How to get your Sussex business showing up on Google: a local SEO checklist

When someone in Haywards Heath searches “plumber near me” or someone in Worthing searches “cake shop”, Google shows a map with three businesses, then a list of websites. Getting into those results is called local SEO, and most of it is free — it just takes a bit of setting up. Here’s the checklist we use for our own clients.

1. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile

This is the single most important step for local searches — it’s what powers the map results. Fill in everything: your primary category (be specific), opening hours, services, a description, photos and your website link.

• Work from home or visit customers? Set yourself up as a service-area business and hide your address, then list the towns you cover. This is allowed under Google’s guidelines.
• Post updates — offers, new work, news. It shows Google the profile is active.
• Add real photos of your work, premises and team, not stock images.

2. Get genuine Google reviews — and reply to them

Reviews are one of the strongest local ranking signals and they’re what persuades people to pick you. Send happy customers the direct review link from your profile straight after a job, and reply to every review, good or bad. Never buy or fake reviews — it breaks Google’s rules and can get your profile suspended.

3. Keep your details identical everywhere

Your business name, area, phone number and website should be written exactly the same on your website, your Google profile, Facebook, and directories like Yell, FreeIndex, Thomson Local and your local chamber of commerce. Consistent details help Google trust that it’s all the same business.

4. Give each town and service its own page

If you cover several towns, a single “areas we cover” list isn’t enough. Create a genuinely useful page for each main town or service — with local detail, the work you’ve done there and answers to local customers’ questions. Pages that only swap the town name are treated as low quality, so make each one earn its place. (You can see how we’ve done it for our own Burgess Hill and Crawley pages.)

5. Make your site fast on mobile

Most local searches happen on phones. If your site takes more than a few seconds to load, people go back to Google and pick the next result. Test your site with Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool, compress large images and cut out plugins you don’t need.

6. Say clearly where you work

• Put your town and county in your homepage title and main heading — e.g. “Electrician in Burgess Hill, West Sussex”.
• Mention the areas you cover naturally in your content and footer.
• Add LocalBusiness structured data (schema) with your area, contact details and opening hours, so search engines and AI assistants can read it directly.

7. Earn local links

Links from other local websites — suppliers, clubs you sponsor, local news, business networks, partners — tell Google you’re a real, trusted part of the community. One link from a relevant local site is worth more than dozens from random directories.

8. Set up Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

Both are free. Submit your sitemap, check which searches you’re appearing for and fix any errors they report. Bing matters more than people think: its index also feeds other search and AI tools, so it’s worth the ten minutes it takes to set up.

Want it done for you?

Every website we build comes set up for local search — fast pages, proper titles and headings, structured data and location pages — and we can help you set up your Google Business Profile too. See our website build service or get a free quote.