Local SEO for Niagara small businesses, starting at $750

Three sizes, one price each, agreed before anything starts. One payment, and everything you get is yours to keep.

Most of what a small business in Niagara actually needs out of local search is a short list, and it finishes. Your hours are wrong on Google. Your phone number rings a line you stopped using in 2019. There are two listings for one shop, because somebody set up a second one years ago and nobody remembers who. A review from four years back is still waiting on a reply. Your website says Ridgeway and your listing says Fort Erie, so Google is hedging its bets about where you are, and a hedging Google shows you to fewer people.

That's a job. It has a start and an end. You can pay for it once and get back to running the place.

What actually needs fixing

Almost always the same handful of things, and almost none of them are clever. Your Google Business Profile needs to be claimed under your own name and kept current, the way it should have been from the start. The name, address, phone and hours need to match what's on your website, your Facebook page and whatever directory scraped you in 2014. Duplicates need merging into one clean listing. Your category needs to be the one people search, in the words your customers use out loud when they're standing in a parking lot asking their phone a question.

Then the reviews. Answering them is free, it takes about six minutes a week, and it's the single thing I see small businesses skip that costs them the most. It just takes somebody to show you where the button is and what a good reply sounds like.

All of that fits into a couple of days of work, done properly, once.

Three ways to do this

Pick the size that matches the mess. All three are one price, paid once, HST included, and the number is always confirmed with you before any work begins.

If Good turns out to be the right first step, whatever you paid counts toward Better or Best within the next year. It's a top-up, building on the work already done.

Think of it the way you'd think of calling a plumber. The tap drips, you call, they come out, they fix it, they go home, and you pay them for the job they did. Most local search work for a small shop is that same shape. It's a repair, sized to how bad the leak is. Get it done and get on with your day.

Now, retainers are a real product, and I'll say so plainly. If you're competing across the whole region, or publishing something every week, somebody genuinely has to be on it every month, and that's real, paid work. For most small shops, the sizes above cover the situation completely. If you'd like somebody watching things after the job's done, that's available too, monthly, and it's a separate decision you can make later, with the first job already finished, paid for and working.

Who you'd be calling

Christopher Ross. I've been building things on the web since 1996 and working in WordPress since 2007, and I work out of Fort Erie. That last part matters less than the sales pitch usually makes it sound, but it does mean if you'd rather talk at eight in the morning, or you want me to come and look at the actual sign on your actual door, that's an easy yes.

It also means I already know why a shop in Crystal Beach has one set of hours in July and another in February, and why that trips people up. There's more about how search works around here on the Fort Erie page.

Where to start

Call or email with your business name, your town, and the best way to reach you. I'll spend some time looking at what's currently showing up for your business online: your Google listing, your website, and how well the two line up. Within one business day, you'll hear back from me directly, in writing, with three things: which of the three sizes fits your situation, exactly what it costs, and what the first week of work looks like.

Call 905.682.4642, or email [email protected] if that's easier. If you'd rather ask a question first and decide later, that works too. Either way, I'll help.