Local SEO is how a UK small business gets found when someone within five miles searches for what you do. It's not the same as national SEO — different ranking factors, different tools, different mistakes. This playbook is what we'd hand to any UK owner who wanted to do it themselves over a quiet weekend.
Three layers stack on top of each other:
If you only do one, do GBP. If you can do two, add citations. The full stack is what pulls you above competitors who only do GBP.
We've covered this in detail in the Google Business Profile guide. The headline: claim it, fill every field, pick the right primary category, post weekly, and reply to every review within 24 hours. If your GBP isn't doing those five things, no amount of website work will rescue your ranking.
A citation is any mention of your business name, address and phone (NAP) on another website. Google uses them to verify you exist and are who you say you are. Not all citations are equal — UK-specific directories pull more weight than global ones.
The Tier 1 list for any UK business (these are free and worth the hour):
Tier 2 — industry-specific UK directories. These are often higher-value than the generic ones:
| Sector | Citations that matter |
|---|---|
| Trades | Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Rated People, TrustATrader, FENSA, Gas Safe |
| Hospitality | OpenTable, ResDiary, TripAdvisor, SquareMeal, Hardens |
| Beauty / wellness | Treatwell, Booksy, Fresha |
| Health | Doctify, NHS Choices, Top Doctors UK |
| Legal / pro services | Law Society Find a Solicitor, ICAEW, Legal 500 |
| Vehicle | Trustpilot, Garage Comparison, Service My Car |
Three on-page elements drive local rankings:
Footer NAP block on every page, identical to your GBP. Internal link to your Contact page from every page.
Schema is structured data that tells Google exactly what your page is. For local businesses, the most important type is LocalBusiness (or a more specific subtype like Plumber, Restaurant, Dentist). Drop this into the <head> of your homepage, replacing the bracketed values:
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "LocalBusiness",
"name": "[Business name]",
"image": "[https://yoursite.co.uk/photo.jpg]",
"telephone": "+44 20 1234 5678",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "[street]",
"addressLocality": "[town]",
"postalCode": "[postcode]",
"addressCountry": "GB"
},
"geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": [lat], "longitude": [lng] },
"openingHours": "Mo-Fr 09:00-18:00",
"priceRange": "££",
"url": "https://yoursite.co.uk"
}
</script>
Test it with Google's Rich Results Test. Errors are usually missing fields or wrong types.
The blog posts that move local rankings answer questions buyers type with a town in them. Examples:
Aim for 800–1,500 words. Use the town name 4–6 times naturally. Link out to local landmarks (Wikipedia of the town, the local council, a relevant venue) — these "co-occurrence" signals matter.
National backlink tactics are a slog. For a local UK business, three sources are gold:
Roughly 70% of UK local searches happen on a phone. Google penalises slow mobile sites in local rankings. Aim for:
| Metric | Target |
|---|---|
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | Under 2.5 seconds |
| INP (Interaction to Next Paint) | Under 200ms |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | Under 0.1 |
Test at PageSpeed Insights. The fastest wins on small business sites: properly sized images, lazy loading, removing unused JavaScript, and a fast UK-based host.
Three reports — monthly:
Ignore overall domain authority. Ignore traffic from outside your service area. These are vanity metrics for local businesses.
If you do exactly this, you'll see ranking movement by week 8 in most UK markets:
Local SEO is one of nine services we run end-to-end for UK small businesses. We do every step in this article, every month, in your voice.
See Local SEO →