For businesses that serve a patch of the valley
Local SEO and Google Business Profile for the Thames Valley
Turn up on the map when someone in Marlow, Windsor or Wokingham searches for what you do, with a profile, reviews and pages that follow Google's rules.
Who it's for
Businesses whose customers are a short drive or walk away
Local SEO suits trades, clinics, solicitors, estate agents, salons, shops, cafes and venues. If your work comes from a few towns, local search is probably where it is won or lost.
The valley makes this more interesting than it looks. Towns run into each other along the river, so a business in Bourne End is searched for in Marlow and Maidenhead too. Being found in all three honestly is the subject of the rest of this page.
If you sell to other businesses across a wider area, B2B SEO is the better fit.
What's included
Profile, reviews, citations, pages and a report
Set up once with a Towpath website, then kept up every month on a retainer.
A Google Business Profile, set up and looked after
The right primary category, services, opening hours that include bank holidays, photographs, an enquiry link and regular posts. The profile uses your real trading name, because stuffing keywords into it breaks Google's guidelines and can get a listing suspended.
Reviews, asked for within Google's rules
An easy way for every customer to leave a review, a reply to every review that arrives and a plan for the unfair one-star. The reviews section below has the detail.
Citations on the sites that matter
Your name, address and details appear consistently on the directories and trade bodies relevant to your work. We fix the handful that matter and ignore the hundreds that do not.
Town pages that are worth reading
Pages for the towns you serve, written only where there is something true and specific to say. The town pages section below explains how we decide.
On-site foundations
A page for each service, clear details of where you work, local schema markup and fast loading on a phone. A Towpath site includes all of this.
Reports in plain English
Google shows how many people called, asked for directions or clicked through from your profile. We report those alongside the enquiries that reached you, once a month, in words.
A named person
Hattie Clarke manages profiles, reviews and town pages for clients from Henley to Windsor, so you know who to email.
Reviews
Reviews, within Google's rules
Reviews are the most useful and the most abused part of local search. Google's rules are plain enough. Ask any customer, not only the pleased ones. Never pay for a review, offer a discount for one or enter reviewers into a draw. Never write your own, and never ask staff to.
Inside those rules there is plenty to do. We make asking easy, with a direct link to your review form in the email after a job, on a card at the till or behind a QR code on the table. We reply to every review, kindly, including the unfair ones, because a calm answer is read by every future customer who scrolls past it.
If a review breaks Google's policies, because it is not from a real customer or is plainly off-topic, we flag it. If it is merely unfavourable, we answer it. Hattie sets out the approach in reviews that actually help local rankings.
Town pages
Pages that could not be mistaken for another town
A page for Marlow should only exist if it could never be mistaken for a page about Windsor.
The lazy way to rank in several towns is to copy one page and change the place name. Google calls these doorway pages, and they are against its spam policies.
A page for Marlow earns its place when there is something true to say about Marlow. That might be the customers you serve there, the streets and landmarks you know, and the neighbouring towns it overlaps with. If we cannot write something specific, you do not get the page.
Google's profile rules draw a similar line. A business can have a profile where it has staffed premises. Elsewhere it sets a service area and describes it honestly, without inventing addresses in towns it does not work from.
Hattie explains the method in ranking in more than one Thames Valley town without doorway pages, and every town we cover has a page written the same way.
What it costs
Set up with the site, then kept up monthly
Prices are before VAT.
Towpath
£2,400–£3,800
A sharp five-to-eight page site for one location, with local SEO and Google Business Profile set up properly.
SEO retainers
from £650 a month
Monthly local or content-led SEO, reported in plain English.
Each month Hattie checks the profile for changes, because customers and Google can both suggest edits to a listing. She answers reviews with you, posts updates, looks at how searches in your towns have moved and sends a short note saying what happened and what she would do next. A larger site with pages across the valley is a Reach, £4,500–£8,500.
Related
Industries where local search decides the day
Towns
- MaidenheadBerkshire
- Bourne EndBuckinghamshire
- WokinghamBerkshire
- BeaconsfieldBuckinghamshire
- WindsorBerkshire
Composite work
A riverside restaurant near Bray. Google showed winter hours in June until the listing was put right.
Questions
What people ask about local SEO
Do I need a website if I have a Google Business Profile?
Yes. The profile gets you onto the map and the website is where people decide. Google also reads the site to understand what you do.
How long does local SEO take?
A well-set-up profile can start to improve soon after the changes are made. Rankings that depend on reviews, links and new pages take months, and the gains tend to arrive steadily. We tell you what to expect in the first conversation.
Can you guarantee a top spot on the map?
No, and be wary of anyone who does. Nobody controls Google's results. We control the quality of your profile, reviews and pages, and report openly on how searches in your towns are moving.
Is it all right to ask customers for reviews?
Yes, and Google encourages it. The rules are about how you ask. Ask everyone, offer nothing in return and never choose who gets asked.
I serve several towns but work from one. Can I have a profile in each?
Only where you have a staffed premises. Otherwise you set a service area on a single profile and use honest town pages on your website to show the work you do in each place.
What does it cost?
A Towpath website, £2,400–£3,800, includes local SEO and a Google Business Profile set up properly. Ongoing local SEO is from £650 a month, before VAT, reported in plain English.
Start a project
Tell us what the website needs to do
A short note is plenty. Tell us what you sell, where, and what isn't working, and you'll get a straight answer within a working day, even when the answer is that you don't need us.
