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Local SEO is the work that helps you show up when someone nearby searches for what you do: “electrician Oswestry”, “café near me” in Ludlow, “dog groomer Newtown”. This checklist covers the jobs that matter most for small businesses in Shropshire and Powys, in the order we’d do them. Most of it is free and needs nothing more than an hour or two.
Try the free tool: our local SEO checklist generator builds a prioritised list for your business. Tell it how customers reach you, your main service and your area, tick what you’ve already done, and it puts the most important jobs at the top.
Why local search works differently here
Shropshire and Powys are big, rural and split by a national border. That causes a few problems you won’t find in a city:
- Customers search by town, by village and sometimes by county, so “Welshpool”, “Montgomeryshire” and “mid Wales” can all mean your patch.
- Many businesses work from home and travel to customers, so there’s no shopfront address to show.
- Postal addresses on the border can say Shropshire when the council is Powys, and old directory listings often disagree.
- Mobile signal is patchy, so a slow site loses people before it loads.
The checklist below deals with each of these. For more on cross-border searches, see our guide to local SEO on the Welsh border.
Step 1: Get your details right first
Before you add any new listings, fix the ones you have. Search for your business name and phone number in Google and note every place it appears.
- Business name written the same way everywhere (not “J Smith Joinery” in one place and “Smith’s Joinery Ltd” in another)
- One address format, used on your website, Google, Facebook and directories
- One main phone number
- Old addresses and numbers corrected or removed
Our checklist generator moves this to the top of your list if you say your details aren’t consistent yet. It matters because conflicting details make Google less sure which listing is right.
Step 2: Claim and complete your Google Business Profile
For “near me” searches, the map results usually appear above the ordinary website results. Those come from Google Business Profile.
- Profile claimed and verified
- The most accurate main category (for example “Plumber”, not “Contractor”)
- A clear description that says what you do and where
- Opening hours, including bank holidays and seasonal changes
- Real photos of your work, premises or team
- Your website address and a working phone number
What if I work from home?
If you travel to customers, set a service area and hide your home address. Google allows this for service-area businesses. Don’t invent an office or use a virtual address in a town you’d like to rank in. It breaks Google’s rules and listings like that get removed.
What if customers visit me?
Add the details visitors need: opening hours, parking, step-free access, and how to find you. A café on a Ludlow side street or a shop in a Knighton courtyard should say where the entrance is.
Step 3: Give each main service its own page
One page that lists “plumbing, heating, bathrooms, drainage” won’t rank for any of them as well as four focused pages would.
- A page for each main service, with a clear heading such as “Boiler repairs in Shrewsbury”
- Prices or price guides where you can give them
- Photos of real jobs and the questions customers actually ask
- Your town and the areas you genuinely cover, written naturally
Our website page planner helps you work out which pages you need.
Do I need a page for every town?
Only if you have something different and useful to say about each one. A Welshpool electrician might reasonably have a page about work in Newtown if there are real jobs, photos and details to show. Copying one page twenty times with the town name swapped looks like spam and can do more harm than good.
Step 4: Ask for reviews, every time
Reviews help you show up and help people choose you once you do.
- A simple way to ask: a short link in your invoice email, a card on the counter, or a text after the job
- Ask every happy customer, not just a few
- Reply to reviews, good and bad, politely
- Never buy reviews, offer rewards for them or write your own
Steady, genuine reviews over months are worth far more than a burst in one week.
Step 5: Check the website itself
- Each page has a clear meta title that names the service and town
- Each page has its own meta description
- The site is quick to load on a phone with weak signal
- Your phone number and address are on every page, usually in the footer
- Contact forms work and someone checks them
Use our Google search preview to see how a page might look in results before you change it.
Worked example: a mobile dog groomer in Newtown
Say you run a mobile dog grooming van from home near Newtown, covering Llanidloes, Welshpool and the villages in between. In the generator you pick “We travel to customers”, enters “mobile dog grooming” and “Newtown and surrounding villages”, and tick that your name and phone number are consistent. You haven’t claimed a Google Business Profile yet, and you don’t ask for reviews.
Your checklist comes back with eight points, starting with:
- Claim and fully complete an eligible Google Business Profile.
- Describe mobile dog grooming clearly on a dedicated, useful page.
- Use Newtown and surrounding villages naturally in contact and service-area information.
Further down it reminds you to set up a simple way to ask for genuine reviews, and to state your real service area rather than inventing locations. That’s your next month sorted, in order.
Worked example: a café in Ludlow
A café that customers visit gets a slightly different list. It still starts with the profile and a clear page about what it serves, but it adds opening hours, access and parking or transport information, because visitors need to know how to get there and when it’s open.
How often should I do this?
Do steps 1 to 3 once, properly. Then keep going with the ongoing jobs:
- Monthly: ask for reviews, reply to them, add a few new photos.
- Every season: update opening hours and any seasonal services.
- Every six months: search for your business name and check your details are still right everywhere.
If you’d rather hand the website part over, our managed websites are £47 a month with no setup fee. That includes your website, hosting, help with your Google Business Profile and reviews, and 10 changes a month by email. See what’s included or prices.
Try the free tool: generate your own list with the local SEO checklist generator, or ask for a free website review and we’ll tell you what we’d fix first.
Local SEO questions
How long does local SEO take to work?
Fixing your Google Business Profile and details can make a difference within a few weeks. Ranking well for a competitive search in Shrewsbury usually takes longer, often several months of steady reviews and useful pages.
Do I need a website if I have a Google Business Profile?
It helps a lot. Your profile gets you onto the map, but many people check your website before they call. A site with clear services, prices and photos also gives Google more reason to show you.
Can I rank in a town I’m not based in?
You can appear for searches about other towns if you genuinely work there and have useful pages about that work. The map results lean heavily towards businesses close to the searcher, so you’re more likely to show in ordinary results there.
Should I list my business in directories?
A few good ones are worth it, such as Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Facebook and any trade bodies you belong to. What matters most is that your details match everywhere.
Should my website be in Welsh as well as English?
If you work in Powys it’s worth considering. Even a Welsh welcome and your main services in both languages can help customers who prefer Welsh. Ask your customers what they’d find useful.