Search Engine Optimisation for London Local Businesses

We get it, SEO for businesses in London isn’t easy. The city is hyper-competitive, and the market is very digitally-savvy. Any major city with hundreds of thousands of companies, requires “next-level” local SEO experience. If your business is based in London or your website targets businesses or consumers in Greater London, you could use our recommended strategies to your advantage when optimising your website and local business listings. This article explains how.

Targeting London businesses

Most companies based in the capital are spoiled for choice when selecting a provider of services. Companies that are not local to London face a disadvantage in some ways, since they need to travel to meet their clients and the clients will always favour a local provider if all else is equal. The perception is that a local provider can fix problems quickly if something goes wrong, will be in tune with the needs of other local businesses and will have lower delivery charges.

The best way to use this to your advantage is to advertise the fact that your business services London specifically, or has a local sales or support centre. Advertising and marketing materials can be designed to highlight specific parts of the city that are serviced, thereby improving the sense of being local. References to local issues such as tube delays or congestion charge often jive well and are remembered longer.

5 tips to target businesses in London

1. Optimise for commercial district keywords (not residential areas), mentioning boroughs, tube stations, landmarks.
2. Build local landing pages around transport connections used by professionals.
3. Prioritise directory listings, links and citations from sites trusted by London companies, such as London Chamber of Commerce, Tech London Advocates, etc.
4. Earn customer reviews with location mentions, e.g. “great print shop right next to our Camden office”.
5. Publish content relevant to local businesses. This could be in the form of information about ULEZ regulations for logistics providers, or nearby meeting venues for co-working spaces.

Targeting Londoners (consumers)

Londoners are constantly exposed to ads – in the tube, in the bus, on the road and online. They tend to be busy, picky and shrewd. This behaviour stems from living in any big city for a long time. It also indicates shorter than average attention spans and a greater propensity to identify with brands, shop within their own comfort zones and yet readily switch loyalties.

Advertising products to Londoners should therefore focus on branding and repetition across multiple media to combat the problems of ad saturation, highlighting features, prices and competitve edge in an easy-to-read format. Flashy messages will attract attention, but will also be forgotten much faster in London if they don’t hit the desired target as many other ads fight for attention.

5 tips to target consumers in London

1. Optimise for borough and neighbourhood-specific keywords. E.g. “plumbers in Clapham”, “hair dresser in Shoreditch”.
2. Tailor your Google Business Profile to local footfall patterns. E.g. photos tied to recognisable street fronts, or proximity to tube stations.
3. Get featured in popular London discovery platforms such as Time Out London, Londonist, Secret London and MyLondon.
4. Encourage reviewers to mention the product or service they purchased and the location. Suggest they leave tips such as best time of day and landmarks to find the location.
5. Create content that reflects living in London. E.g. “best cafe’s for a relaxing catch up”, “Asian grocery stores near Bromley”

SEO for London

Search engine optimisation for London businesses and consumers should always work along the principles discussed above. Specific recommendations when optimising a website for London are:

• Use area names in your title tags. E.g. “Gardening services for South London”, or “Highgate Chinese Food Delivery and Take-away”.
• Use location names in your description meta tags. This will allow Google users to see at once on your listing that you service their area.
• Clearly state which parts of the city you service. You can do this graphically, on a map, but it is recommended to also provide a text list for the search engines to pick up.
• If you use local photography or images on your site, be sure to label it correctly in the alt attribute.
• Your home page should ideally mention at least the main geographical areas you service. This will be picked up by Google, MSN etc and will greatly help your search engine optimisation for London.

5 tips to optimise a London-based Google Business Profile

1. Name Address Phone consistency – tempting as it might be to squeeze keywords into your business name,  our recommendation is to avoid doing so. It is much more important to ensure your business name, address and phone number (NAP) is listed consistently online.
2. Select primary & secondary categories – identifying the right categories for your business helps Google correctly categorise your local listing and deliver it for relevant searches. Avoid going after the highest possible category, as you’re likely to face more competition and not rank as prominently as you would for your specific niche.
3. Write a strong business description – include details of your products and services, mention the areas within London you serve. But avoid sounding like you’re trying to stuff as many keywords into a paragraph as possible – search engines and most Londoners are smart enough to spot a keyword stuffer and avoid that business.
4. Earn excellent reviews – prompt happy customers to leave a review. Display QR codes inside your locations, making it easy for customers to leave a review when they’re in the location. Responding to all reviews – both positive and negative – shows your customers you listen, and it can also help your visibility.
5. Update all locations in London – if you operate a multi-branch

Financial services firms should consider additional nuances for local SEO. Learn about local SEO considerations for banks, financial advisors and insurance brokers.

Search engines prefer local targeting

Google, Bing and more recently AI search platforms like ChatGPT favour local resources, as they are more likely to be relevant to the user. This is not only obvious when users search on Google Maps, but also within the organic search results and LLM synthesized answers. Responses to users in Paris are often vastly different from the results viewed by someone in New York. Keeping this in mind, businesses can gain search engine visibility when they clearly state their geographical service spread and location of their sales and support offices.

If you need help reaching customers in London (or any other local area), explore our local SEO services, and get in touch to find out how we could support your growth.

Updated: 14 Nov 2025