re paying £250 per month.

Remove software.

Administration.

Reporting.

Meetings.

Agency overhead.

How many hours of skilled work can realistically remain?

This doesn’t mean affordable SEO is impossible.

It means expectations must match resources.

Perhaps £250 buys a monthly advisory session.

Fine.

Perhaps it funds a small amount of targeted work.

Fine.

But £250 can’t realistically fund a complete SEO department.

What Should You Ask For?

Ask the supplier to explain what the fee covers.

Not merely:

“SEO package – £995.”

What happens for £995?

Strategy?

Technical work?

Content?

Implementation?

Meetings?

Reporting?

Development?

Links?

You should know.

Should SEO Have a Fixed Price?

Sometimes.

Audits are easier to scope.

Defined projects can have clear costs.

Monthly SEO is harder because priorities evolve.

One month might involve technical fixes.

Another may focus heavily on content.

Another could involve local citations or digital PR.

The strategy should dictate the work.

Not the calendar.

Think in Terms of Return

Suppose SEO costs £1,000 per month.

That sounds expensive if you compare it with doing nothing.

Now suppose one new customer is worth £8,000 and the work generates three additional customers.

Different conversation.

Likewise, if the maximum commercial upside from SEO is £200 per month, spending thousands makes little sense.

SEO is an investment decision.

Treat it like one.

Local SEO Can Be More Affordable

For some smaller businesses, a tight geographical focus reduces the problem.

You don’t need to compete with every company in Britain.

You need visibility among people who can realistically become customers.

That’s one reason local SEO can offer strong opportunities for SMEs.

Should You Pay for an Audit First?

Often, yes.

An audit can reveal whether ongoing SEO is sensible.

It can also uncover immediate problems.

But make sure you’re getting interpretation.

A 300-page automated PDF isn’t an SEO strategy.

Software detects issues.

People decide what matters.

How Long Before SEO Pays Back?

Ah.

The next question.

If you’re spending money every month, when should you expect something to happen?

Let’s tackle that properly rather than giving you the usual “three to six months” and disappearing.

Next in the series

Read: How Long Does SEO Take to Work?

SEO Agency vs Freelancer vs In-House: Which One Should You Choose?

You need SEO help.

Now what?

Hire an agency?

Find a freelancer?

Recruit somebody?

Ask the marketing manager to “have a look at SEO” when they get five minutes?

Each option can work.

Each can also go badly.

The right choice depends on the size of your business, budget, complexity and how much SEO work actually exists.

The SEO Agency Route

An agency can give you access to several skills under one roof.

That might include:

technical SEO,

content,

development,

digital PR,

analytics,

strategy.

This is useful when the website is large or the work crosses several disciplines.

The trade-off?

You need to understand who you’ll actually work with.

Some agencies are highly hands-on.

Others place account management between you and the specialists doing the work.

Neither is automatically wrong.

Know what you’re buying.

What About a Freelancer?

A good freelancer can be excellent value.

You may deal directly with the person doing the work.

There are fewer layers.

Communication can be quick.

Costs may be lower.

But capacity can become an issue.

One person can’t be brilliant at everything.

Technical SEO, content, development, design, digital PR and analytics are distinct skills.

A strong freelancer usually knows where their limits are and brings in support when needed.

In-House SEO

Hiring somebody gives them one huge advantage:

they live inside your business.

They learn the products.

They attend meetings.

They understand internal politics.

They can react quickly.

For businesses with enough ongoing SEO work, that can be powerful.

The downside is cost.

Salary is only part of it.

You have recruitment, software, training, pension, National Insurance and management time.

And you’re still relying on one person’s skill set.

The Hybrid Model

Often overlooked.

You might have a marketing person internally and use an SEO consultant for strategy.

Or use an agency for technical work while your team creates content.

This can work extremely well.

Internal knowledge stays internal.

External specialists fill the gaps.

Which Is Cheapest?

Probably the wrong first question.

Ask:

Which gives us the best chance of achieving the result?

Cheap SEO that produces nothing is expensive.

A higher monthly fee that generates profitable business can be cheap.

Cost matters.

Value matters more.

What Does Cocoonfx Do?

Our model sits somewhere between consultancy and agency.

Clients looking for an SEO agency in Lichfield often come to us because they want direct strategic input without unnecessary layers.

That won’t suit every company.

Larger organisations may require a big delivery team.

Tiny businesses may simply need a few hours of guidance.

Match the resource to the problem.

There’s One Question We Haven’t Answered

How much should any of this cost?

SEO prices vary wildly.

£300 a month.

£800.

£2,000.

£10,000.

So what’s sensible?

That’s next.

Next in the series

Read: How Much Does Local SEO Cost in the UK?

Your Google Business Profile Might Be More Important Than Your Homepage

That sounds dramatic.

But for some local businesses, it’s true.

A potential customer may search Google, see your profile, check your reviews, look at your photographs, press the call button and never visit your website.

The whole buying journey happened inside Google.

This is why your Google Business Profile deserves more attention than setting it up once and forgetting about it.

First, Make Sure the Basics Are Right

Start with accuracy.

Check your:

• business name
• primary category
• secondary categories
• address
• service area
• phone number
• website
• opening hours

Don’t add words to your business name purely for SEO if they aren’t genuinely part of your business name.

It may seem tempting.

It’s also the sort of shortcut that can cause problems.

Categories Matter

Categories help Google understand what you are.

Choose the closest primary category available.

Then add relevant secondary categories where they genuinely apply.

More is not automatically better.

A focused profile is easier to understand than one trying to be everything.

Write for Customers

Your business description should make sense to a customer.

Explain:

what you do,

who you work with,

where you operate,

and what makes the business useful.

You do not need to repeat the same keyword twelve times.

If you’re an SEO agency serving Lichfield, simply say so naturally.

Use Real Photographs

Stock photography has its place.

Your Google Business Profile usually isn’t it.

Use images of:

your premises,

your team,

your work,

your products,

events,

projects,

and anything that helps prove the business exists in the real world.

People buy from people.

Even in B2B.

Reviews Need a Process

“Remember to ask for reviews” isn’t a process.

Decide when you’ll ask.

After a project finishes?

After delivery?

After a positive support conversation?

Then make it easy.

Send the customer the correct review link.

Don’t write their review for them.

Don’t offer strange incentives.

Don’t pressure anyone.

Just create a simple habit.

Reply Like a Human

You don’t need to write:

“Thank you for your valued feedback. We are delighted to hear that you enjoyed our excellent service.”

every single time.

If someone leaves a genuine comment, respond genuinely.

Mention something from their experience where appropriate.

Short is fine.

Human is better than templated.

Keep Opening Hours Current

Bank holidays catch businesses out.

Christmas catches businesses out.

One-off closures catch businesses out.

If Google says you’re open and someone drives to a locked door, no amount of clever SEO will rescue that customer experience.

Local search and real-world operations are connected.

Should You Post Updates?

Google Business Profile posts can be useful.

They aren’t magic ranking buttons.

Use them when you have something worth sharing.

A new service.

Event.

Useful guide.

Offer.

Company update.

Don’t force content simply to keep a box ticked.

Your Website Still Matters

A strong profile doesn’t replace your website.

Google needs somewhere to send people who want more detail.

Your linked page should match the intent.

If your profile promotes SEO consultancy, the website should clearly support that service.

For our own local positioning, that means connecting relevant content back to our SEO Agency Lichfield page.

Local SEO Isn’t Just Google Maps

This is worth remembering.

Some businesses become so focused on the map results that they ignore ordinary organic search.

Customers use both.

They may see your map listing today and read three blog posts next week before contacting you.

Marketing rarely follows the neat funnel drawn in PowerPoint.

People bounce around.

Track What Happens

Look at how people interact with your profile.

Are they visiting the website?

Calling?

Requesting directions?

Then compare this with actual business enquiries.

A spike in profile views feels good.

A spike in qualified enquiries feels better.

What If Competitors Have Hundreds More Reviews?

Don’t panic.

You can’t manufacture five years of customer feedback overnight.

Start now.

Consistency compounds.

Ten genuine reviews this quarter become twenty.

Twenty become forty.

A year passes quickly.

That’s another recurring theme in SEO.

The perfect time to start was earlier.

The next best time is now.

What Happens Beyond Google?

Once your local presence is in reasonable shape, another strategic question appears.

Who should actually manage all this?

An agency?

A freelancer?

Someone in-house?

There’s no universal answer.

So let’s compare them properly.

Next in the series

Read: SEO Agency vs Freelancer vs In-House SEO

A Local SEO Checklist You Can Actually Use

SEO checklists have a habit of getting silly.

Before you know it, you’re staring at 187 tasks and wondering whether your H3 tags are responsible for the collapse of Western civilisation.

They aren’t.

Most local businesses can find meaningful improvements by getting the fundamentals right.

So this checklist is deliberately practical.

No hundred-point audit.

No obscure technical work for the sake of it.

Just the things we’d want to check first.

1. Search for Your Own Business

Start simple.

Search your company name.

What appears?

Your website should normally be easy to find.

Your Google Business Profile may appear.

You might see LinkedIn, Companies House, directories, reviews and social profiles.

Look at the results as a customer would.

Do they create confidence?

Are old addresses showing?

Are there strange profiles you didn’t know existed?

You’d be surprised what turns up.

2. Search for Your Main Service

Now remove the company name.

Search what a customer would search.

For example:

SEO agency Lichfield

commercial solicitor Lichfield

accountant Tamworth

Where do you appear?

Don’t panic if you’re not first.

Write down what does appear.

These businesses are your real search competitors.

They may not be the companies you normally think of as competitors.

3. Check Your Google Business Profile

Open your profile and look at it properly.

Check:

• business name
• category
• address
• service area
• telephone
• website
• opening hours
• description
• services
• photographs

Are they accurate?

Do they still reflect the business today?

Local SEO sometimes improves through dull housekeeping.

Dull can be profitable.

4. Look at Your Reviews

How many do you have?

How recent are they?

Do you reply?

Does the feedback describe the services you actually want to sell?

Reviews help build trust long before someone visits your website.

Make asking for them part of your process.

Not with pressure.

Just a polite request after successful work.

5. Check Your Homepage

Could a stranger tell what you do within five seconds?

Really?

Ask someone outside the company.

Don’t explain the website first.

If your homepage says:

“Delivering excellence through innovative solutions”

that could describe anything from a software company to a manufacturer of industrial glue.

Clarity wins.

6. Check Your Main Service Pages

Does each important service have enough information to stand on its own?

A page with 70 words and a stock photo is unlikely to answer many questions.

But don’t swing to the opposite extreme and add 4,000 words simply because somebody said longer content ranks better.

Give the subject the space it needs.

No more.

No less.

7. Look at Your Page Titles

Your page title is one of the clearest ways to tell Google what a page covers.

Compare:

Services | Company Name

with:

SEO Consultancy in Lichfield | Cocoonfx

The second contains far more useful information.

Every important page should have a distinct title.

8. Check Your Headings

There should normally be one clear main heading explaining the subject.

Then use useful subheadings to guide the reader.

Don’t turn headings into keyword dumping grounds.

They should help someone skim the page.

People do skim.

You’re probably skimming this.

That’s fine.

9. Check Your Internal Links

Can people easily move between related pages?

And can Google?

If you write an article about local search, link naturally to your main SEO Agency Lichfield page.

If you have a guide to technical SEO, connect it with your technical SEO service.

Internal linking helps establish relationships between topics.

It’s also useful for humans.

A rare SEO task where everybody wins.

10. Search Your Address and Telephone Number

This is especially useful for established businesses.

Are old addresses floating around?

Do directories list an old phone number?

Does Facebook show one address while Google shows another?

Consistency helps.

More importantly, inconsistency confuses customers.

11. Test the Website on Your Phone

Don’t use an emulator.

Use your actual phone.

Can you read it?

Can you click the menu?

Can you complete the contact form?

Is a huge cookie popup blocking everything?

Does the call button work?

Mobile usability isn’t a theoretical SEO exercise.

Your customers are actually using these devices.

12. Check Website Speed

You don’t need to become obsessed with fractions of a second.

But if your website takes ages to appear, fix it.

Large images are common culprits.

So are unnecessary plugins and bloated themes.

PageSpeed Insights can give you useful clues.

Treat the score as diagnostic information, not a computer game where 100 is the only acceptable result.

13. Check Google Search Console

If your business website isn’t connected to Google Search Console, set it up.

It’s free.

You can see:

• searches that trigger your website
• pages receiving clicks
• indexing issues
• website performance
• queries gaining or losing visibility

It’s one of the most useful sources of SEO information available.

And Google gives it to you.

14. Look for Missing Questions

What do customers ask before buying?

Write those questions down.

Price.

Timescale.

Process.

Location.

Guarantees.

Compatibility.

Availability.

These are often your best content ideas.

SEO tools are useful, but your customers are a pretty good keyword research department too.

15. Check the Call to Action

Someone has found your website.

They’ve read your page.

They like what you say.

What do they do next?

Don’t make them hunt.

A good local service page should have a clear next step.

Call.

Book.

Request a quote.

Send an enquiry.

Something.

Don’t Try to Fix Everything at Once

This is where businesses get stuck.

An audit finds 200 issues.

Everything gets added to a spreadsheet.

Nothing gets done.

Choose the items most likely to matter.

Fix them.

Measure.

Move to the next set.

SEO rewards sustained sensible work far more often than heroic bursts followed by six months of silence.

One Item Deserves Its Own Article

The Google Business Profile sits at the heart of many local searches.

And it can influence whether someone ever reaches your website.

So that’s where we’re going next.

Next in the series

Read: How to Improve Your Google Business Profile

Let’s answer the question properly.

Who is the best local SEO company?

There isn’t one.

Not in the way people usually mean, anyway.

That’s probably an inconvenient answer from an SEO company, but bear with us.

The best local SEO company for a five-office law firm may be completely wrong for a one-person trades business.

The right agency for an ecommerce company might struggle with a highly specialised B2B manufacturer.

Price matters.

Experience matters.

Location can matter.

Personality matters more than people sometimes admit.

So searching for “the best local SEO company” is a sensible starting point. It just shouldn’t be the finishing point.

In the previous article, we looked at how to choose an SEO agency in Lichfield.

Now let’s tackle the word everybody loves using.

Best.

Best at What?

This is the question to ask.

Best at technical SEO?

Best at generating local enquiries?

Best at ecommerce?

Best at content?

Best for companies with £20,000 monthly marketing budgets?

Best for a small business spending £750?

You see the problem.

“Best” without context is almost meaningless.

It’s a bit like asking for the best car.

A Ferrari might be brilliant.

Try getting three children, a Labrador and the weekly shop into one.

Context changes the answer.

SEO works the same way.

Start With Your Business Model

A local restaurant needs different SEO from a freight forwarding software company.

A solicitor needs different content from a plumber.

A business operating from one physical location has different local requirements from one serving customers nationally.

Before deciding who the best SEO company is, decide what sort of SEO problem you have.

For example:

Local visibility problem

You aren’t appearing in Maps or location-based searches.

Technical problem

Google isn’t indexing your pages properly.

Content problem

Your website doesn’t answer what customers search for.

Authority problem

Competitors have stronger brands, links and mentions.

Conversion problem

You’re ranking, but nobody is getting in touch.

Those require different strengths.

Rankings Alone Don’t Decide It

It would be tempting for us to say:

“Simply search SEO agency Lichfield. Whoever comes first is clearly the best.”

Convenient.

But incomplete.

Ranking an agency website demonstrates SEO ability.

That’s worth something.

It doesn’t tell you whether they understand your industry, whether you’ll work well together or whether their commercial model fits your business.

Think of ranking as one piece of evidence.

Not a trophy handed down from Google declaring a universal winner.

Local SEO Should Feel Local

There’s a difference between genuinely serving an area and creating 150 cloned pages with different town names.

You’ve probably seen them.

“SEO Birmingham.”

“SEO Lichfield.”

“SEO Tamworth.”

“SEO Sutton Coldfield.”

Same copy. Town swapped.

Maybe a sentence mentioning the cathedral gets dropped in.

That’s not local expertise.

That’s find-and-replace.

Good local content should demonstrate some understanding of the market, customer behaviour and geography.

If you’re specifically looking around Lichfield, you can see how we approach this on our SEO Agency Lichfield page.

Look for Evidence of Thinking

Lots of agencies can carry out SEO tasks.

Fewer can explain why they’re doing them.

This matters.

Anyone can run a technical audit tool and export 3,000 warnings.

The skill is deciding which ten things actually deserve attention.

Anyone can find keywords.

The harder job is identifying which searches connect with commercial intent.

Anyone can produce content.

The question is whether anybody needed that content in the first place.

Strategy is often subtraction.

Doing less, but choosing better.

What Does Their Reporting Look Like?

Ask to see an example.

Does the report help you make decisions?

Or is it 40 pages of charts?

A useful report should tell a story.

What changed?

Why?

What did the agency do?

What worked?

What didn’t?

What’s happening next?

Numbers without interpretation create noise.

And marketing already has enough noise.

Does Industry Experience Matter?

Yes.

But perhaps not in the way you’d expect.

An agency doesn’t need twenty clients in your exact niche before it can help you.

Sometimes an outside perspective is useful.

However, experience in complex industries can save a lot of time.

Take logistics.

If someone doesn’t understand freight forwarding, Incoterms, customs processes or the difference between a carrier and a forwarder, they’ll need to learn quickly before writing credible content.

The same applies to legal work, engineering, finance and other specialist sectors.

You don’t want a copywriter guessing what your customers care about.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better

A larger agency may provide:

• deeper specialist teams
• more resources
• broader services
• more capacity

That’s valuable.

A smaller consultancy may provide:

• direct access to senior people
• fewer layers
• faster decisions
• greater flexibility

Also valuable.

Neither model is automatically better.

What matters is what you actually receive.

Ask About Their Clients

Not just logos.

Ask what work they did.

There’s a difference between:

“We’ve worked with Brand X”

and:

“We handled technical SEO, restructured 80 service pages and increased non-branded organic enquiries.”

Specificity matters.

You should also ask whether they work with your direct competitors.

That doesn’t automatically rule them out.

But you deserve to know.

What About Reviews?

Read them.

Then read between them.

A review saying:

“Great team, highly recommended!”

is pleasant.

A review explaining:

“They identified why our service pages weren’t ranking, rebuilt the structure and our enquiry volume increased over six months”

tells you more.

Look for detail.

Also look at how recent the reviews are.

A company may have been brilliant five years ago.

People change. Teams change. Businesses change.

The Best SEO Company Should Occasionally Disagree With You

Yes, really.

If you’re paying for expertise, you don’t need somebody who says yes to everything.

You might want 100 new blog posts.

A good consultant may tell you that improving your 20 existing service pages would be a better use of budget.

You might want to target a keyword because a competitor ranks for it.

They may tell you the search has almost no buying intent.

That’s useful.

You don’t employ an accountant to agree with your arithmetic.

Marketing should be no different.

Can They Connect SEO With Your Business?

This is perhaps the biggest test.

Imagine two SEO companies.

Company A says:

“We increased organic visibility by 62%.”

Company B says:

“Organic visibility rose by 35%, but more importantly, enquiries for your highest-margin service doubled.”

Which conversation would you rather have?

Traffic matters.

Commercial context matters more.

A Word About Awards

Awards can be useful.

They’re a form of third-party recognition.

But they shouldn’t make the decision for you.

The same applies to badges, certifications and partnerships.

They’re supporting evidence.

The work still matters.

And What About AI?

You’ll increasingly see companies advertising:

AI SEO.

GEO.

AI visibility.

Search everywhere optimisation.

Some of this work is sensible.

Some of the terminology is marketing dressing.

Ask what they’ll actually do.

If the answer involves making your business easier to understand, improving authoritative content, strengthening brand references and structuring useful information clearly, fair enough.

If the answer sounds like wizardry, ask another question.

So Who Is the Best Local SEO Company?

The best one is the company that:

understands your business,

understands your customer,

can explain its strategy,

has evidence it knows what it’s doing,

communicates clearly,

fits your budget,

and focuses on business outcomes rather than SEO theatre.

That might be a large agency.

It might be a specialist.

It might be a freelancer.

It might be Cocoonfx.

We’d obviously like the opportunity to make our case.

But you should still compare us.

A confident supplier shouldn’t be frightened of that.

Your Next Step Before Hiring Anyone

Before signing an SEO contract, carry out your own quick local SEO check.

It doesn’t require expensive software.

You can learn a surprising amount in half an hour.

That’s what we’ll cover next.

Next in the series

Read: The Local SEO Checklist for Small Businesses

How to Choose an SEO Agency in Lichfield Without Regretting It Six Months Later

Choosing an SEO agency shouldn’t feel difficult.

Yet it often does.

Search for an SEO agency in Lichfield and you’ll find agencies, consultants, freelancers, national companies pretending to be local and probably a few paid adverts promising to transform your business before you’ve finished your morning coffee.

Everybody sounds good.

Everybody talks about results.

Everybody seems to have a “proven process”.

So how do you choose?

You could simply pick whoever ranks first.

There’s a certain logic to that. If an SEO company can rank itself, surely that’s a good sign?

Well… yes and no.

Ranking is useful evidence.

It isn’t the whole story.

If you haven’t already read our guide to what local SEO actually is, that’s worth reading first. It explains the mechanics behind local search.

Here, we’re dealing with the harder part.

Choosing the people.

Start With Your Own Problem

Before speaking to any agency, work out what you’re actually trying to fix.

This sounds basic, but it’s surprisingly important.

“Improve our SEO” isn’t really a business objective.

Why are you looking at SEO?

Perhaps:

• your website gets almost no enquiries
• a competitor keeps appearing above you
• you depend too heavily on Google Ads
• your Google Maps visibility is poor
• you’ve lost traffic
• you’re entering a new market
• you’re paying an agency but don’t know what they’re doing
• you want to appear more often in AI-powered search

Those are different problems.

And they may require different work.

If an agency recommends a package before asking what the problem is, that’s worth noting.

Be Wary of the Instant Prescription

Imagine walking into a doctor’s surgery.

You haven’t explained what’s wrong yet, but the doctor immediately hands you exactly the same prescription they gave the previous ten patients.

You’d probably ask a few questions.

SEO packages can work like that.

“Ten keywords, four blogs and twenty backlinks per month.”

Why ten keywords?

Why four blogs?

Why twenty backlinks?

Maybe those are exactly what you need.

But somebody should be able to explain why.

Good SEO starts with diagnosis.

Ask Who Will Actually Work on Your Account

This question matters more than people realise.

The person selling SEO to you may be excellent.

But are they the person doing the work?

Large agencies often have sales teams, account managers, content teams, technical specialists and junior staff.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that.

A strong team can be a major advantage.

The issue is knowing what you’re buying.

Ask:

Who will be responsible for my SEO?

How experienced are they?

Will I speak directly with them?

How often?

If you want senior-level strategic support, make sure that’s what the contract actually provides.

Ask What Success Looks Like

This question can change the entire conversation.

“What would success look like after twelve months?”

Listen carefully to the answer.

If you hear only:

• rankings
• impressions
• domain authority
• traffic
• backlinks

keep asking questions.

Those metrics have value.

But businesses don’t employ people, pay rent and fund growth with impressions.

Eventually SEO needs to connect with something commercial.

Leads.

Sales.

Bookings.

Calls.

Qualified traffic.

Brand visibility in the right market.

At Cocoonfx, our view is fairly simple: rankings matter because of what they can lead to.

Not because a green arrow looks nice on a report.

Can They Explain SEO Without Hiding Behind Jargon?

SEO has plenty of technical language.

Canonical tags.

Schema.

Crawl budgets.

Core Web Vitals.

Indexing.

Internal link equity.

Fine.

Sometimes those terms are necessary.

But an SEO consultant should also be able to explain what they mean in plain English.

For example:

Instead of:

“We need to optimise internal PageRank distribution.”

You might hear:

“Some of your important service pages are buried too deep in the website. We need to link to them more clearly from stronger pages.”

Same concept.

Much easier to understand.

You don’t need to become an SEO specialist.

But you should understand what you’re paying for.

Ask to See Actual Work

Testimonials are useful.

Case studies are better.

Real examples are better still.

Ask what happened.

What was the starting point?

What did the agency change?

What improved?

How long did it take?

Were there any things that didn’t work?

That final question is an interesting one.

SEO doesn’t always go perfectly.

Google changes. Competitors react. Tests fail.

Someone willing to explain what didn’t work can sometimes be more credible than someone claiming a perfect record.

The “Guaranteed Number One” Question

Ask this directly:

Can you guarantee that I’ll rank number one on Google?

If somebody says yes, we’d be cautious.

No SEO agency controls Google.

We can improve a website.

We can create better content.

We can fix technical issues.

We can build authority.

We can make a business far more competitive.

But Google decides the rankings.

A sensible agency can discuss likelihood, difficulty and opportunity.

A guaranteed number-one position is a different thing entirely.

Check Whether They Understand Search Intent

Let’s say you run a commercial cleaning company.

Would you rather rank number one for:

“what is commercial cleaning?”

or number four for:

“commercial cleaning company Lichfield?”

The first may produce more traffic.

The second may produce more customers.

That is search intent.

A good SEO strategy doesn’t chase keywords because a tool says they have the biggest number next to them.

It asks why somebody is searching.

Are they learning?

Comparing?

Buying?

Looking for a local provider?

Those differences matter.

Local Knowledge Helps, But Don’t Overstate It

Do you need an SEO agency physically based in Lichfield?

Not necessarily.

We’ve worked remotely for years.

The internet does have that useful feature.

But local knowledge can still help.

Someone familiar with Lichfield, Burntwood, Tamworth, Fradley, Shenstone and the surrounding area may understand local geography and business behaviour in ways that don’t always show up in keyword tools.

A phrase can look good in software while making little sense to someone who actually lives there.

Human context matters.

Look at Their Own Marketing

This doesn’t mean their website needs to be perfect.

Agency websites are often the cobbler’s shoes. Client work gets done first.

We know the feeling.

Still, look for signs of substance.

Do they publish useful ideas?

Can you understand their point of view?

Do they have identifiable people behind the business?

Does their own site appear for relevant searches?

Do they say anything you couldn’t find on fifty other agency websites?

A wall of text telling you they’re “innovative, results-driven and passionate about digital success” doesn’t reveal much.

Specificity does.

Watch the Contract

Some SEO projects need time.

That’s true.

But long contracts should have a reason behind them.

Ask:

What is the minimum term?

What happens if we leave?

Who owns the content?

Who owns the Google accounts?

Who controls our website?

Will links disappear if we stop paying?

You want clarity before the work starts.

Not during an awkward phone call seven months later.

What About Cheap SEO?

Cheap doesn’t automatically mean bad.

Expensive doesn’t automatically mean good.

A skilled freelancer with low overheads might provide excellent work for less than a large agency.

Likewise, a £3,000 monthly retainer doesn’t guarantee brilliant thinking.

But there is a point where the maths stops working.

If you’re paying £200 per month and expecting:

technical SEO, content creation, strategy, link building, reporting, meetings and ongoing optimisation…

someone is cutting corners.

There simply aren’t enough hours.

Should They Be Talking About AI Search?

Yes.

But they shouldn’t be trying to scare you with it.

AI search is changing how people find information.

ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI-driven search experiences are becoming another part of the discovery process.

An SEO agency should understand this.

However, be wary of anyone presenting AI optimisation as a mysterious replacement for everything that came before.

Clear content still matters.

Authority still matters.

Brand mentions still matter.

Technical accessibility still matters.

Being genuinely useful still matters.

The wrapper is changing.

A lot of the ingredients aren’t.

Ask One Question That Isn’t About SEO

Try this:

What would you change about our website if Google didn’t exist?

It’s a good test.

Perhaps the navigation is confusing.

Perhaps the service proposition isn’t clear.

Perhaps the contact form asks eighteen questions.

Perhaps every page sounds like it was written by a committee.

A strong SEO consultant should care about the person who arrives after the click.

Ranking a poor page doesn’t fix a poor page.

It merely sends more people to it.

Should You Choose Cocoonfx?

Possibly.

We’re deliberately not saying definitely.

We’re an SEO agency in Lichfield and we work with businesses that want practical SEO tied to commercial objectives.

We like clients who ask questions.

We like understanding why something works.

We’d rather improve ten useful pages than publish fifty weak ones because a spreadsheet says we should.

But our approach won’t suit everyone.

If you simply want the lowest monthly cost, there will be cheaper options.

If you want guaranteed rankings next Friday, we’re not the right company.

That’s fine.

The relationship needs to work both ways.

The Shortlist Test

When you’ve narrowed things down, compare agencies against a few questions:

• Do they understand the problem?
• Do they understand your customer?
• Can they explain their proposed work?
• Can they show evidence?
• Do you know who will do the work?
• Are the commercial terms clear?
• Do you trust them?

That last one is hard to put into a spreadsheet.

But it matters.

SEO relationships can last years.

You need to be able to have difficult conversations when traffic falls, a campaign underperforms or you disagree about priorities.

Now Comes the Obvious Question

Once you’ve looked at several agencies, you’ll probably start wondering:

Who is actually the best?

People search that exact question all the time.

“Who is the best local SEO company?”

And it’s a trickier question than it appears.

Because “best” depends entirely on what you need.

That’s what we’ll explore next.

Next in the series

Read: Who Is the Best Local SEO Company?

You can also read more about our approach on our SEO Agency Lichfield page.

What Is Local SEO – And Does Your Business Actually Need It?

Search for a plumber near you. A solicitor. An accountant. Maybe somewhere for lunch.

What do you see?

Usually, Google gives you a mixture of maps, business listings, reviews, websites and directories. You probably don’t think much about how those businesses got there. You just pick the result that looks useful.

That, in simple terms, is where local SEO comes in.

Local SEO is the work carried out to help a business appear when somebody searches for a product or service within a particular area.

So, if someone searches:

SEO agency Lichfield

accountant near me

solicitor in Tamworth

driving instructor Burntwood

Google tries to work out which businesses are relevant, reputable and genuinely connected to that area.

Sounds simple.

It isn’t always.

But it doesn’t need to become the dark art that some marketing companies make it sound like.

At Cocoonfx, we work with businesses that want to understand why they rank, why they don’t rank and what they can sensibly do about it.

If you’re specifically searching for an SEO agency in Lichfield, our main Lichfield SEO page explains how we approach SEO consultancy.

For now, let’s look at local SEO itself.

Local SEO Is Different From Normal SEO… Sort Of

Here’s the thing.

People often separate “SEO” and “local SEO” as if they’re completely different jobs.

They aren’t.

A lot of the same principles apply.

Your website still needs to be easy for Google to crawl. Your pages still need useful content. Google still needs to understand what your business does. Links and mentions still matter.

The difference is that local SEO adds another question:

Where does this business operate?

If you’re a national online retailer, your physical location may not matter much.

If you’re a dentist in Lichfield, it matters a lot.

Someone sitting in Birmingham searching for “dentist near me” shouldn’t normally get exactly the same results as somebody making the same search in Lichfield.

Google is trying to provide a useful local answer.

That’s why location becomes part of the equation.

Google Doesn’t Just Look at Your Website

This catches people out.

You can have a lovely website and still struggle with local SEO.

Why?

Because Google uses information from several places to understand a local business.

One of the most important is your Google Business Profile.

That’s the profile which can show:

• your business name
• address or service area
• opening hours
• phone number
• photos
• reviews
• services
• website
• directions

You often see it before you ever reach a company’s website.

For many local businesses, that profile is effectively a second homepage.

Yet plenty of businesses set it up once, add two photos from 2019 and then forget it exists.

That’s a missed opportunity.

What Does Google Want to Know?

Strip away the jargon and Google is trying to answer a few fairly sensible questions.

Is this business relevant to what the person searched for?

If someone searches for SEO services, does the website clearly talk about SEO?

Is the business genuinely connected to the location?

Does the website, Google profile and wider web support that connection?

Does the business appear trustworthy?

Are there reviews? Mentions? Useful information? Signs that this is a real organisation?

Would this result probably help the person searching?

That’s the bit people sometimes forget.

SEO is not really about pleasing a robot.

Google’s job is to satisfy the person behind the search.

“Near Me” Searches Changed the Game

We barely notice the phrase anymore.

Coffee near me.

Garage near me.

SEO company near me.

People expect Google to know where they are and provide sensible options.

Mobile phones accelerated this behaviour. You’re no longer sitting at a desktop computer carefully typing a full location into every search.

Google already has context.

That means local businesses need to make their location and services clear enough for search engines to connect the dots.

And no, that doesn’t mean writing:

“SEO Lichfield SEO company Lichfield local SEO Lichfield Staffordshire SEO Lichfield”

into every paragraph.

Please don’t.

It reads badly. It looks dated. And your potential customer will wonder whether you’ve been kidnapped by a keyword spreadsheet.

Write for people first.

Make the location clear where it genuinely helps.

What Actually Helps Local SEO?

There isn’t one magic trick.

Good local SEO tends to come from lots of small signals working together.

Your website matters.

Your Google Business Profile matters.

Reviews matter.

Your business details across other reputable websites matter.

Internal links matter.

Content matters.

Your reputation matters.

Even the wording people use when talking about your business elsewhere can help search engines understand what you’re known for.

Think of it less like flicking a switch and more like putting together a jigsaw.

One piece rarely tells the whole story.

Start With Your Website

Your website needs to clearly explain three things:

Who you are.

What you do.

Where you do it.

That sounds almost too obvious.

Yet we’ve reviewed plenty of websites where you have to dig through several pages before you’re quite sure what the company actually sells.

Don’t make Google guess.

And don’t make your customers guess either.

A local service page should normally have a clear title, a clear heading and useful information about the service.

For example:

SEO Agency in Lichfield

is clearer than:

Helping Your Business Reach Its Full Potential

The second might sound nice in a branding meeting.

The first tells people what the page is about.

You can still have personality. Just don’t sacrifice clarity for cleverness.

Your Google Business Profile Needs Attention Too

If local customers matter to your business, your Google Business Profile deserves regular attention.

Check that:

• your business category is accurate
• contact details are correct
• opening times are current
• your website link works
• photos reflect the real business
• services are filled in
• reviews receive sensible replies

Nothing revolutionary there.

But that’s the point.

Local SEO is often lost through boring little details rather than some dramatic algorithmic disaster.

Reviews Aren’t Just About Stars

Would you choose a business with two reviews from four years ago or one with a healthy stream of recent feedback?

Most people would pick the second.

Reviews help potential customers decide whether they trust you.

They can also reinforce what your business does.

Suppose several customers naturally mention things like:

“SEO support”

“local search”

“website enquiries”

“Lichfield”

Those reviews provide extra context around the business.

Don’t tell people what to write. That’s awkward and can cross platform guidelines.

Just make asking for genuine reviews part of your normal process.

Local Content Doesn’t Mean Writing About the Christmas Lights

There’s a strange idea in SEO that local content means publishing endless blogs about anything happening nearby.

“Five Reasons We Love Lichfield Cathedral.”

Fine if you’re running a local tourism business.

Rather less useful if you’re selling commercial refrigeration.

Local content should connect location with customer intent.

A solicitor might write about issues affecting local businesses.

A commercial property company could analyse local development.

An SEO consultant could discuss how businesses in Lichfield compete for search visibility.

That’s useful context.

The location is relevant rather than bolted on.

What About AI Search?

This is where things have become interesting.

People no longer use Google alone.

They ask ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI tools questions such as:

“Who is the best local SEO company?”

“Which SEO agencies operate in Lichfield?”

“What should I look for in an SEO consultant?”

That doesn’t make traditional SEO irrelevant.

Quite the opposite.

AI systems still need information to work with.

Clear business information, useful content, genuine expertise, consistent references and third-party mentions all help build a stronger online footprint.

The terminology changes.

The underlying job remains familiar:

Make it easy to understand who you are, what you know and why somebody might trust you.

Can a Small Business Compete?

Yes.

And local search is one of the areas where smaller businesses can sometimes punch above their weight.

A national company may have more budget.

But a genuinely local business can have stronger local knowledge, better reviews, more relevant content and closer connections with the community it serves.

Money helps.

Relevance helps more than people sometimes realise.

We’ve seen small firms become obsessed with competing against giant national brands when the more sensible opportunity was sitting right under their nose.

Their local market.

Does Every Business Need Local SEO?

No.

There’s our mild contradiction.

We’ve spent this whole article explaining why local SEO matters, and now we’re saying you might not need it.

But that’s because SEO should follow the business model.

If you sell entirely online to customers across Britain, ranking specifically in Lichfield might add very little.

If you serve customers within 20 miles of your office, local SEO becomes much more important.

Ask yourself:

Does where my customer is located affect whether they buy from me?

If the answer is yes, local SEO probably deserves attention.

Don’t Chase Rankings for the Sake of Rankings

This is something we come back to again and again.

A number-one ranking looks lovely on a report.

But what happened next?

Did anybody call?

Did they complete a form?

Did they buy something?

Did the right people visit the website?

SEO should support the commercial goals of the business.

Traffic is useful.

Relevant traffic is better.

Relevant traffic which turns into business is better still.

So, Where Should You Begin?

Start with the basics.

Search for your own products and services.

Look at who appears.

Check your Google Business Profile.

Read your website as though you’ve never seen the business before.

Can you tell what you do within a few seconds?

Can you tell where you operate?

Would you trust the page?

Then look at your competitors.

Not to copy them.

To understand the search landscape.

SEO becomes much easier when you stop treating Google as a mysterious machine and start looking at the actual search results your customers see.

And that leads us neatly to the next question.

You understand what local SEO is.

But if you’re going to pay somebody to handle it, how do you choose the right SEO agency?

That’s exactly what we’ll cover next.

Next in the series

Read: How to Choose an SEO Agency in Lichfield

Or, if you’re already looking for support, visit our SEO Agency Lichfield page.