Local search engine optimization services, on published evidence

Agencies with a verified published price

How to buy local SEO without overbuying

1. Fix the profile before you buy a retainer. Google's local ranking guidance says results are ordered by relevance, distance and prominence, and tells businesses to enter complete data, verify their locations, keep hours accurate and manage reviews. A single location with a neglected profile can gain more from a week of that than from a year of retainer.
2. Count locations, because that is the price. Local work scales per location: each one needs its own profile, its own landing page, its own citations and its own review flow. Ask every provider to quote per location and for your exact count, so two proposals become comparable instead of two different jobs at one number.
3. Ask how reviews are solicited. Reviews drive prominence, and how they are gathered is where local providers get businesses into trouble. Ask for the exact request wording and the incentive policy in writing, and refuse any programme that conditions a reward on a positive review.
4. Insist on call and direction tracking. Local outcomes are calls, direction requests and form fills, not sessions. Agree before signing which of those are counted, how call tracking numbers are implemented so they do not fragment your name and address data, and who owns the tracking account.

What the money buys, layer by layer

The base layer is the Google Business Profile for each location: categories, services, hours, photos, questions and posts, kept accurate. The second layer is on-site, meaning a genuine page per location with distinct content, embedded map, staff and local proof, plus service pages that name the areas served without spawning a page for every town. The third is citations and local references, which is the slow, unglamorous work of making the business findable and consistent across the wider web. The fourth is reviews, treated as an operating process rather than a campaign.

Prices in the index cluster low for single-location retainers and rise steeply with location count and with category competitiveness. Legal, medical and home services cost more in the same city than a boutique does, because the number of businesses competing for the same map pack is higher. Each published figure links back to the agency page it came from with the date it was checked.

Where local SEO goes wrong

The most common failure is city page sprawl. Google's spam policies name doorway pages, meaning pages created to rank for many similar queries that funnel users to a single destination, and a hundred near-identical town pages built from one template is the textbook example. It is sold as coverage and it is a risk, not an asset.

The second failure is review manipulation. The FTC announced a final rule in August 2024 prohibiting the sale or purchase of fake reviews and testimonials, prohibiting compensation conditioned on reviews expressing a particular sentiment, and allowing the agency to seek civil penalties against knowing violators. Google's own Business Profile content policies separately prohibit fake engagement. A provider offering to seed reviews is offering a liability, and the business whose profile it is carries it.

Questions people actually ask

How much do local SEO services cost per month?

Single-location retainers start low and multi-location programmes run well into four figures a month, because the work scales per location. The index shows the median across verified agencies that publish a price; compare providers at your own location count rather than at their advertised floor.

What actually decides local rankings?

Google's own guidance states that local results are based on relevance, distance and prominence, and recommends entering complete business information, verifying locations, keeping hours accurate, managing and responding to reviews, and adding photos. Distance you cannot change; relevance and prominence are what the work targets.

Can we pay customers to leave five star reviews?

No. The FTC's 2024 final rule prohibits providing compensation or incentives conditioned on reviews expressing a particular sentiment, and platform policies prohibit fake engagement separately. Asking every customer for an honest review is fine; paying for a rating is not.

Do we need a page for every town we serve?

Almost never. Google's spam policies name doorway pages, meaning near-duplicate pages built to catch similar queries and funnel users to one place. Build genuine pages where you have a real presence and cover the rest with honest service-area content on fewer, stronger pages.

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