Local SEO Stoke-on-Trent Starter Guide
That’s local SEO. It decides who gets the call. This guide explains how it works in Stoke-on-Trent, what to do first and what it costs. No jargon. Just the steps that move the needle.
What local SEO actually is
Local SEO is the work that gets your business found when people nearby search for what you do. Google weighs three things when it picks which businesses to show:
- Relevance. How well your business matches the search.
- Distance. How close you are to the person searching, or to the place they named.
- Prominence. How well known and trusted your business is. Reviews, links and mentions across the web all count.
You can’t move your premises. But relevance and prominence are fully in your control. That’s where local SEO does its work.
Why Stoke-on-Trent is a little different
Stoke has a few quirks that trip up local businesses. Most come down to one thing. It’s a city made of six towns. Your customers search by town, not just by city. Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton each have their own identity. Plenty of people search “accountant Hanley” or “hairdresser Longton”, not “Stoke-on-Trent”. If your website only ever mentions the city, you miss those searches. “Stoke” means two things. It’s what people call the whole city. It’s also one of the six towns. Be clear about where you actually are, and use the full “Stoke-on-Trent” in your address and on your Google Business Profile. Newcastle-under-Lyme is not Newcastle. It’s its own borough, right next door, and many Stoke businesses serve it. Always write it out in full. Shorten it to “Newcastle” and Google may think you mean Newcastle upon Tyne. Addresses drift. The same Hanley business can appear as “Hanley”, “Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent” or just “Stoke-on-Trent” on different sites. Pick the format Royal Mail recognises for your postcode and use it everywhere.
Step 1: Claim and complete your Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile is the single biggest local ranking factor. It’s free. Most Stoke businesses leave half of it empty.
- Choose the right primary category. Be specific. “Emergency plumber” beats “Plumber” if that’s your main work.
- Add secondary categories for the other services you offer.
- Set your service area if you visit customers. Include Stoke-on-Trent and the towns you cover, such as Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stone or Kidsgrove.
- Fill in every service. Add a short description to each one.
- Upload real photos. Your team, your work, your premises. Not stock images.
- Post regularly. Offers, finished jobs, news. It shows Google the business is active.
Be honest about your address. Google suspends profiles that use virtual offices or addresses where no one works. A suspension costs far more than a missing map pin.
Step 2: Make your business details match everywhere
Google cross-checks your name, address and phone number (your NAP) across the web. When the details match, it trusts them. When they don’t, your rankings suffer.
- Use the same business name, address format and phone number on your website, your Google profile and every directory.
- Use your local 01782 number where you can. It’s a trust signal for customers and for Google.
- Check the big directories first. Yell, Thomson Local, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and Facebook.
- Then add Stoke-specific listings, like local business directories and your trade body.
Step 3: Get reviews, and reply to them
Reviews affect both your ranking and whether people click. A business with 60 reviews at 4.8 stars beats one with 4 reviews almost every time.
- Ask every happy customer. Send a direct link to your review form.
- Make asking part of your process, not an occasional push.
- Reply to every review. Good and bad. Politely and quickly.
- Never buy reviews or offer rewards for them. Google removes them, and can penalise your profile.
Reviews that naturally mention your service and area (“great website for our Burslem café”) help even more. Never script them. Just ask customers to say what you did for them.
Step 4: Build local pages on your website
Your Google profile gets you into the map. Your website gets you into the results below it. It needs to show Google you serve Stoke-on-Trent.
- One page per core service, with Stoke-on-Trent in the title, heading and copy. “Boiler repairs in Stoke-on-Trent” beats a generic “Services” page.
- Name the towns you cover. Hanley, Burslem, Longton, Trentham, Newcastle-under-Lyme and the rest.
- Add real proof. Case studies from Stoke customers. Photos of local jobs. Reviews on the page.
- Answer local questions. Prices, timescales, parking, coverage areas. The things customers ask on the phone.
- Add LocalBusiness schema. It’s hidden code that tells Google exactly who you are and where you work.
Don’t create six near-identical pages, one per town, with the name swapped. Google treats that as thin content. Fewer, better pages win.
Step 5: Earn local links
Links from other Stoke and Staffordshire websites tell Google you’re part of the local community. Quality beats quantity.
- Join Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce. A member listing is a strong, relevant link.
- Get into the local press. StokeonTrentLive and The Sentinel cover business news, openings and community stories.
- Work with the universities. Staffordshire University and Keele University both run business support, placements and events. Taking part often earns a link.
- Sponsor something local. A junior football team, a charity event or a community project. Most list their sponsors online.
- Work with suppliers and partners. Ask them to link to you as a trusted partner.
- Get listed on tourism and events sites if you serve visitors. Visit Stoke is the obvious one.
Avoid link schemes, paid link packages and “500 backlinks for £50” offers. They do more harm than good.
Step 6: Fix the technical basics
Most local searches happen on phones. If your site is slow or awkward on mobile, people leave. Google notices.
- Test your site on your own phone, on 4G, not office Wi-Fi.
- Check your speed with a free tool like Google PageSpeed Insights.
- Make your phone number tap-to-call on mobile.
- Make sure your contact form actually works. You’d be surprised how many don’t.
Step 7: Don’t ignore AI search
More people now ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Google’s AI Overviews for recommendations. “Who’s a good accountant in Stoke?” These tools pull from the same signals: your website, your reviews and what other sites say about you. Clear service pages, consistent business details and genuine reviews help you show up in AI answers as well as in Google. This is called GEO (generative engine optimisation). It builds on strong local SEO, not instead of it.
How long does local SEO take in Stoke-on-Trent?
Some fixes show results within weeks. A properly completed Google profile or fixing inconsistent listings can move you quickly. Competitive searches take longer. For terms like “solicitor Stoke” or “web design Stoke-on-Trent”, expect three to six months of steady work. Anyone promising page one in a fortnight is guessing.
What does local SEO cost?
You can do the basics in this guide yourself. It just takes time. If you’d rather hand it over, SEO with The Lighthouse Co starts from £750 a month. That covers Google Business Profile management, on-page optimisation, local content, links and regular reporting in plain English. No fixed contracts.
Common mistakes Stoke businesses make
- Leaving the Google Business Profile half finished.
- Using a different address format or phone number on every directory.
- Mentioning Stoke-on-Trent but never the town they’re actually in.
- Writing “Newcastle” when they mean Newcastle-under-Lyme.
- Never asking for reviews.
- Building a website that looks great on desktop and breaks on a phone.
- Buying cheap links that get the site penalised.
Local SEO in Stoke-on-Trent: quick FAQs
Do I need a physical address in Stoke-on-Trent to rank there?
Not always. Service businesses can set a service area instead of showing an address. You’ll rank best close to where you’re based, though, so strong website content and reviews matter more if you’re further out.
Should I say Stoke-on-Trent or the name of my town?
Both. Use the address format Royal Mail recognises for your postcode and keep it identical everywhere. Then name your town in your website copy. “Accountant in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent” catches both kinds of search.
Can I do local SEO myself?
Yes. Steps 1 to 3 cost nothing but time, and they make the biggest difference for most small businesses. Get help when you want to compete for the busier searches.
Want us to do it for you?
We specialise in SEO in Stoke-on-Trent. The Lighthouse Co is based in Hill Ridware, Staffordshire, around 30 minutes away. We run SEO for businesses across the Six Towns and North Staffordshire. Get a free SEO audit and we’ll show you exactly where your business stands, and what to fix first. Or see our web design services in Stoke-on-Trent.
What is llms.txt, and does your business actually need one?
More people now ask an AI tool before they ask Google. They type a question into ChatGPT, Claude or Google's AI answers, and they trust what comes back. That shift has created a new question for business owners. How do you help these tools understand your website?
One answer is a small file called llms.txt.
What llms.txt actually is
llms.txt is a plain text file that sits at the root of your website, like robots.txt. It gives AI tools a clean, structured summary of your site. What you do, your key pages, and the information you want them to use.
Think of it as a cheat sheet for machines. Websites are messy. Menus, pop-ups, scripts and adverts get in the way. llms.txt strips that out and hands over the important parts in a format an AI can read quickly.
What it is meant to do
The goal is simple. When an AI tool looks at your site, you want it to reach the right answer, not a guess. A good llms.txt points it to your best content and describes your business in your own words.
Done well, it can help AI tools:
- Describe your business accurately
- Point people to the right pages
- Use the facts you want them to use
The honest bit: it is early days
Here is the part most articles skip. llms.txt is a proposed standard, not a rule. No major AI company has promised to follow it. Some tools may read it. Many ignore it for now.
So it is not magic. It will not push you to the top of AI answers on its own. What it does is put a clear, correct summary of your business in a place built for machines. That costs little and can only help as these tools mature.
Should your business have one?
If you rely on being found online, yes. It is cheap insurance. The businesses that adopt these things early tend to be the ones that benefit as the standard catches on.
You do not need to obsess over it. You need a well-written file that reflects your business, kept up to date. The bigger job is still the same as ever. Clear content, written for humans, that answers real questions.
Read next: Why GEO is becoming essential for UK SMEs and Google's new agentic browsing score.
Not sure where to start? We build AI-ready sites and help businesses stay visible as search changes. Tell us what you want to achieve.
Local SEO Hull Starter Guide
That’s local SEO. It decides who gets the call.
This guide explains how it works in Hull, what to do first and what it costs. No jargon. Just the steps that move the needle.
What local SEO actually is
Local SEO is the work that gets your business found when people nearby search for what you do. Google weighs three things when it picks which businesses to show:
- Relevance. How well your business matches the search.
- Distance. How close you are to the person searching, or to the place they named.
- Prominence. How well known and trusted your business is. Reviews, links and mentions across the web all count.
You can’t move your premises. But relevance and prominence are fully in your control. That’s where local SEO does its work.
Why Hull is a little different
Hull has a few quirks that trip businesses up.
The official name is Kingston upon Hull. Google Maps, Royal Mail and many directories use it. Customers search for “Hull”. If your listings mix the two inconsistently, you make Google’s job harder. Pick one format for your address and use it everywhere.
Half your customers may not live in Hull. Cottingham, Hessle, Anlaby, Willerby, Kirk Ella and Beverley sit in the East Riding, not the city. People there search for “near me”, or for their own town. If your website only ever says “Hull”, you’re invisible to them.
Neighbourhoods matter. Hull customers think in areas. The Avenues. The Old Town. The Marina. Hessle Road. Holderness Road. Sutton. A page or section that names the areas you serve helps Google match you to searches from those streets.
Step 1: Claim and complete your Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile is the single biggest local ranking factor. It’s free. Most Hull businesses leave half of it empty.
- Choose the right primary category. Be specific. “Emergency plumber” beats “Plumber” if that’s your main work.
- Add secondary categories for the other services you offer.
- Set your service area if you visit customers. Include Hull and the East Riding towns you cover.
- Fill in every service. Add a short description to each one.
- Upload real photos. Your team, your work, your premises. Not stock images.
- Post regularly. Offers, finished jobs, news. It shows Google the business is active.
Be honest about your address. Google suspends profiles that use virtual offices or addresses where no one works. A suspension costs far more than a missing map pin.
Step 2: Make your business details match everywhere
Google cross-checks your name, address and phone number (your NAP) across the web. When the details match, it trusts them. When they don’t, your rankings suffer.
- Use the same business name, address format and phone number on your website, your Google profile and every directory.
- Use your local 01482 number where you can. It’s a trust signal for customers and for Google.
- Check the big directories first. Yell, Thomson Local, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and Facebook.
- Then add Hull-specific listings, like local business directories and your trade body.
Step 3: Get reviews, and reply to them
Reviews affect both your ranking and whether people click. A business with 60 reviews at 4.8 stars beats one with 4 reviews almost every time.
- Ask every happy customer. Send a direct link to your review form.
- Make asking part of your process, not an occasional push.
- Reply to every review. Good and bad. Politely and quickly.
- Never buy reviews or offer rewards for them. Google removes them, and can penalise your profile.
Reviews that naturally mention your service and area (“great website for our Hessle café”) help even more. Never script them. Just ask customers to say what you did for them.
Step 4: Build local pages on your website
Your Google profile gets you into the map. Your website gets you into the results below it. It needs to show Google you serve Hull.
- One page per core service, with Hull in the title, heading and copy. “Boiler repairs in Hull” beats a generic “Services” page.
- Name the areas you cover. Hull city centre, the Avenues, Hessle, Cottingham, Beverley and the rest.
- Add real proof. Case studies from Hull customers. Photos of local jobs. Reviews on the page.
- Answer local questions. Prices, timescales, parking, coverage areas. The things customers ask on the phone.
- Add LocalBusiness schema. It’s hidden code that tells Google exactly who you are and where you work.
Don’t create dozens of near-identical pages, one per village, with the town name swapped. Google treats that as thin content. Fewer, better pages win.
Step 5: Earn local links
Links from other Hull websites tell Google you’re part of the local community. Quality beats quantity.
- Join the Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce. A member listing is a strong, relevant link.
- Get into the local press. Hull Live covers business news, openings and community stories.
- Sponsor something local. A junior football team, a charity event or a community project. Most list their sponsors online.
- Work with suppliers and partners. Ask them to link to you as a trusted partner.
- Get listed on tourism and events sites if you serve visitors. Visit Hull and East Yorkshire is the obvious one.
Avoid link schemes, paid link packages and “500 backlinks for £50” offers. They do more harm than good.
Step 6: Fix the technical basics
Most local searches happen on phones. If your site is slow or awkward on mobile, people leave. Google notices.
- Test your site on your own phone, on 4G, not office Wi-Fi.
- Check your speed with a free tool like Google PageSpeed Insights.
- Make your phone number tap-to-call on mobile.
- Make sure your contact form actually works. You’d be surprised how many don’t.
Step 7: Don’t ignore AI search
More people now ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Google’s AI Overviews for recommendations. “Who’s a good accountant in Hull?” These tools pull from the same signals: your website, your reviews and what other sites say about you.
Clear service pages, consistent business details and genuine reviews help you show up in AI answers as well as in Google. This is called GEO (generative engine optimisation). It builds on strong local SEO, not instead of it.
How long does local SEO take in Hull?
Some fixes show results within weeks. A properly completed Google profile or fixing inconsistent listings can move you quickly.
Competitive searches take longer. For terms like “solicitor Hull” or “web design Hull”, expect three to six months of steady work. Anyone promising page one in a fortnight is guessing.
What does local SEO cost?
You can do the basics in this guide yourself. It just takes time.
If you’d rather hand it over, SEO with The Lighthouse Co starts from £750 a month. That covers Google Business Profile management, on-page optimisation, local content, links and regular reporting in plain English. No fixed contracts.
Common mistakes Hull businesses make
- Leaving the Google Business Profile half finished.
- Using a different address format or phone number on every directory.
- Having one “Services” page with no mention of Hull.
- Never asking for reviews.
- Building a website that looks great on desktop and breaks on a phone.
- Buying cheap links that get the site penalised.
Local SEO in Hull: quick FAQs
Do I need a physical address in Hull to rank there?
Not always. Service businesses can set a service area instead of showing an address. You’ll rank best close to where you’re based, though, so strong website content and reviews matter more if you’re further out.
Should I use “Hull” or “Kingston upon Hull” in my address?
Use the format Royal Mail recognises for your postcode, then keep it identical everywhere. On your website and in your marketing, write “Hull”. That’s what customers search for.
Can I do local SEO myself?
Yes. Steps 1 to 3 cost nothing but time, and they make the biggest difference for most small businesses. Get help when you want to compete for the busier searches.
Want us to do it for you?
We specialise is SEO in Hull. The Lighthouse Co has an office in Hull. We run SEO for businesses across the city and the East Riding. Get a free SEO audit and we’ll show you exactly where your business stands, and what to fix first.
Or see our web design and SEO services in Hull.
Five quick wins for a website that isn't converting
You get visitors. You just do not get enquiries. It is one of the most common problems we see, and the fix is rarely a full rebuild. It is usually a handful of small changes.
Here are five you can make this week.
1. Say what you do, above the fold
A visitor should know what you do and who you help within seconds of landing. No clever slogans they have to decode. State it plainly at the top. Confused visitors leave.
2. Make your call to action obvious
One clear action per page. Call us. Book a call. Get a quote. Make the button stand out, put it where people look, and repeat it down the page. If someone has to hunt for how to contact you, they will not.
3. Add proof
People trust other people. Add reviews, logos of clients you have worked with, a short case study, a real photo of your team. Proof turns interest into trust, and trust turns into enquiries.
4. Cut the friction from your forms
Every extra field costs you leads. Ask for the minimum you need to start a conversation. Name, email, a short message. You can gather the rest later. Long forms scare people off.
5. Fix it on mobile first
Most of your visitors are on a phone. If your buttons are tiny, your text is cramped, or your form is fiddly on mobile, you are losing the majority. Test your own site on your phone. Be honest about the experience.
Small changes, real results
None of these need a developer or a big budget. They need a clear head and an honest look at your site through a customer's eyes. Do all five and most sites see more enquiries within weeks.
Read next: Core Web Vitals in plain English and why your website isn't getting enquiries.
Want a second pair of eyes? We will tell you exactly what is holding your site back. Get a free audit.
Core Web Vitals in plain English: why site speed wins customers
Core Web Vitals sound like something only a developer should worry about. They are not. They measure something every visitor feels within seconds. Is this website fast, smooth and stable, or slow and annoying?
Google uses these scores to help decide who ranks. Your customers use the same feeling to decide whether to stay. Here is what they mean, in plain English.
The three scores
There are three Core Web Vitals. Each one measures a different part of the experience.
Largest Contentful Paint
How long the main content takes to appear. If your hero image or headline takes four seconds to show up, that is a poor score. Aim for under two and a half seconds.
Interaction to Next Paint
How quickly the site responds when someone taps or clicks. Press a button and nothing happens for a moment? That lag is what this measures.
Cumulative Layout Shift
How much the page jumps around as it loads. You go to tap a link, an image loads above it, and the whole page shifts. Annoying, and it is measured.
Why this costs you money
People do not wait. A slow site loses visitors before they read a word. They bounce back to Google and click the next result. That is a lost enquiry, and Google notices the pattern.
Speed is not a vanity metric. It is the difference between a visitor who stays and a customer who leaves.
What usually slows a site down
The usual suspects are simple:
- Huge, unoptimised images
- A hero video that loads on mobile
- Too many plugins and scripts
- Cheap, overloaded hosting
Most of these are fixable without a rebuild.
How to check yours
Run your site through Google's PageSpeed Insights. It gives you the three scores and a list of what to fix. Start with the biggest wins, usually images and hosting.
Fast sites are not luck. They are built and maintained that way.
Read next: Five quick wins for a website that isn't converting and why image optimisation matters.
Want to know your scores? We run a free audit that shows exactly what is slowing you down. Claim your free audit.
How to get more Google reviews (and why they move the needle)
Google reviews do a lot of quiet work. They build trust before a customer even calls. They help you rank in local search. And they are one of the cheapest marketing assets you own. Yet most businesses have far fewer than they could.
Here is how to fix that.
Just ask
The biggest reason businesses have few reviews is simple. They never ask. Most happy customers are glad to help, but it does not cross their mind. So ask. Every time. At the moment they are happiest, right after you have done good work.
Make it effortless
Every extra step loses people. Do not tell a customer to "find us on Google". Send them a direct review link. Google gives you one in your Business Profile. Put it in a follow-up email, a text, or a QR code on your receipt. The easier it is, the more you get.
Ask at the right time
Timing beats persistence. The best moment is just after a win. A finished job, a delivered product, a solved problem. Catch that feeling and turn it into a review while it is fresh.
Reply to every review
Replying does two things. It shows future customers you care, and it signals to Google that you are active. Thank the good ones. Answer the critical ones calmly and fairly. A measured reply to a poor review can win more trust than the review lost.
Never buy them
Fake reviews are tempting and a terrible idea. Google is good at spotting them, and the penalty is real. Worse, customers can tell. A smaller number of honest reviews beats a pile of fake ones every time.
Keep it steady
A steady trickle of recent reviews beats a burst then silence. Build the ask into how you work, and it becomes a habit that pays off for years.
Read next: How to rank in Google's local map pack and local SEO for Lichfield.
Want more local customers? Reviews are one piece. We handle the rest. Tell us what you want to achieve.
Local SEO for Lichfield: a starter guide
If most of your customers come from Lichfield and the towns around it, national SEO is not your fight. Local SEO is. It is how a business in Lichfield shows up when someone nearby searches for what you do.
Here is where to start.
Claim your Google Business Profile
This is the foundation of local SEO. It is what puts you on the map, literally. Claim it, verify it, and fill in every detail. Your address, hours, services and real photos. A complete profile is the price of entry for local search in Lichfield.
Target how people actually search
People do not just search “web design Lichfield”. They search for what they need, near where they are. Burntwood. Fradley. Boley Park. Streethay. Build pages and content around the terms and places your customers actually use, not just the city name.
Get local reviews
Reviews from real local customers do two jobs. They build trust, and they tell Google you are an active, trusted Lichfield business. Ask happy customers for a review. Reply to every one. It matters more than most owners think.
Get listed in the right places
Consistent listings across the web back up your profile. Make sure your name, address and phone number match everywhere, from your site to local directories. Mismatched details confuse Google and cost you rankings.
Make your website earn its place
Your site should tell Google, and visitors, exactly where you are and who you serve. Put Lichfield in your titles and headings where it fits naturally. Add a clear contact page with a map. Keep it fast, especially on mobile.
Play the long game
Local SEO is not overnight. But for a Lichfield business, it is one of the best investments you can make. The businesses that show up first are rarely the biggest. They are the ones that did the basics well and kept at it.
Read next: How to rank in Google’s local map pack and how to get more Google reviews.
Based in Lichfield and want to be found? That is exactly what we do. See how we help Lichfield businesses, or read more about our Lichfield Web Design Services – or simply get in touch.
How to rank in Google's local map pack (without paying for ads)
Three businesses sit at the top of a local Google search. They get a little map, a star rating, and a phone number. That box is the local map pack. It sits above the normal results, and it is where most local customers make their choice.
Everyone below the map pack fights for scraps. So the question for any local business is simple. How do you get in?
Here is the honest guide. No tricks. No paid ads.
First, understand what the map pack ranks
Google picks the three businesses using three things. Relevance, distance, and prominence. Relevance is how well you match the search. Distance is how close you are to the person searching. Prominence is how well known and trusted you look online.
You cannot move your premises. But you can improve the other two. That is the whole game.
Claim and complete your Google Business Profile
This is the single biggest lever. Your Google Business Profile feeds the map pack directly.
Claim it. Verify it. Then fill in every field:
- Exact business name, address and phone number
- The correct primary category, plus any relevant secondary ones
- Opening hours, including bank holidays
- Your services, each with a short description
- Real photos of your premises, team and work
A half-finished profile ranks like a half-finished profile. Fill it all in.
Get reviews, and reply to them
Reviews are a strong prominence signal. Volume matters. Recency matters. So does your reply.
Ask every happy customer for a review. Make it easy with a direct link. Then reply to each one, good or bad. A calm reply to a poor review does more for trust than ten five-star ratings.
Keep your details consistent everywhere
Your name, address and phone number should match across the web. On your site, on Google, in directories, on your social pages. Google calls these citations. When they disagree, Google trusts you less.
Pick one format for your address and use it everywhere. Fix the old listings that still show your previous number.
Add local signals to your website
Your site still matters. It backs up the profile.
- Put your town in your page titles and headings, where it reads naturally
- Write a proper contact page with your address and an embedded map
- Add a short page for each main service you offer
- Mark up your business details with local schema so Google can read them
Be patient, then keep going
Local SEO is not instant. A new profile can take a few weeks to settle. A competitive town can take months. But the work compounds. Every review, every citation, every page adds up.
Do the boring parts well and the map pack follows.
Read next: Local SEO for Lichfield: a starter guide and how to get more Google reviews.
Want a hand? We help local businesses get found, get leads and grow. Tell us what you want to achieve, or claim a free audit.
Why your Hull business isn't showing up on Google (and how to fix it)
You know your business is good. Your customers rate you, your work speaks for itself, and word of mouth keeps the diary full. Then someone three streets away opens Google, types in exactly what you offer, and finds five of your competitors before they find you. Often they never find you at all.
That gap between “we’re good at this” and “nobody in Hull can find us online” costs local businesses real money every week. The frustrating part is that it rarely comes down to the quality of your work. It comes down to signals Google looks for, and a website that isn’t sending them.
A handful of patterns explain most of it. Each one has a fix.
Google doesn’t know you’re in Hull
Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence. If your Google Business Profile sits unclaimed, half-filled or filed under the wrong category, you have handed Google almost nothing to work with. The same applies when your business name, address and phone number show up in one form on your website and another on an old directory listing.
The fix starts before you touch the website. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, choose the right primary category, and make your Hull address and phone number identical everywhere they appear. That consistency is one of the strongest local signals you can send, and most of your competitors get it wrong. Sorting it out is the foundation of any local SEO that actually works.
Your website never mentions Hull
Plenty of local sites read as though the business could be anywhere. No mention of Hull, no mention of the areas you serve, no page that ties what you do to where you do it. Google has no reason to connect you to a “Hull” search because you have never made the connection yourself.
Give it something to hold onto. Build a dedicated page for your Hull service area, name the neighbourhoods and surrounding towns you cover, and write the copy for the people actually searching rather than for yourself. This is where a properly structured website earns its keep, and where sharp copywriting turns a flat page into one that ranks and converts.
Your site is too slow on a phone
Most local searches happen on a phone, often on the move. If your homepage takes eight or ten seconds to load on a mid-range handset over 4G, two things happen at once. Visitors leave before they see anything, and Google watches them leave. Speed is a ranking factor, and a slow mobile experience caps how high you can climb no matter how good your business is.
We audit sites every week that look fine on a fast office connection and fall apart on a phone. The usual culprits are oversized images and a bloated theme carrying code you never needed. A modern build with proper maintenance clears it, and the rankings tend to follow the load time up.
You have no reviews
The map pack, those three businesses Google pins to the top next to a little map, leans on reviews and reputation more than almost anything else. A business with forty recent, genuine reviews will sit above one with three from 2021, even when the second does better work. If you have never asked your customers to leave a review, you are choosing to rank below the ones who did.
Make it a habit. Ask every happy customer for a Google review, and reply to the ones that land. Few things compound faster in local search.
You’re missing from AI search
Search stopped being only about ten blue links. Your customers in Hull now ask ChatGPT for a recommendation, and Google answers a growing share of queries with an AI summary before anyone clicks a website at all. A business that isn’t structured to be understood and cited by these tools is missing a channel that gets bigger every month.
Earning those recommendations takes its own approach, and it is exactly what our GEO and location management work is built for. The businesses sorting it now will own the answer while their competitors are still deciding whether it matters.
Local search is winnable
Here is the encouraging part. Local search rewards effort in a way national search rarely does. Your competition is often just as invisible, running the same unclaimed profiles and the same sluggish websites. Fix the fundamentals and you reach the top of the results that count, the ones with “Hull” or “near me” attached, without needing a national budget to do it.
It also builds on itself. A faster site, a consistent local presence and a steady stream of reviews feed one another, so the work you put in this month keeps paying out long after. Pulling those pieces into a plan is what our growth strategy work does.
Let’s get your Hull business found
We run a team right here in Hull, so this is our patch too. If you are tired of watching competitors take the calls that should be yours, we will show you where you stand and what to do about it, in plain English.
Start with a free Loom video audit and we will send back a clear breakdown of what is holding your rankings back. Or get in touch and talk it through with someone local.
Hull: 01482 935 325
Email: hello-hull@the-lighthouse.co
google's new agentic browsing score, and what it means for your website
Updated September 2026 to reflect Google’s latest Lighthouse documentation.
Google’s Lighthouse tool now has a fifth category next to Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices and SEO. It’s called Agentic Browsing. And it measures something none of the others do: whether an AI agent can actually use your website.
If that sounds abstract, stick with us. A growing share of the traffic hitting your site won’t be a person clicking around. It’ll be an AI assistant booking an appointment, comparing prices or filling in a contact form on someone’s behalf. Google is already scoring for it.
What is agentic browsing in PageSpeed Insights?
Agentic Browsing is a Lighthouse category that checks how well AI agents can read, understand and act on your web page. It arrived in Lighthouse 13.3 in May 2026. Because PageSpeed Insights runs on Lighthouse, many PageSpeed Insights reports now show it too, as a fifth result after SEO.
Google labels the category experimental. The standards behind it are still being written. So treat it as an early diagnostic, not a final grade.
If your PageSpeed Insights report doesn’t show it yet, don’t worry. See how to check your own site below.
How the agentic browsing score works
Unlike Performance or SEO, this category doesn’t give you a score out of 100. Google deliberately avoided a weighted score because the agentic web is still taking shape.
Instead, you get three things:
- A pass ratio. How many of the checks that apply to your page it passed. For example, 3/3.
- Pass or fail on each audit. With specific errors or warnings where something is broken.
- Not applicable results. Checks that don’t apply to your site are left out of the ratio.
That last point matters. Most business websites haven’t built WebMCP tools yet, so those checks usually drop out. A typical site sees something like 2/2 or 3/3, not a score out of six. A small ratio doesn’t mean you’re behind.
The six agentic browsing checks
Google’s documentation groups six audits into four areas.
1. Accessibility for agents
Every web page gets turned by the browser into two things: the visual layout people see, and a structural map underneath called the accessibility tree. Screen readers have used this tree for decades. AI agents now read the same tree to work out what’s on the page and what they can do with it.
Google calls the accessibility tree an agent’s primary data model. Lighthouse checks that interactive elements have proper names and labels, that roles and parent-child relationships are valid, and that nothing interactive is hidden from the tree.
2. Layout stability
This is Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), the same metric behind Core Web Vitals. Agents often take a snapshot of a page and then act on it. If a button moves after the agent has found it, the agent can click the wrong thing. Agents move faster than people, so shifts during loading hit them harder.
3. llms.txt
An llms.txt file is a short, machine-readable summary of your website, placed at your domain root. Lighthouse checks whether you have one and whether it’s well formed. Our own is at the-lighthouse.co/llms.txt if you want to see what one looks like.
The file is optional. If you don’t have one, the check is typically marked not applicable rather than failed.
4 to 6. WebMCP integration
Three audits cover WebMCP, a proposed standard that lets a website expose its own actions directly to AI agents. Think “book a table” or “request a quote” as a tool an agent can call, instead of an agent guessing its way through your form. Lighthouse checks for registered WebMCP tools, forms that could declare WebMCP support but don’t, and whether your WebMCP schema is valid.
WebMCP is very early. These audits need Chrome 150 or later and registration for Google’s WebMCP origin trial. For most businesses, it’s one to watch, not one to act on yet.
Why “accessibility tree is not well-formed” is the one to fix first
Of all the checks, this is the one worth your immediate attention. Layout stability is something you’ve probably tackled already for Core Web Vitals. llms.txt and WebMCP are optional extras still finding their feet. The accessibility tree check is different. It fails for concrete, fixable reasons. And fixing it helps real people too, not just agents.
Common causes include:
- Icon-only buttons and links with no accessible name. A social media icon or a hamburger menu that’s just an image, with nothing telling a screen reader (or an agent) what it does.
- ARIA attributes with nothing behind them. A search box carrying
aria-expandedandaria-haspopupwithout therole="combobox"that’s supposed to justify them. Visually, nothing looks wrong. Structurally, it’s a contradiction. - Empty elements with labels. A
<div aria-label="Promotional banner">with nothing inside it. The label promises content that isn’t there. - Broken parent-child relationships. A list item outside a list, or a menu item outside a menu. Small nesting errors that don’t change how a page looks, but do change how it’s read.
None of these are exotic. They’re the same issues WCAG accessibility audits have flagged for years. If your site has already had accessibility-focused UX/UI work, you’re likely ahead.
How to check your own site
There are three ways to run an agentic browsing audit today.
- PageSpeed Insights. Run your page at pagespeed.web.dev and look for Agentic Browsing after the SEO result. It’s the quickest option, if it appears for you.
- Chrome DevTools. In Chrome 150 or later, open DevTools, go to the Lighthouse panel and run a report with Agentic Browsing ticked. To inspect the tree itself, open the Elements panel, then the Accessibility pane, and switch on the full-page accessibility tree view.
- The Lighthouse command line. For developers. Install the latest Lighthouse with
npm install -g lighthouse@latest, then run it against your URL to get the full report.
Whichever you use, you’ll get a list of the exact elements causing a failure, not just a vague category result.
Scores can shift a little between runs. Layout shifts, changes to the page’s structure and when scripts load can all move the result. Run it two or three times before drawing conclusions.
Should you panic about this?
No. Google has been clear that the category is under development, and that the aim right now is gathering signals, not ranking sites. Google hasn’t described Agentic Browsing as a search ranking factor. You won’t lose visibility overnight because of a low result.
Treat it like any early warning instead. The businesses that clean up their accessibility tree and layout stability now will have done the work by the time agent traffic becomes a real slice of the pie. The ones that wait will be retrofitting under pressure.
And the honest upside is that almost everything this category rewards, you should be doing anyway. Named buttons. Valid ARIA. Stable layouts. That’s not a new checklist written for robots. It’s the web accessibility standard that’s existed for years, with a new audience reading it.
Agentic browsing FAQs
Is agentic browsing a Google ranking factor?
Not as far as Google has said. It’s an experimental diagnostic in Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights. The fixes it points to, like better accessibility and a stable layout, are good for your visitors and your site either way.
What’s a good agentic browsing score?
Passing every check that applies to your page. Because the ratio only counts applicable checks, 2/2 and 3/3 are both full marks. Focus on fixing any failed audit, not on the size of the numbers.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
It’s optional. It’s quick to create and does no harm, as long as it’s an accurate summary of your services and key pages. Don’t fill it with marketing fluff.
Do I need WebMCP?
Not yet, for most businesses. It’s an early proposed standard that needs a Chrome origin trial to test. Worth watching if you run bookings, quotes or e-commerce at scale.
How is this different from AI search and GEO?
They’re related but not the same. AI search and GEO are about getting your business mentioned in answers from tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews. Agentic browsing is about whether an AI agent can actually operate your site once it gets there. You want both.
Want a second pair of eyes?
If you want to know where your site stands, our free website audit covers agentic readiness alongside the usual performance and SEO checks. You can also check your layout stability in seconds with our free speed test.
And if you’re ready to build for AI agents properly, from WebMCP tools to automated workflows, see our AI automation and agentic growth services, or get in touch.
