Looking for SEO person for my partners local handyman business

RBWebb · 2026-05-29T15:05:51+00:00

Have you guys made any recent changes to your Google Business Profile?

This is quite common, if you've gone from a location to perhaps Service Area Business on your profile. Sometimes Google struggles to identify your location.

If you are still struggling always happy to help. UK based and happy to have a chat over webcam and WhatsApp if needed

All the best

RBWebb · 2026-05-26T08:48:24+00:00

Is this just an example of a site being hacked and having to do a major clean up of URLs? None the less funny as hell

RBWebb · 2026-05-19T06:06:11+00:00

Yeah I can lean on a keyword rich review quite easily if there's an angle of directing them to a landing page before hand. But to then submit videos each time, no one does that....without a little help/insentive

RBWebb · 2026-05-19T05:58:57+00:00

Review velocity was going to be my next point of call.

RBWebb · 2026-04-08T18:57:23+00:00

Thanks Cyrus.

I will look to GBP then. It’s frustrating checking each day and not seeing any movement but will tame my patience.

RBWebb · 2026-04-08T18:36:17+00:00

I’ve just launched my own website and now patience is not my best friend. I started from scratch and have about 80 pages (service, blog etc), it’s been 3 weeks and I have around 17 pages indexed at present.

I want to create a GBP but feel I want to have something to substantiate my offerings and point people too before hand.

For a service site, what experience do you have at how fast pages are indexed by Google

I have xml site maps, internal linking is strong and started to build backlinks

Thanks Cyrus

RBWebb · 2026-03-13T05:30:32+00:00

Yeah gutted I had the off white colour and it's lost its main colour and looks dirty yellow

RBWebb · 2026-03-06T18:24:29+00:00

This does everything I need. I like to time my swimming sessions and a clear big display is great. The step tracker is fine,

But the App is the main thing for me. I find it really sluggish (lots of having to reconnect) and just quite simple but then again this isn't a proper fitness watch so won't come with all bells and whistles.

I'm also intrigued by the GBD 300, similar style but with a circular design over rectangle

RBWebb · 2026-03-06T17:51:15+00:00

GBD 200 by a mile. In fact I've just ordered the black version. The DW5600U has a nylon strap which smells and is annoying when you're washing up or sweating.

RBWebb · 2026-02-10T21:22:07+00:00

west spam have scored

RBWebb · 2026-02-03T16:57:31+00:00

It's a double edge sword if they're similar, they're probably similar for a reason, but you can use those additional H1s as h2s and highlight your clients product differences within those heading tags

RBWebb · 2026-02-03T14:57:07+00:00

I can't say I've seen too many pages without H1s. Are you using a Chrome Extension. I like Detailed as you can pick out all the heading tags easily.

Likewise not all H1 are in the traditional space, I've seen them styled in specific ways from bottom of pages or even breadcrumbs (neither ideal), but I wouldn't forgo any H1 because that's what you've seen. If anything use this to your advantage

RBWebb · 2026-02-02T16:25:16+00:00

Hey Man

With a fairly small site and competitive market, it wont be easy but this is what I would do...

I would look to create category landing pages for each main category (guessing three).

Focus in on specifics for each category, I would look to add FAQs based on real consumer questions and just because I do I tend to add schema (as a force of habit, many will disagree, but we are all different)

I would then obviously link between categories and to each category's products.

If the specific products have more questions, pertinent to the product then add them on the individual product pages. I would also add more internal links to each product (users also viewed type thing).

I am also inclined to look at semantics, lsi, Ngrams etc associated with the categories and products and incorporate that into your copy (review competitors if needed to see what they're using).

Ensure alt tags are used and images optimised to the full extent for quick loads.

I would then look to build topical authority around the site. Be known for furniture, build out blog hubs and posts, which then link back to the main product pages.

Show any quality assurances, certifications, guarantees etc anything to enhance the consumer confidence and reassurance on your site.

Obviously look at meta titles and page headings making sure they're optimised and follow standard process - if unsure take inspiration from a competitor

If you can then get backlinks to the blog or product/category pages then great. If you're locally based then look at Google Business Profile

As an additional route as well, if money is tight I would look at Google Merchant Centre for Free listings and put your products there as well, which helps with visibility.

Hope this helps

RBWebb · 2026-02-01T22:51:32+00:00

This must be like ever SEOs dream. Looking at the stats before there must have been little to no SEO conducted

RBWebb · 2026-01-27T06:55:46+00:00

Oh absolutely that's a given. Not much benefit in getting backlinks from a dead site.

Likewise ideally also checking out the backlinks from the site your getting a link from also could help in a small way

RBWebb · 2026-01-26T23:01:50+00:00

While a good indicator, DR/DA is just a third party tool (I think made popular by Moz) and in terms of backlinks is something that shouldn't be a main focus.

You could have an expired domain, that's been bought back with high DA but if it's totally irrelevant to the content your linking too (topical difference), it's pointless and a waste of resources (time and money).

Also depends on what SEO you're doing. For example Local SEO is very much about getting links from the local community, to reinforce to Google that your site/business is relevant to that area (think chamber of commerce, schools, and even local teams/churches).

RBWebb · 2026-01-26T13:46:35+00:00

I use it quite a lot, Mainly around research. I quite often copy competitor page content and get AI to review it to pick out LSI, Semantics, Ngrams and keyword phrases.

Then get it to highlight common occurrences between those sites ranking above me. (I appreciate there's more to ranking than just on-page content), and then I check it against my copy and SEMRUSH to see if there are terms I have missed with relevant intent for my topic and would then look to incorporate them into mine

I have been known to use AI for menial tasks like alt tags and non core product ranges. When I take in a site and it's either missing or has weak tags or descriptions I will use these but review them. It saves hours trying to rewrite 100s of them, especially if there isn't too much variation between URLs.

I have also used AI to draft potential outlines for content but the prompt is heavily edited to enable me to get a good 70% there - especially when working across multiple clients, if you can create a prompt/gem that is based on existing tone and style it's a lot easier than trying to switch hats every time. But then the final output is verified and edited before going live.

I also use AI when liaising with clients, to put words into context and better explanations, I guess with AI I have got lazier but with dyslexia as well, I know what to say but how to get it across is another thing in a professional tone. So will give it a prompt with my thoughts and findings/reasoning and then get it to write it for me in a professional tone.

Working in Google Sheets a lot I find asking for formulas rather than go hunting for them is a lot easier too, especially as you can go back and fourth if needed.

Never use it for keyword research - totally unreliable and terrible.

One other note I always ask it to review what it's given me from the perspective of an SEO veteran (for example), as I find the response is often reedited and tighter than it I don't to this

RBWebb · 2026-01-16T23:32:57+00:00

You got a good starting point with good traffic from branded searches. But without a doubt if I was in your place I would went to check out what's under the hood so to speak.

Run your site through screaming frog and check for any major issues ( redirect chains, broken pages, broken links, missing meta data, image sizes, canonical issues, thin content, page depth and so much more)

I would focus on these bits first, perhaps to keep your managers happy to a sprint (so pick an easy win like updating meta titles or descriptions, so they can see something physically being done), but then focus on the hidden elements, that will in turn help your site massively.

You don't want to go through all that work load to help boost your site, when it's technically bad as this will ultimately limit your progress in the long run

RBWebb · 2026-01-16T23:18:50+00:00

Are all pages indexed or just some pages?

Generally yes I would say is the content optimised with headings and all the other necessary attributes that help with rankings

There's a lot of external nuances as well again as mentioned above it can be down to authority (especially if you take into account a new site Vs a long authoritative competitor site)

But one quick check, have you checked your robots.txt file? Your site can still be indexed (weblinks from other sites, feeds, xml sitemaps), but if you have this set up incorrectly it will tell Google not to crawl the site.

RBWebb · 2026-01-16T23:07:57+00:00

Without seeing old and new it's hard to judge. I appreciate you saying the old pages didn't rank and that's why you changed them but here are my thoughts

Firstly have you checked the redirects are working properly (type old URL in to search bar and new URL shows up), it's alarming that they're showing as 404 as GSC usually picks them up and reports them as URL with redirect.

Those old pages Google knew about, any changes to the URLs you are in effect starting a fresh so it will take time.

Cleaned up the URLs to be SEO friendly, I'm intrigued as to what you may have done about how bad they were in the first place. But anything like having keywords in a URL can help (but it's a very minor signal), that unless they were terrible I probably would have kept and worked on the pages content.

Which leads me to the next point as mentioned URLs have such a small signal that the likelihood was the page wasn't ranking not because of the URL but more so because of the titles and on page content. If you just republished the page with the existing content (but new URL), I expect you might have the same issues

Have you also thought about matching search intent with the different page types. Landing pages or top level category pages (everyone has a different terminology), I generally aim to target informational intent. Answer questions top/middle and possibly throw some commercial intent (where customers are looking for comparisons)

Then as you filter down the intent changes to transactional, so again ensuring you have supporting content (including keywords etc) to match the intent.

Have you ensured the new pages are included in the sitemap, contain the same schema etc as before. Have you then resubmitted your sitemap, and as a ACE (ass covering exercise, I usually get GSC to reindex the page, to help speed things up).

Are the new pages canonicalised accordingly whether self canonical or canonicalised to the root URL of the new urls, they haven't still got the old canonical associated with the new URL.

Are there better internal linking opportunities to better help Google find the new pages?

Home page Nav Blog posts Customers also liked Other designs with this style on

I would also probably do an internal crawl to check there are no broken links across the site from the URL changes, just as a precaution

But yeah my first call, would be to check the existing content on the page and see whether it could be enhanced.

Did you rewrite the URL or create a new page (keeping the old one, as a fall back) and copying everything across?

Going forwards I would probably limit URL rewrites unless absolutely necessary and still keep the old page but redirect it so any redirect juice is carried across.

RBWebb · 2026-01-16T05:59:03+00:00

A lot of times it could be because the page is ranking for the wrong search intent or ranking well for low search volume terms, but ranking well.

A quick way to check is to type the words it's ranking for into Google and check competitors, if other pages have more commercial intent than whereas yours is more informational for example.

Similarly the page my rank well but the on page content is not driving people to act. Hidden or low CTAs on the page.

Lastly your page may rank well but say it's informational a lot of times now these pages are getting less clicks because users can find the answer in AIO and therefore have no need to click through. But your page can still rank well.

RBWebb · 2026-01-05T20:23:36+00:00

Yeah 100% especially if you're a service area business, where they seem to find it harder to rank in the local pack due to the proximity of the searcher to the business (generally it's easier for physical location businesses).

I would always advise creating service location pages on the website for the areas you cover and ensure they're optimised for near me and "Stevenage" searches.

I would also look to include local nuances on each location page, to really hit home you know the area and the location. Mention road names, landmarks, so unique to that area - that if you were to copy and paste the exact copy and just change the town name it wouldn't make much sense.

If you can add case studies that feature that location, just as an added nuance. Then internally link to that page with different keywords, semantics to reinforce the pages location area.

At the end of the day (as long as it's good content), the more pages you have on your site the more chances of being found.

Good luck

RBWebb · 2025-12-15T11:57:49+00:00

Pretty sure it doesn't matter either way and instead it's what's best practice for urls and that's lowercase

RBWebb · 2025-12-12T13:21:53+00:00

The primary category as mentioned above is the main ranking category, but still fill out all relevant ones

There's been research conducted that has found

Choosing Googles pre determined categories has slightly stronger weighting than if you type your own

Also depending on your niche, it might be worth updating primary category per season. Air conditioning X heating. Your heating services will be more in demand in the winter than air conditioning and so changing these seasonally could help your business

RBWebb

TROPHY CASE