Local SEO · Carmarthenshire
Being found in Carmarthen is mostly unglamorous work.
There is no trick to local search. It is a Google Business Profile filled in properly, pages that say what you do and where you do it, and a site that loads on a phone in a bad signal area. We do that work as part of building the site, which is why there is no SEO plan to buy on top.
No. 01
What local SEO actually is
For a business serving Carmarthen and the villages around it, local search comes down to a short list. None of it is secret and none of it needs a monthly retainer to keep happening.
- A Google Business Profile that is claimed, categorised correctly and actually filled in: hours, service area, photos that are yours
- The same business name, address and phone number wherever you appear, spelled the same way every time
- A page for each thing you do, in the words a customer would use, naming the places you cover
- Page titles and descriptions written for those services and that area, not left as the template
- Structured data, so Google can read what kind of business this is without guessing
- Speed on a real phone on real mobile data, because that is where most of your visitors are
- Reviews from customers who genuinely wanted to leave one
No. 02
Why it is included rather than sold
Most of that list is done once, properly, while the site is being built. Titles get written as the pages get written. The profile gets set up as the business goes live. Treating it as a separate monthly product would mean deliberately leaving it out of the build so it could be sold back to you, and we would rather just do it.
So local SEO is part of £49 a month, along with the design, the build, the hosting and the looking after. There is no separate SEO invoice, no retainer, and no hourly rate anywhere.
No. 03
What nobody selling SEO wants to say
Nobody can promise you a position. Google does not sell them and does not take requests, so any guarantee of a number one spot is either a guess dressed up as a promise or a bet on a search term nobody types. If a proposal contains a guaranteed ranking, that is the most useful thing it will tell you.
Be careful of a monthly fee with no named deliverables. Ask what specifically gets done each month and what changes on the site as a result. If the answer is a report, ask what the report is meant to make you do. Impressions and “visibility scores” go up on their own; enquiries are the number that pays wages. Our guide to reading a quote covers the same trick as it appears in build pricing.
And nobody should be buying you reviews. Aside from being against Google’s rules, a run of glowing reviews written by strangers is obvious to the neighbours who make up most of your customers.
No. 04
How long it takes, honestly
Months, not weeks. A new site on a new domain has no history, and Google is slow to trust anything it has just met. The map results usually move first, because a properly set up profile is the fastest win available. The ordinary search results take longer and depend on how many other people are chasing the same words. Anyone who gives you a date is making it up.
No. 05
If you already have a site
Start with the free health check. It will tell you what state the site is in and whether the basics above are in place, which is usually where the problem is. We also cover the wider county on web design in Carmarthenshire.