Services
SEO consultancy
Independent SEO for UK businesses: found in Google and Bing's organic results, and planned from the searches that turn into customers.
Being found without paying per click
Search engine optimisation is the work of earning a place in the results nobody pays for: the organic listings on Google and Bing, the map listings below a local search, and the pages Google's AI Overviews draw on.
Paid search and SEO do the same job on different terms. Ads need immediate and continued investment, are tightly targeted and can bring enquiries within hours. SEO is mid to long term, needs consistency and involves a wide range of factors, but once a page has earned its place, every click on it is free.
When a business tells me its web designer has "sorted the Google listing", my first question is "which one?" A results page has organic results, AI Overviews and AI Mode, ads and a Business Profile, and every client who comes to me with no presence on Google gets that short tour before anything else. This page is about the organic part.
What organic search is and how long it takes, next to ads and free listings, is in how to get your business on Google. This page is about doing it for you.
Planned from the searches that sell
Keyword tools tell you how often something is searched. None of them can tell you whether those searches turn into customers.
A Google Ads account can. Its search terms report lists the searches your ads appeared for, what each one cost and which turned into an enquiry or a sale. That's the most useful input an SEO plan can have, because it shows which terms produce revenue, not just volume.
So where you run Google Ads, or have in the past, the plan starts there: the searches that already bring you customers are the first ones worth ranking for. Where you don't, Search Console shows the searches you already appear for, and the plan starts from those.
What each source can tell you
| Source | What it shows | What it can't |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword tools | How often a search happens, and how hard it is to rank for | Whether it turns into customers |
| Search Console | Searches you already appear for, with impressions, clicks and position | Searches you don't appear for yet |
| Google Ads search terms | The searches your ads matched, with cost and conversions against each | Searches you've never bid on |
Linking Search Console to Google Ads adds a paid and organic report, which shows the searches where you appear in both. Where I run your Google Ads as well, the two go in one monthly report.
Where I start
Four questions, in this order, because a page Google and Bing can't find won't rank, however good it is.
Can Google and Bing find your pages?
A page has to be crawled and indexed before it can rank. A stray noindex, a blocked folder, a site rebuild that lost its redirects or a sitemap nobody submitted can each keep good pages out of the results.
Is there a page for each thing you sell?
Google ranks pages, not businesses. If every service sits on one page, or a page is named after what you call it rather than what customers search, there's nothing for most of the searches to land on.
Do customers visit your premises?
If you have a shop, office or other location people come to, a Google Business Profile is the obvious next step, and for a shop people walk into it's paramount. It still matters if you travel to your customers, because it's what puts you on the map for a local search.
Does anyone else vouch for you?
Links and mentions from other sites are how a search engine judges whether a business is worth trusting. Your own site is only your word; a trade body, a supplier or the local paper linking to you is evidence.
Not sure which one is holding you back? Thirty minutes on a free call usually finds it.
Talk through your siteWhat I do
A baseline before anything changes, then the fixes and the content, measured in Search Console and GA4 every month.
4–12 months
is how long you may wait from starting the improvements to seeing results, according to Google's own guidance on hiring a search engine optimisation (SEO) specialist.
- Technical SEO
- Keyword research
- Content
- Local SEO
- Links and mentions
- Bing
Before anything changes
Record your baseline
Where you rank now, the clicks and impressions Search Console shows for searches other than your business name, and the enquiries or sales organic visits bring in GA4. Without it, nobody can say later whether the work did anything.
Technical
Crawling and indexing
Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools verified, your sitemap submitted, and the pages that should be in the results checked to be there.
robots.txt, canonical tags and straynoindextags put right.Speed and mobile
Page speed and Core Web Vitals measured on a phone as well as a desktop, and the slowest pages fixed first.
Site structure
Pages linked so a search engine can see what matters, and redirects in place whenever a page moves, so a redesign doesn't throw away what the old pages had earned.
Structured data
Organization or LocalBusiness markup, and FAQ or product markup where the page genuinely carries it: the machine-readable version of what the page says.
On-page and content
A keyword plan
The searches worth owning, started from the ones that already bring you customers, each matched to the page that should answer it. Where no page does, the gap goes on the plan, in order of what it's worth to you.
Existing pages improved
Titles and descriptions written for the search, the answer near the top, and the page brought up to date with what you sell now. I can make the changes myself or brief them for you or your web designer, depending on the level of service you want.
New content, written
Pages and articles for the gaps: genuinely useful, carrying what you know from doing the work, and built on Google's E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authority and trust) rather than AI output dressed up. I can write them myself or brief them for you or your writer.
Local
Your Business Profile
Set up or recovered, in your name and owned by you, with the right categories, service areas and photos. How it works is in the Google Business Profile guide.
One set of details, everywhere
The same name, address and phone number on your site, your Business Profile, Bing Places and the directories that list you, because disagreement between them is a reason for a search engine to doubt them.
Reviews
A simple way to ask happy customers for one, and a habit of replying to every review, good or bad.
Links and mentions
Earned, not bought
Trade bodies, suppliers, partners, local press and the directories that matter in your sector. Buying links breaks Google's spam policies and can cost you the rankings you have. I can go after the mentions for you, or tell you where they should come from and leave the asking to you.
Measurement
One report
Rankings, Search Console clicks and the enquiries or sales organic visits bring in, each month against the baseline, in the same report as your paid search where I run that too.
How we'll know it's working
Rankings are the easy number to watch and the least useful on their own. What matters is whether organic visits turn into customers.
Each month the report sets three things against the baseline: where the agreed searches rank, the clicks Search Console records for searches other than your business name, and the enquiries or sales GA4 attributes to organic search. Searches for your own name are left out, because you'd get most of those anyway.
Expect gradual progress. Technical fixes are often picked up within weeks; ranking for searches other businesses already own takes months. Google's own video on hiring a search engine optimisation (SEO) specialist puts it at four months to a year from making the improvements to seeing a potential benefit, and that's the window to judge it in. It's a judging window, not a minimum term.
Nobody can guarantee a ranking. Google's guidance on hiring an SEO specialist says it outright: no one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google. Anyone promising one is promising something only Google controls.
AI Overviews come with it. Google builds AI Overviews and AI Mode from the same index as its organic results, so the work on this page is the work they draw on. Being named in ChatGPT and the other AI tools has a few more steps, covered on AI SEO.
Want to know where you stand now? On a free call we can look at what Search Console already shows for your site.
Book a free intro callWhat it costs
Flat fees, set the same way as my other services: a fixed fee for the groundwork, then a flat monthly fee for the work that keeps going.
Both depend on how much of the work you want me to do. Writing your pages and chasing links myself is a bigger job than briefing you or your web designer to do them, and the fee says so.
It's quoted after the intro call; how fees are set is on Services.
The groundwork
The baseline, the technical fixes, the keyword plan and your Business Profile. A fixed fee, agreed before any work starts.
The ongoing work
Content, page improvements, links and mentions, and the monthly report. Judged over four months to a year.
Common questions
How long does it take?
Google's own guidance puts it at four months to a year from making the improvements to seeing a potential benefit. Technical fixes are often picked up within weeks; ranking for searches other businesses already own takes longer, because it rests on content and on links you don't control. Judge it on that timescale, not on the first month.
Can you guarantee a number one ranking?
No. Google says so itself: no one can guarantee a number one ranking. What I can do is remove the reasons Google and Bing can't rank you, build the pages that deserve to, and report every month on whether they're moving.
Do I need SEO if I run Google Ads?
Not always straight away. Ads need continued investment and can bring traffic within hours; SEO is mid to long term and costs nothing per click once it's earned. Which comes first depends on your business, your budget and how soon you need results. If you run both, your ads show which searches produce customers, and that's where the SEO plan starts.
Does it cover Google's AI Overviews?
Yes. Google builds AI Overviews and AI Mode from its own search index, so the pages SEO gets indexed and ranked are the pages they draw on. Being named in ChatGPT, Claude and the other AI tools is a related job with a few extra steps, and it's sold separately as AI SEO.
Do you write the content?
Either. I can write the pages and make the changes myself, or brief them for you, your writer or your web designer, depending on the level of service you want. The fee follows that choice.
What's keeping your site off page one?
Thirty minutes, free. Whether Google can find your pages, which searches are worth owning, and what to fix first.