Local SEO in Leicester, built into the website. Not sold afterwards.
A website that nobody finds is a brochure. So the work that gets you found is part of building it, not an upsell once you have paid for a site that cannot be found.
What SEO
actually is.
Search engine optimisation is the work of making Google understand what your business does and where, so it shows you to the people looking for it.
Nothing more mystical than that. Google reads your website and your Google Business Profile, works out what you do, and decides whether you are a better answer than the business down the road. SEO is the ongoing job of making that decision easier and making the answer yes.
It is not advertising. You are not paying Google, and nothing here is a sponsored slot. It is not a single setting somebody switches on either — it is dozens of small decisions about how the site is built, which is why it belongs in the build rather than in an invoice that arrives afterwards.
And it is not a trick. Anything that promises to game the ranking works until Google notices, and then it costs you more than it ever earned. There is no clever shortcut in any of this, which is why so much of the industry would rather you did not know what the work actually is.
The work itself
SEO has a reputation
for being vague
on purpose.
Here is the specific list.
- 01
Keyword research and targeting
Finding what people in Leicester actually type when they need your business — then making sure a page on your site is built to answer exactly that.
- 02
On-page work
Titles, headings, copy and internal links, page by page. The unglamorous part that does most of the lifting.
- 03
Google Business Profile
The highest-leverage thing in local search, and the one most local businesses leave half-finished. Set up properly and matched exactly to the site, ready for you to keep current.
- 04
Consistent details everywhere
Your name, number and area identical across the site and your Google listing. Inconsistency is the most common and most expensive local SEO mistake there is.
- 05
Search Console, connected
Set up and handed over on launch day, so you can see what you are being found for rather than take anyone's word for it.
- 06
Speed and the technical groundwork
Fast pages, clean markup, the structured data search engines read, a sitemap that is actually submitted. The part nobody sells because it cannot be photographed.
Why local
is the whole game.
Nobody in Leicester is searching for the best electrician in Britain.
They are searching for one near them, right now, who can come out. That is good news: competing nationally against thousands of businesses is close to hopeless, while competing in Leicester against the handful of firms who have bothered to do this properly is very winnable.
It also means the work is specific. The pages target service-and-place terms. The links come from local sources. The Google Business Profile does a lot of the heavy lifting. And when the phone rings, it is someone eight miles away with a job.
What it costs
Nothing extra.
It is in the build.
There is no separate SEO fee and nothing to add on afterwards. Every package on the pricing page includes the work above, because a site nobody can find is not finished.
What you get on launch day
Pages built around what people actually search for, the titles and headings written to match, the technical groundwork done, and your Google Business Profile set up properly and matched to the site.
Search Console connected and handed over, so you can see what you are being found for without asking anybody.
What is not included
Ongoing monthly SEO. We are not selling that at the moment. The foundation is built in and the access is yours; keeping it moving is on you for now.
Google Ads. Anything paid is separate — we will tell you if we think it is worth it, and we do not take a cut of your ad spend.
Social media. Posting for you is not part of this and we would rather not pretend it is SEO.
What we need
from you.
About an hour at the start, then very little.
The first conversation is the bit that matters: what you actually want more of, which jobs pay best, which ones you would rather stop being rung about, and the towns you genuinely cover. Nobody else can tell us that, and getting it wrong costs months.
After that: access to your Google Business Profile if it exists, and photographs for the site. Real ones, off your phone, of work you have actually done. A handful of those beats a stock library, and it is the single easiest thing a client can do to help.
You will not be chased for content, asked to approve a keyword spreadsheet, or invited to calls that could have been an email. If we need something we will ask once, plainly, and tell you what it is holding up.
When not
to bother.
A new website is wrong for some businesses, and we would rather say so than take the money.
If you are booked solid and not trying to grow, it is a cost with nothing to do. If you are about to change what you sell or where you work, wait until that has settled, because we would be building for a business that is on its way out.
And if the site you have is fine and simply needs its listing sorted, say so. That is an afternoon of your own time rather than a job for us, and we would rather tell you than sell you a rebuild you did not need.
And if your Google Business Profile has never been filled in, start there. It is free, it takes an afternoon, and for a lot of local businesses it does more than the first three months of anything else. If that is all you need, do it yourself — here is how.
What that means
round here.
Local SEO in Leicester is a different job to local SEO in Melton Mowbray, and pretending otherwise is how agencies justify charging everyone the same for the same work. In the city you are competing against businesses that have been at it for years, plus national firms bidding on the same terms with far bigger budgets. In the market towns you are often competing against businesses that have never finished their Google listing.
That changes where the effort goes when we build. For a city business, most of it goes into the pages — one for each job you actually want, in the words customers use, because the broad terms are already taken and the specific ones are winnable. For a town business, most of it goes into the listing and making the details match everywhere, because that is usually enough to move you into the map pack.
It also changes what we tell you to expect. A business in Lutterworth or Market Harborough can reasonably hope to see movement inside a few months. A business chasing a competitive term in Leicester is looking at longer, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you the feeling of progress rather than the thing itself.
Questions we get asked
How long before I see results?
Longer than anyone selling it would like to admit — think months rather than weeks. A new site has to be found, understood and then trusted, and the last part is the slow one. We will not promise page one in thirty days, because that is not something anyone can control. We would rather lose the job than start it with a promise we cannot keep.
What are backlinks and do I need them?
A backlink is another website linking to yours, and Google treats it as a vote of confidence. For a local business the useful ones are local: suppliers, trade bodies, local directories, the chamber of commerce. A handful of genuine local links beats hundreds of junk ones, which can actively hurt you.
Can you do this on a website you did not build?
Not at the moment. The work below is part of how we build a site rather than something we bolt onto someone else's, and some site builders make half of it impossible anyway. If your current site is the thing holding you back, we will say so — and that is a rebuild conversation, not an SEO one.
Is there a monthly fee for this?
No. It is in the price of the build, and there is nothing to add on afterwards. You get Search Console access on launch day so you can see what the site is being found for yourself.
What about the ongoing work — new pages, links, posts?
That is a real thing and it does move the needle, but we are not selling it as a monthly service at the moment. What we build gives you the foundation and the access to keep it going yourself, and the blog walks through how. If that changes we will say so here rather than quietly add a line to an invoice.
What if my competitors are doing the same thing?
Some will be, most are not. Across a lot of Leicester, the businesses at the top of the map pack got there by filling in a listing properly once, several years ago. That is a lower bar than people assume, and it is beatable by doing the same thing consistently.
Do you do national SEO?
No. Everything here is built around somebody searching for a business near them, and that is a different discipline to competing nationally. If that is what you need, we would rather say so at the start than take the work and learn on your money.
Looking for
an SEO agency?
We do not sell monthly SEO at the moment. What we do is build the groundwork into the website, set up your Google Business Profile, and hand Search Console over on launch day. If your website is already good and you only want ongoing SEO, we are not the right fit, and we will say so.