I'm Chris Attwood-Thomas, founder and managing director of Think Local SEO, where we specialise in local SEO strategies for:
Based in the UK, I lead a team that focuses on boosting visibility in maps, local rankings, citations, local content and Google Business Profile performance.
Local search is more than keywords, it's about making your business unmistakably relevant in your community. At Think Local SEO, we aim to make you the obvious choice in your town, suburb or service area.
I spent early years in digital marketing, building websites, doing broad SEO and running campaigns. Over time I saw that many businesses had broad ambitions but hollow local presence, they'd dominate in global or regional SEO, but fail to show up in their own town or postcode. What's the point of global ranking if you can't harvest customers next door?
Local SEO demands a different mindset: maps, citations, reviews, and relevance in nuances. I founded Think Local SEO to specialise purposefully in that zone, to help businesses win where they actually live.
I wanted to shift perception: local SEO is not an afterthought, it's the foundation for many service businesses' viability and growth.
At Think Local SEO, we build strategies tailored to local impact. Some of our core services include:
Google Business Profile optimisation and management: Ensure your listing is precise, active, geolocated, filled with quality content, reviews and posts.
Local citation and directory strategy: Building and auditing the web of local references (NAP consistency, removal of duplicates).
Local content creation and hyperlocal pages: Writing:
On-page local SEO: Key signals like title tags, schema, internal linking geared to local queries.
Review generation and reputation management: Systems to solicit, respond to, and manage local reviews across platforms.
Local link building and community outreach: Sourcing local partnerships, sponsorships, press, event tie-ins to build local relevance.
Multi-location and local rollout strategies: For businesses with branches, we manage geo-targeted structure, duplicate avoidance, internal linking, location pages and consistency.
Audit and rescue work: Many clients come when something's broken (penalties, ranking drops, map suppression). We audit, diagnose and restore.
We begin engagements with a local SEO audit: map ranking, listing status, citation health, content gaps, Google My Business issues, competitor map presence. Then we co-design a roadmap: quick wins, medium builds, longer campaigns, monitoring and optimization.
We report with local metrics:
The "last mile" matters, as being first in local maps often matters more than being 100th in national search. Consistency kills confusion, since mismatched business names, addresses, or phone formats across directories suppress performance. Reviews are not optional, as strong, fresh reviews across platforms are essential local signals. Local content must feel local by using landmarks, neighborhoods, and community context, not generic "service in city" pages. Regular monitoring is critical, because local listings shift, get suppressed, and lose verification, so it's never "set and forget."
If I were launching Think Local SEO today, I would start publishing hyperlocal case studies immediately, "how I grew map visibility for a dentist in X town", so prospects see what local actually means in action. I'd also build modular local SEO starter packages for businesses to trial before bigger commitments. And I'd automate audits, data cleanups and alerts earlier to scale more gracefully.
I plan to deepen services for multi-location clients, build local SEO training and masterclasses, and create a "local SEO health dashboard" SaaS or dashboard product for clients. I aim to partner with:
This makes local SEO standard in every web deployment, not an afterthought.
If you're a business wanting to outrank your competitors just down the street, not just in your city, I'd love to explore how Think Local SEO can help.
Local SEO is the practice of making your business more visible in local search results, especially on maps and in “near me” searches. It’s vital because it connects you with customers in your immediate community who are actively looking for your services. If people next door can't find you online, you're missing out on your most valuable customers.
While standard SEO focuses on broad, national, or even global rankings, local SEO has a much tighter focus. It involves specific tactics like optimising your Google Business Profile, managing local directory listings (citations), gathering local reviews, and creating content relevant to your specific town or neighbourhood. It’s about winning customers down the street, not just getting general website traffic.
A complete local SEO strategy includes several key services. You can expect optimisation of your Google Business Profile, building and cleaning up local citations for consistency, creating hyperlocal content for your service areas, managing your online reputation through reviews, and building links with other local businesses and organisations to boost your community relevance.
Yes, absolutely. A specialised local SEO strategy for multi-location businesses is crucial. It involves creating unique location pages, managing separate Google Business Profiles without causing duplicates, and ensuring each branch ranks well in its own specific service area. This ensures customers find the correct, nearest location every time.
Success in local SEO is measured by tangible, local results. Instead of just looking at general website traffic, you should track metrics like your ranking on local maps, your visibility in “near me” searches, the number of clicks for phone calls and driving directions from your Google profile, and ultimately, the increase in local leads and footfall.
