Baseline before anything
Rankings captured, competitors mapped, and call and form tracking wired first, so every later stage can be judged against a before picture instead of a feeling.
LOCAL SEO / STRATEGY
A local SEO strategy is a sequence, not a pile of tactics.
Most local SEO advice is a pile of tactics: optimise the profile, get reviews, build citations, write pages, earn links. All true, none of it a strategy. A strategy is the order those things happen for your business in your suburbs, what each stage has to prove before the next one starts, and what gets measured in enquiries and booked jobs rather than screenshots. This page lays out that sequence the way we run it, and you are welcome to run it yourself.
The profile as stage one
Practitioner surveys rank Google Business Profile signals as the largest factor group in map pack results, so the strategy starts there: primary category, services, photos, hours, and a name that passes Google's guidelines.
A review engine that runs itself
The ask built into how jobs finish, replies to every review, and momentum measured monthly, because recent reviews influence choosers far more than old ones.
Pages that answer the paying searches
Service and suburb pages built only where search volume is proven, each answering its query properly, with schema underneath so machines understand who and where you are.
Links, then the loop
Local prominence built from real relationships: suppliers, associations, sponsorships, local press. Then the monthly loop: measure enquiries by page and suburb, extend what pays, prune what does not.
STRATEGY
Why this order and not another
The sequence is not taste, it follows from how local ranking is documented to work. Google describes local results as a blend of relevance, distance and prominence, and the practitioner evidence consistently puts profile signals first and review signals second among the things you can control. So the profile is rebuilt before a single page is written: it is the biggest lever and the cheapest to pull. Reviews start in week one because they compound slowly and cannot be rushed later. Citations are corrected once, early, and then left alone, because consistency is hygiene rather than a growth channel, whatever a package table says.
Content and links come after the foundation because they are expensive, and spending on them before tracking exists means never knowing what they earned. Pages get built where the search data shows demand, one suburb ring at a time outward from where your work already comes from. Links come from relationships your business genuinely has. By the time both are running, every dollar of effort has a number attached to it.
STRATEGY
Measured in enquiries, not screenshots
The most common complaint owners raise about SEO providers is not price, it is proof: reports full of graphs that never connect to the phone ringing. That failure is a strategy failure, not a reporting one, because proof has to be wired in before the work starts. Call tracking, form tracking and Search Console on day one make the before state undeniable and every later claim checkable.
The numbers that matter are boringly concrete: calls, form fills, direction requests and booked jobs, by page and by suburb, reviewed monthly against the plan. Rankings are the means. If positions rise and enquiries do not, the strategy says change the pages, not the font on the report. And the honest timeline belongs in writing up front: profile changes can show within weeks, while organic positions in a contested market usually build over two to four months.
STRATEGY
Strategy, audit, and the rest of the system
An audit and a strategy are different artefacts and it pays to keep them straight. The audit is diagnostic: a point-in-time, prioritised account of what is wrong and what it costs you. The strategy consumes the audit as its first input and turns it into a sequence with dates and measures. We keep a separate page on what a proper audit contains, and the two pieces of work are designed to hand into each other.
Local SEO is also one lens of a wider system, and the strategy should say so. Ads buy the top of the page today while rankings are earned; a slow site quietly taxes both; and the tracking that proves SEO is the same tracking that proves everything else. A local SEO strategy that pretends the rest does not exist will still work, it will just leave money on the table while it does.
HOW IT RUNS
The strategy as a first ninety days.
Written as a plan, the sequence above becomes ninety days with checkpoints. This is the shape we run for clients, and the shape we would suggest even if you never hire anyone.
Book the callWeeks one to two, foundation
Baseline rankings captured, competitors mapped, tracking wired, citations corrected once, and the audit's findings sorted into this plan.
Weeks three to six, profile and reviews
The profile rebuilt against the guidelines, the review ask running inside your job-completion routine, and the first service pages live where demand is proven.
Weeks seven to twelve, depth and links
Suburb pages extended one ring outward, the first local links from real relationships, and the first monthly review: enquiries by page and suburb against the baseline.
Beyond ninety days
The loop: measure, extend what pays, prune what does not. Reviews and links compound quietly in the background, and the strategy gets more specific to your market every quarter.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ENQUIRE
A free call, then a straight answer.
You book a free 20-minute call
Pick a time and bring one workflow. Nothing is charged, and there is no form maze or sales script to sit through.
We put a number on the problem
We look at your real figures, work out what the issue is costing you and pick the first thing worth fixing. If it does not stack up, we say so.
You leave with a clear next move
One workflow examined and one honest recommendation, whether or not you hire SevenLens. No obligation and no follow-up pressure.
CLIENT REFERENCE
A client who keeps hiring SevenLens back.
Every project has solved a real business problem and saved a huge amount of manual work. We own everything we paid for, and we stay because we like working with Stuart, not because we are locked in.
£140kdelivered across projects
On budgetno nasty surprises
100% ownedcode, data and infrastructure
WHO YOU WORK WITH
You deal directly with the person who builds it.
SevenLens is founder-led. Stuart Asta designs, builds and stands behind every engagement, with no account managers and no handovers.
You own everything: the code, the accounts, the data and the documentation. Another provider could take over tomorrow. Clients stay because the work earns its place, not because they are locked in.
About SevenLensHOW PRICING WORKS
It has to pay for itself, or we say so.
SevenLens does not sell packages off a shelf. Every engagement starts with a dollar figure on the problem it solves, so you see the return before you commit. If the maths does not stack up, we tell you before you spend, not after.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Local SEO Strategy, answered plainly.
01What is the difference between this and the audit?
The audit is the diagnosis: what is wrong, ranked by impact. The strategy is the treatment order: what happens first, what each stage must prove, and how the results are measured. The audit feeds the strategy, and each is a defined piece of work rather than a retainer in disguise.
02How long before it works?
Profile changes can show within weeks. Organic positions in a contested market usually build over two to four months, which is why tracking is wired first: you should be able to watch enquiries move rather than take anyone's word for it.
03Can I run this myself?
Substantially, yes. The sequence on this page is the real one, and a diligent owner can execute most of it. Where people stall is consistency (the review ask, the monthly loop) and the technical pieces (schema, site speed). The call is a fair way to find out which camp you are in before spending anything.
04What does executing it cost?
Done for you, it prices like the market we publish on our packages page: in New Zealand roughly NZD $800 to $2,000 a month depending on competition, with Australian and US ranges published there too. Done yourself, it costs your evenings. Both are legitimate answers.
05Do I need a new website first?
Often not. Where the existing site is sound we improve it; where it is genuinely holding rankings back, a focused rebuild is usually cheaper than fighting it. The baseline stage settles this with evidence before any money moves.
06Do I own what SevenLens builds?
Yes, all of it. The code, accounts, data and documentation are yours from day one. There is no lock-in, and another provider could take over if you ever wanted.
07Who actually does the work?
Stuart Asta, the founder. The person on your first call designs the work and stands behind it, with no account managers, no handovers and no offshore team you never meet.
08What if it is not the right fit?
We will tell you on the first call. A clear no is more useful than the wrong project, and it costs you nothing to find out where you stand.
WHERE TO START
Book a call and we will look at your rankings first.
Bring the searches you want to win and whatever plan you have now, even if it is nothing. On a short call we will look at your baseline together, and you will leave with the shape of your first ninety days whether or not you hire us to run it.
Book a call