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Local SEO has become essential for businesses looking to dominate search results in their area – but what does it really cost in 2025?
At Ignite SEO, we’ve spent over a decade delivering successful local SEO campaigns for businesses across the UK. We know exactly how pricing structures for local SEO costs work, what you should expect to pay, and more importantly – what you should expect in return.
This blog covers everything you need to know about how much Google local SEO costs in 2025. From monthly costs and package breakdowns to the factors that influence what you’ll spend, you’ll leave here with a clear understanding of where your budget goes.
What Is Local SEO and Why Is It Important?
Local SEO is the process of helping your business to appear when people search for the products or services you offer in your area. Think of searches like “Estate Agents Coventry” or “Best coffee shop near me”. Local SEO makes sure you’re right there at the top of Google when potential customers are ready to take action.
And the impact is huge. According to Google, 50% of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone visited a store within a day. That’s why local SEO is essential. It connects your local business with people who are ready to buy, driving real footfall, enquiries, and revenue.
How Much Does Local SEO Cost in 2025?
Local SEO pricing depends on whether you’re looking for a one-time package or a monthly retainer, how many locations you’re targeting, and how competitive your industry is. Here’s what you can expect:
One-Time Packages
If you’re looking for a strong foundation to get you started, one-time local SEO packages typically start at around £500.
These are often centred on optimising your Google Business Profile (GBP), which is the listing that appears on Google Search and Maps when local customers search for your services. Setting this up is one of the most important local SEO assets for any business.
They can also include setting up local listings (or citations). A citation is any online mention of your business’s name, address, and phone number. Your Google Business Profile is one (often referred to as your Google local listing), but you can also have citations on review platforms, directories, and local websites. Keeping them consistent builds trust with search engines and improves your chances of ranking well in local search results.
Monthly Retainers
If you’re aiming to consistently attract more local customers and outperform nearby competitors, this is where real traction begins. A monthly investment starting at £950 supports a long-term local SEO strategy, with the following typically included:
- Google Business Profile setup and citation management
Everything you’d expect from a one-time package, such as GBP profile setup and managing your local citations. - Support for multiple locations
Go beyond one area. Retainers allow you to optimise across more key locations, helping you rank where your customers are searching.
- Pages for each service area
Targeted pages for your priority locations to help you rank higher, answer what customers are looking for, and drive more enquiries – all while showing search engines you’re the most relevant choice. - Website checks and fixes
Regular technical improvements mean your site works harder: it loads faster, provides a better user experience, and is easier for Google to understand and prioritise in local search engine results pages. - Ongoing updates to your Google Business Profile
Keeping your profile active with fresh posts, offers, and updates gives you a competitive edge – increasing clicks, building trust, and helping your business appear more often in local search and map results.
Advanced and Enterprise SEO
For businesses ready to dominate several locations or take on highly competitive sectors, investment rises to £1,200 to £4,000 per month. Medium-sized businesses should expect to invest around £1,200 per month, while larger organisations operating at scale or across regions often see budgets rise to £2,000 to £4,000.
This is because the SEO effort needs to scale accordingly – more pages to optimise, more localised content to create, more complex technical challenges to manage, and a broader digital footprint to monitor and maintain.
What’s Typically Included in Local SEO Packages?
To truly compete in your local market, you need a comprehensive local SEO strategy that covers all the critical components. Let’s go into more detail on what should be included in a local SEO monthly retainer:
- Website and Competitor Analysis
A detailed audit of your current website, along with analysis of key local competitors, to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to outrank them. - Keyword Research and Targeting
In-depth research to identify the most relevant and profitable local search terms (like ‘Dentists Coventry’), tailored to your services, locations, and how your ideal customers are searching. - On-Page Local SEO Optimisation
Optimising your core website pages and local landing pages to ensure they’re fully aligned with your SEO strategy and built to convert local traffic into leads. - Review and Reputation Management
Helping you generate more positive reviews and build a strong, trustworthy presence across platforms that influence buying decisions. - Reporting, Tracking, and ROI Measurement
Transparent reporting that shows what’s working – including rankings, traffic, calls, enquiries, and conversions – so you can clearly see the return on your investment. - Google Business Profile (GBP) Setup & Optimisation
Ensuring your GBP is fully optimised with accurate information, service details, business categories, local images, and regular updates. - Local Link Building and Citations
Building high-quality backlinks from locally relevant websites and ensuring your business details are consistent across websites like review platforms, directories, social media (like your Facebook business page setup), and anywhere else your business is mentioned.
While working with experts gives you the best shot at dominating your market, there are also steps you can take yourself to get a head start.
That’s why we’ve created Dominate The Capital – a powerful, beginner-friendly resource packed with insider tips, proven tactics, and clear next steps straight from the local SEO experts at Ignite SEO.
Download the eBook now and start building the local SEO strategy your competitors wish they had.
Factors That Influence Local SEO Costs
Your investment depends on how much work is needed to compete effectively in your market, build visibility, and deliver results. Here are the key factors that shape the cost:
Your Competition and Industry
Some industries are harder to rank in than others. If your competitors or other local businesses are already investing heavily in SEO, you’ll need a stronger, more advanced strategy to beat them and reach your target audience first.
Number of Business Locations
Each of your locations needs its own page on your website, as well as supporting pages. More locations mean more work to get each one ranking well in its area – so the more you have, the more SEO is needed to cover them properly.
Location Type
Where you want to rank matters too. Targeting a capital city like London is more competitive than a city like Leicester, which in turn is more competitive than a smaller town like Rugby. The more competitive the location, the more investment and effort is needed to achieve strong visibility there.
The Range of Products or Services Offered
The more services you want to rank for, the more optimisation is needed. Each key product or service should be targeted with its own page to make sure customers can find exactly what they’re looking for.
Size and Current State of Your Website
If your site is large or hasn’t been updated in a while, it might need some technical improvements before it can rank well. Things like structure, speed, and mobile-friendliness matter a lot to Google.
Is Local SEO Worth the Investment?
Local SEO is one of the most powerful tools available to drive real business growth, especially for companies that rely on attracting customers in specific geographic areas. But what does that look like in practice?
A great example of a local SEO strategy in action is our work with Escape Live, a new company looking to establish itself in a competitive entertainment space.
As a new business, Escape Live had a limited local search engine presence and faced strong competition in each of its target locations. We developed a local SEO plan focused on optimising individual location pages, and targeting city-specific keywords such as ‘Escape Rooms Birmingham’ and ‘Escape Rooms Liverpool’.
The results speak volumes. Escape Live achieved first-page rankings in every city they were targeting, and their visibility surged up to 40,000 site visits per month.
How Much Should You Budget for Local SEO?
Your budget should reflect the size of your business, the number of locations you serve, and how competitive your local market is. Let’s go through a few examples:
A kitchen installation business serving five key locations across a region could invest £1,200 to £1,500 per month. This allows for dedicated service area pages, more in-depth content, technical site improvements, and ongoing updates to Google Business Profiles across each location.
A franchise-based health clinic with 20+ branches nationwide may need a monthly budget of £3,000 to £4,000 or more. With so many locations, each requiring its own local strategy, the campaign would cover content creation at scale, advanced tracking, review management, and authority-building across multiple regions.
Keep in mind that the number of locations refers to the key areas that you want to optimise, not the areas that you serve in total. For instance, you might serve across the West Midlands but choose to optimise for Coventry.
Ready to Grow with Local SEO? Let’s Make It Happen
At Ignite SEO, we don’t do guesswork. Our local SEO services are built on our proven SEO Success Framework, giving you a clear roadmap to better rankings, more traffic, and real business growth.
Our local SEO campaigns are tailored to your market, goals, and location – and we back everything up with measurable results. You’ll get clear monthly local SEO reports, the option to add more locations as you grow, and link building add-ons when you’re ready to push even further. It’s everything you need to stay competitive, and keep climbing.
Choose from a one-time package to get the foundations in place, or a monthly retainer for long-term momentum and consistent results.
Learn about our local SEO services pricing and find out exactly what we can do for your business in your free consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Your questions, answered.
Should You Hire an Agency, Freelancer, or Use Software for Local SEO?
Local SEO can be tackled in different ways, but not all deliver the same results. Software or automated local SEO is the cheapest option, offering tools and data for a low monthly or yearly cost. This can range from helping you with local keyword research to building citations for you. However, it’s only so automated- it won’t build strategy, write content, or respond to local trends, and you still have to do the heavy lifting.
Freelancers offer more hands-on help with local SEO efforts, but they often work alone. A Google SEO agency gives you a full team, proven processes, and the ability to scale. While the investment is higher, you’re paying for results.
Should You Use Both Local SEO and Traditional SEO?
For many businesses, the most effective strategy isn’t choosing between local SEO and traditional SEO – it’s using both together.
When local customers search for services or products like yours, they’re often ready to convert and your visibility in Google can make all the difference. Traditional SEO complements this by driving traffic to your main website through informative content, service pages, and authority-building strategies.
We’re more than just a local SEO company at Ignite SEO. Interested in going further with your SEO strategy? Find out more about our proven SEO Success Framework.