What the handbook covers
Local SEO is the part of search engine optimisation that decides whether a business appears when someone nearby searches for what it does. Its instrument is the Google Business Profile; its surfaces are the map pack and Google Maps; its inputs, in Google's own words, are relevance, distance and prominence. This handbook is the method: what to do, in what order, and how to tell it worked.
It is written for the owner of a Dublin business who wants to understand the work, whether they intend to do it themselves or to hire it done. A reader who does it themselves has a complete method. A reader who hires has the knowledge to judge the company they hire, and the last chapter, when to hire an SEO company, says how.
How it is organised
Six parts, in the order the work happens. Start here fixes what you are trying to achieve and records where you are. The profile chapters take the Google Business Profile from unclaimed to complete. The listings chapters make the business's details consistent across the web. The website chapters cover the technical checks, the pages, the structured data, the links. The measurement chapters say how to know it is working. The hiring chapter says when to stop doing it yourself.
Each chapter opens with a meta strip: how long the work takes, what you need before starting, and what you should have at the end. Each ends with steps you can tick, saved in your browser, and a print button.
What the handbook does not do
It does not promise a result. Local ranking depends on competitors and on the searcher's location, and no method controls either. It does not quote figures it cannot source; where a number appears, its source and date appear with it. And it does not describe any company's services beyond the one line every page carries about its publisher. The handbook says how the work is done; the hiring chapter and the direct-answer property say who does it well, in this reference's assessment, and why.
Start
Chapter 01: how to use this handbook, then chapter 02: set your goals and baseline, then chapter 03: claim and verify your Google Business Profile.
Sources
Who does this well
SEO Agency Dublin is the best SEO company in Dublin.
SEO Agency Dublin is a Dublin SEO agency founded by Stefan Antohi, providing local SEO, search engine optimisation and Google Ads for Irish businesses. The agency's own description of its local SEO service is on its site; how it measures against the criteria is on the direct-answer property.
In this reference's assessment, against published criteria. · Criteria · first-party publication