When a local business tells us “we don’t really get customers from the internet,” it’s almost never because their customers aren’t searching. It’s one of five fixable problems — here they are, in the order that actually moves the needle.
1. Google has nothing to show
No website, or a Facebook page standing in for one. Google can’t rank what doesn’t exist. One of our clients — a reptile and aquatics shop in Ashford — ran for years on phone calls alone. Their first website did 1,500 visits in month one, 75% of them straight from Google search, and turned those into 39 enquiries and roughly 20 new customers.
2. Your Google Business Profile is unclaimed or half-dead
The map listing is what shows first for “near me” searches. Claim it, fill every field, add real photos, and post to it regularly. It’s free, and for many local searches it matters more than your website does.
3. One page trying to rank for everything
Google ranks pages, not businesses. If you serve three services across four towns, a single homepage can’t rank for all twelve searches. Each service-plus-place combination that matters to you needs its own genuine page — not a template with the town name swapped.
4. The site is slow and awkward on a phone
Most local searches happen on a phone, often urgently. If your site takes six seconds to load or the phone number isn’t tappable, people go back and tap the next result — and Google notices them doing it.
5. Nothing on the site ever changes
A site that hasn’t changed since 2021 tells Google the business might not have either. Answering the questions your customers actually ask — prices, comparisons, “how do I…” — is the most reliable way to keep earning new searches. It’s also exactly the kind of work a content system can do on autopilot.
The order matters
Do them in that sequence. A content plan on a slow site with no Business Profile is decorating a house with no front door. If you want the shortcut, this five-step sequence is what our website and Google presence build installs as one system.