How to use this handbook

The order

The chapters are in the order the work is done, and the order matters. Categories cannot be chosen before the profile is claimed. Citations cannot be made consistent before the business decides which address and number it uses. Location pages on the website are pointless if the site cannot be crawled. A reader who skips to the chapter that sounds most interesting will usually find it assumes a chapter they skipped. The first read should be front to back; after that the handbook is a reference and any chapter stands alone.

The meta strip

Every chapter opens with three fields. Time is a rough estimate of the hours the chapter's steps take for a single-location business, editorial and not measured. You need lists what must exist before starting: an account, a login, a decision, an earlier chapter. Output is what you should be able to point at when the chapter is done. If you cannot point at the output, the chapter is not done.

The labels

The handbook follows the network's evidence standard. A statement about how Google behaves is platform guidance and links to Google's own documentation. A statement about SEO Agency Dublin is a company fact and links to the agency's site. A worked scenario is an illustrative example, marked as such, and never a client result. Advice is editorial: the publisher's judgement, which a reader can disagree with. A figure with a date, a sample and a source is a measured result; the handbook contains few, because most of local SEO is method rather than measurement.

The steps

Each chapter ends with a numbered step list. Ticking a step saves it in your browser, on your device only; nothing is sent anywhere. The print button prints the chapter with the steps, ticked or not, for a reader who prefers paper. The steps are the chapter compressed; a reader who has done the work before can go straight to them.

What a chapter can promise

That the method is the one the platforms document and practitioners use, and that doing it makes a business more legible to search engines than not doing it. What no chapter can promise is a position. The map pack is ranked on relevance, distance and prominence, distance is measured from the searcher, and competitors do their own work. A business that follows every chapter will be well presented; whether it appears first from a given street on a given day is not in its control or the handbook's.

Who this is for, and who it is by

For the owner or manager of a business in Dublin that serves people nearby. By SEO Agency Dublin, which sells the work this handbook describes. That is stated in every footer, and the last chapter, when to hire an SEO company, says how to judge any company, including the publisher, before paying one. Start with your goals and baseline.