Local SEO

If your business serves a specific area but doesn’t show up in the local pack on Google or rank for “[your service] near me” searches, you’re losing customers to competitors who do — even when you do better work. Local SEO closes that gap.

I work with small and mid-size businesses across NJ, NY, and the UK to fix the signals Google uses to decide which local businesses to show in search results, Maps, and the “near me” pack. Done right, local SEO is one of the highest-ROI marketing channels available — most leads cost nothing per click and convert at meaningfully higher rates than paid traffic.

What’s Included

A typical local SEO engagement covers the on-site and off-site signals that move local rankings:

• Google Business Profile optimisation — categories, services, attributes, photos, posts, Q&A, and the dozen small fields most businesses leave blank
• NAP consistency audit — name, address, phone number standardisation across web directories and citation sites
• Local citation building and cleanup — getting your business listed (correctly) on the directories that feed Google’s local algorithm
• Location-specific landing pages — programmatic or hand-built pages targeting “[service] in [city]” queries you’re losing today
• LocalBusiness schema markup — proper JSON-LD so Google understands your service area, hours, and offerings
• Review acquisition strategy — systems to consistently earn Google reviews from happy customers (without buying them)
• On-site local signals — embedded Maps, NAP in footer, location-specific content, internal linking

How It Works

1. Audit — I review your current local visibility, GBP setup, citations, on-site signals, and competitive landscape. You get a written report with prioritised actions.
2. Strategy call — We talk through what’s worth doing in what order, based on your service area, competition, and budget.
3. Execution — I do the work. GBP optimisation typically takes the first 2 weeks; citations and on-site changes roll out over 4-8 weeks.
4. Measurement — Monthly reporting tracking rankings, GBP insights, and actual leads — not vanity metrics.

Is This Right for Your Business?

Local SEO works best for businesses that serve customers in a defined geographic area — restaurants, contractors, professional services, medical practices, retail. It’s not the right fit for purely online businesses with no physical presence or service area.

It’s also probably not right if you’re expecting overnight results. Local SEO compounds; meaningful ranking improvements typically take 3-6 months to materialise, and the businesses that win are the ones that commit to consistency.

Why Work With Me on Local SEO

Most local SEO agencies sell a “package” — a set number of citations, a few blog posts, a monthly report. That’s not strategy, that’s a content quota. I work the other way: figure out what’s actually blocking your local visibility, fix those specific things, then move to the next constraint.

I’m also a developer, which matters more than it sounds. A lot of local SEO problems are technical — missing schema, slow sites, broken canonical tags, mismanaged redirects. Most local SEO consultants can flag those issues but can’t fix them. I can do both. Often paired with on-page SEO and technical SEO for a full local visibility engagement.

Pricing & Timeline

Local SEO engagements typically start at $1,500/month with a 3-month minimum, or one-time audit-and-fix projects in the $2,500-$5,000 range. Pricing depends on competition in your area, the size of your service footprint, and whether we’re starting from zero or optimising an existing setup. Every engagement has a fixed scope and clear deliverables — no retainers that drift into vague “ongoing support.”

Ready to Talk?

Free 30-minute consultation. I’ll look at your current local visibility before the call and come prepared with specific observations about what’s working, what isn’t, and what would move the needle fastest. No pressure. No sales script. Schedule a call or send a note to info@iamchrishurst.com.