Getting found, without the usual nonsense
SEO has a bad reputation because a lot of it is sold on promises nobody can keep. We will not promise you position one, because no agency controls Google.
What we can do is make sure your site is technically sound, structured around what people actually type, genuinely useful on the page, and visible in local results. That is the work that moves rankings over months, not days.
You get a plain report each month showing what changed, what it did, and what is next. If it is not working we will tell you, rather than quietly billing you for another six months.
What the work involves
- Technical fixes: speed, mobile, crawlability, broken links, indexing
- Keyword research based on real search demand, not guesses
- Page structure, titles and descriptions written to match intent
- Local search: Google Business Profile, map results, consistent details
- Content written to answer the questions people are actually asking
- Monthly reporting in plain English, with the raw numbers available
How long before it works
Technical improvements can show within weeks. Ranking for competitive commercial terms typically takes three to six months of consistent work, and longer for a brand new domain. Anyone quoting you faster than that on a competitive term is guessing.
What we will not do
We do not buy links, spin content or use private blog networks. These produce a short-lived bump followed by a penalty that is expensive and slow to recover from.
What happens in the first ninety days
Most of the value in the first quarter comes from removing problems rather than adding content. It is unglamorous and it is where the fastest gains are.
- Month one: a full technical audit, then fixing what it finds: speed, mobile problems, broken links, pages accidentally blocked from being indexed, duplicate titles. Google Business Profile claimed and completed. Search Console and analytics connected so there is a baseline to measure against.
- Month two, the pages themselves. Titles and descriptions rewritten against what people actually search rather than internal jargon; page structure fixed so each page targets one clear thing; the pages you are missing entirely identified and written.
- Month three: the ongoing pattern begins: new content against real demand, internal linking, local citations, and the first report that compares like for like against the baseline.
You will usually see movement on long-tail and local terms within this window. Competitive head terms take longer, and we will say so at the start rather than implying otherwise.
Local search and national search are different jobs
It is worth knowing which one you are buying, because the work and the timescale are not the same.
Local search is about appearing in the map results and the "near me" queries for your area. The levers are a properly completed Google Business Profile, consistent name, address and phone details everywhere they appear, genuine reviews, and pages that are actually about your area rather than a template with the town name swapped in. For a trade, a clinic or a restaurant this is nearly all of the available return, and it can move within weeks.
National search is about competing for terms every business in the country wants. It rests on content depth, technical quality and links earned over time. It is slower, it costs more, and for a lot of local businesses it is simply not where their customers are. We will tell you which of the two your business should be spending on.
Being found in AI answers, not just blue links
A growing share of searches now end with an answer generated on the page, Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, Perplexity, rather than a click through to a website. That does not make search optimisation obsolete, but it does change what gets you cited.
The things that work are largely the honest ones: answering a specific question clearly and early on the page, structure a machine can parse, factual accuracy that matches what other sources say about you, and being unambiguous about who you are, where you operate and what you charge. Pages written to fill a word count and bury the answer perform badly here, which is a welcome change.
Concretely we make sure your site can be read by the AI crawlers that matter, that key facts are in structured data rather than only in prose, and that each page contains a passage that directly answers the question it targets. Our own site is built the same way, and the technical parts of it are included in every website we build at no extra cost.
Signs your current SEO is not working
If you already pay someone, these are the things worth checking before you renew.
- Reports show rankings for terms nobody would type, or "impressions" with no enquiries attached
- You cannot get a straight answer about what was actually done last month
- The contract runs twelve months with no break clause
- Links have appeared from directories and blogs unrelated to your industry
- Content is being published weekly and none of it answers a question a customer has
- Nobody has ever asked you which enquiries turned into paying work
We will review an existing arrangement and tell you whether it is worth keeping, including when the answer is that it is fine and you should stay.
Common questions
Can you guarantee first place on Google?
No, and nobody honestly can. Google does not sell or promise organic positions, and any agency guaranteeing one is either misleading you or planning to rank you for a term nobody searches for.
Am I tied into a contract?
No. It is month to month. We would rather keep you because the work is producing results than because you cannot leave.
Do I need SEO if you build my site?
Every site we build ships search-ready, structure, speed and schema are included at no extra cost. Ongoing SEO is only worth paying for if you are competing for terms other businesses are also chasing.
Do you build links?
We earn them; we do not buy them. That means digital PR, genuine local citations, industry directories that real people use, and content worth referencing. It is slower than buying a package of a hundred links, and it does not carry the risk of a manual penalty that takes months to lift.
How do I know it is working?
By enquiries, not rankings. Rankings are a means to an end and are easy to report flatteringly. We track the terms that bring people who actually contact you, and we tie enquiries back to the page and the source that produced them, so the question "did this month pay for itself" has a real answer.
What does SEO actually cost?
Ours starts at £150 a month for a local business in an uncompetitive area and £300 upward where you are fighting for it. A one-off audit is £300 if you would rather have the findings and act on them yourself. Below roughly £150 a month nobody can do meaningful work, if you are quoted £50, you are buying an automated report.
Will moving to a new website hurt my rankings?
It can, and this is where a lot of rebuilds quietly lose traffic. It is avoidable: keep the URLs that already rank or redirect them properly, carry the page structure across, and check indexing after launch rather than assuming. We do this as standard on every rebuild, because inheriting a ranking problem we created is not a good start.
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Describe the project in a couple of sentences and we will come back with a fixed price and a realistic timescale. No obligation, and no sales sequence.
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