SEO in Brighton

SEO isn’t the reserve of huge brands with millions in budget and a team of professional talent. It can also benefit local businesses looking for local customers. Brighton has a population of more than a quarter of a million people and welcomes more than 9 million day-trippers every year. By building links in local directories; acquiring relevant guest posts; and publishing local content, local business owners can tap into millions of potential customers.

But the process takes time and requires specialist knowledge. Outsourcing the work to reputable and reliable SEO agencies leaves you free to service clients and manage your business while ensuring quality work and reliable results.

Typical Local SEO Services in Brighton:

Search engines like Google use the content of a website, directory listings, and other local links to help them generate relevant search results. Therefore, a local SEO campaign relies on optimising these elements of an online business, paying particular attention to location, contact details, and local content.

Google Maps

Google uses the information from Google My Business to populate its local search results. These appear at the top of organic search listings and are especially prominent on mobile search results.

Those businesses that are verified and that show up within a reasonable distance of local searches with positive reviews, gain prominent listings and may appear at the top of search listings on Google Maps.

These results show immediately below Google’s sponsored ads and above the main search results. The map and structured snippets are prominent and easily spotted. And, your phone number, rating, and basic business information are on-hand. Potential customers don’t even need to visit your website before being able to call or visit.

Consistency and Accuracy

A company that specialises in local SEO will first claim your Google My Business profile. They will ensure your Name, Address and Phone number (NAP) details are accurate and complete, and that they match the details on your site.

Duplicate and inaccurate Google business profiles can dilute your local search results. You could be directing potential customers to the wrong address, providing an incorrect or outdated phone number, or effectively sharing links between multiple profiles.

Your agency will also spend the time looking for existing links and directory submissions that are incomplete or inaccurate. By submitting your proper details, they can ensure that you get the benefit of every link and every submission and will continue to use these same details in future local SEO work.

Local Content

The NAP details on your website need to match those of your Google My Business listing. They need to be published in text format, so that Google can easily locate and recognise them, and full contact details need to be provided. But consistent contact details alone aren’t enough to dominate local search. They need to be backed up by high-quality content.

Become a Local Authority

Whether you own an Airbnb near Hove station or offer jet ski hire on Brighton Marina, you effectively need to turn your website into a local hub. Add regular newsworthy posts covering local events or news from the area. Provide details of the Sussex Beer Festival, Brighton Fringe, or even The Naked Bike Ride.

These posts should naturally contain location-specific information, fill a site with relevant content, and might encourage some organic local links. They also provide relevant information for potential visitors that will them on your website.

Area guides make excellent local SEO content. If you own a magazine shop in Brighton, a post on the best parks in Brighton for reading will generate interest from visitors that are interested in your products. This type of content also show topical relevance to Google. Use your local SEO company to plan, research, and publish regular content to dominate search results.

Geo-Targeted Keywords

SEO companies use keyword-research software to conduct geo-targeted keyword research and find terms that people are actually searching for. You might find that, as well as “guest house in Brighton”, terms like “guest house in Hanover, Brighton” generate a lot of interest. Unless you have a page specifically targeting that term, you’re unlikely to rank for it.

Location-Specific Pages For Location-Specific Services

Your SEO company will also be able to add service location pages for the different areas you service. The content for each page needs to be unique, and include details specific to that area, but the general content will be the same.

If you run a gardening service you might want to add “gardener in Brighton”, “gardener in Hove”, and “gardener in Southwick” pages. As long as you’re willing to travel to the area and provide services there, you can incorporate pages on your website.

Researching the keywords and writing separate pages for every area takes time. Rewriting the same content so that it appears original to search engines, while still maintaining quality, is also time-consuming and can be tedious. Using an agency relieves the tedium and ensures results.

Local Link Building

Another important element to local SEO in Brighton is local link building. Links are vital to global and local SEO campaigns. Google effectively treats links as a vote of confidence in your site. The more links a site gets, the better its position will be in search engine result pages. However, not all links are equal, and some give greater benefit than others.

If your website gets links from pages that Google recognises as being relevant to Brighton, they will give those links extra credence. Link building methods vary and if you do publish relevant area guides and news pieces, you may encourage some organic links from other local sites.

However, you shouldn’t leave it all to chance. An SEO agency will verify potential link partners for quality, relevance, and to make sure they are valued by search engines.

Some of the more common and effective methods of local link building include:

Directories

Web directories are large, curated listings of businesses and websites. As well as general directories and topic-specific directories, there are also those with local listings. These directories are filled with businesses from Brighton and the local area, and because these listings contain multiple local NAP entries, Google recognises them as being relevant to your area.

Once upon a time, if you could gather a few links from directories, you were virtually guaranteed top listings in search engines. The likes of Google are more discerning and have far broader requirements now, but directories still play an important role, especially to local SEO.

When submitting to Brighton directories, you need to make sure that you use the same NAP details you used when claiming your Google Business page. Your name, address, and phone number should be consistent everywhere it appears online. This avoids confusion and ensures that you get the search engine credit for every listing you create. Similarly, you should also be consistent with your choice of categories. An agency will ensure this level of consistency throughout the process.

Different directories have different requirements and slightly different submission criteria but all of them require contact details and most allow some length of description about your business. Be as consistent with your descriptions as possible and try to take advantage of any additional information the directory allows. If you can add photos, add photos. If you can link to recent blog posts, link to them.

As well as having different requirements, directories have different lead times. Some may accept a submission within a few days: others can take weeks or even months. Some may never get back to you at all. Your Brighton SEO agency should monitor and track submissions, following up on any that do not respond, ensuring better results.

The Brighton Chamber of Commerce website is a good directory to start with. It’s an authoritative group that is recognised by Google. Getting a listing on the site does require a monthly membership fee, but this does give you a directory page that can include a header photo, description, NAP and social media profile links.
If your business operates within digital, media, or technology niches, WiredSussex is another powerful directory. There is an annual membership fee but as well as a listing the members’ directory, you can also gain access to details of government grants, network with other businesses in your space, and more.

Other Brighton-specific directories include:

Guest Posts

Another powerful method of building local SEO links is through guest posting. Essentially, guest posting means that you provide an article or blog post for publication on another website and can include a link back to your own site and other details about your business.

Publishing guest posts can become a regular part of a local SEO campaign that will also benefit your general SEO but it is a time-intensive technique. Guest post sites need to be researched and each post needs to be planned, written, and submitted. Inevitably, there will be some instances where timely follow-up is also required. It can take several hours’ work to get a single guest post publication. If you don’t use an SEO company, that means you have to undertake this work yourself.

Choose good quality sites considered authoritative by Google, and that have some Brighton-related content. Your SEO company will write a post that is relevant to the business or service that you offer, link back to your site in the main body of the piece or in an author bio section, and get the piece published. They have to ensure they’re providing something of value to the site’s readers, rather than attempting to publish a promotional piece about your business, and some sites do charge a fee for sponsored posts.

VisitBrighton.com publishes guest posts from its members and also publishes details of local events, which could be another good way of getting links.
Sites like WeAreBrighton.com accept posts from external publishers, although they do charge a fee for these sponsored posts.

SEO Agencies in Brighton

Local SEO in Brighton can be very effective at generating lots of relevant enquiries from local prospects, but it does take work and time. Using an SEO agency leaves you free to concentrate on the core aspects of running your business and servicing your customers or clients.

Hiring an Agency

You are putting a lot of trust in an SEO agency which means that you need to be sure that they offer a reliable and reputable service.

Check their background and experience, look at examples of their work, and ask them what services they will offer. Ensure the agency is transparent about their methods, that they communicate quickly, and try to gather a number of quotes so that they can check you’re getting the best value for money. Use a specialist local SEO agency because they will be more likely to find local directories and they will know how to optimise your Google My Business page to bring the greatest benefit.

Benefits

The greatest benefit of using a local SEO company is their experience and expertise. They have details of, or can research, the best local directories and sites that accept guest posts. Sites should also be checked for activity, legitimacy, and value so you get the best value from your submissions.

Local SEO Costs

Local SEO can either be bought per submission or link, or you can pay a flat, regular fee for a set amount of work and the costs vary dramatically from £100 for a single link to potentially thousands of pounds per month for a full service. Most services can be scaled up so as your business grows, you can increase your local optimisation efforts and use the profits you’ve started bringing in.

Local SEO Marketing

Although there are various stages and elements to local SEO in Brighton, it should be treated as a unified approach. This means using consistent details across directories and guest posts. It also means integrating these details into your social media and general SEO practices.

To get to the top of listings, and stay there, you will need to continue posting high quality, relevant content, and generating local links through directories and guest posts. You should also look for other ways to enhance results. For example, you could consider sponsoring a local event. Having your website on a school’s football match billboard won’t directly generate links but it will get coverage in local press, generate interest from other businesses, and could even get you a local .edu link from that school’s website.

Although it is a long and ongoing process, good local SEO starts with claiming your Google My Business profile. Once this is done, directory links offer a quick gain that further reinforce your local business details.

Start Your Local SEO Brighton Campaign Today

Not all businesses want, or need, a global or even national online presence. A coffee shop in Hove, for example, gains very little from attracting website visitors that live in York. This is where local SEO in Brighton really pays dividends. Check out Dream Digital’s local SEO directory submissions package to kickstart your local marketing campaign today.