I live in the centre of Skegness, don’t think I could be more central if I tried, but because ISP IP addressees aren’t always to the actual address you live at (where you are connecting to the Internet) the centre of the Google Map Listing can be way off.
In the Google Maps Screenshot above the IP address is considered to be in New Leake, Boston, about 12 miles from where I was accessing the Internet: I connected from my home office on a Desktop PC via a landline broadband connection.
At times I’ve seen my location as listed in Peterborough (about 30 miles away) and even Cambridgeshire (over 90 miles away). My ISP IP address changes every time the router is turned off/on, I have a dynamic IP address from my ISP: this isn’t unusual. I wrote this article over a 24h hour period and turned the router off/on a few times, the second time I received perfect Skegness results: the centre point of the map was about 3 mins walk from my property.
There’s nothing a local plumber can do about this geolocation issue, a Google user looking for a “Plumber near me” who gets the wrong area will realise and will modify their search accordingly.
They might search for “Plumber Skegness” or “Plumber in Skegness” or “Skegness Plumbers” or “Emergency Skegness Plumbers” etc… This is something local plumbers can plan for by targeting their websites SEO at both the Plumbers Near Me results to gain Google local traffic and the many more relevant local plumbing search phrases specifically searching for cities/towns/villages where you offer plumbing services.
A local London plumber would target customers local to London. A local Manchester plumber would target customers local to Manchester…
If you want those customers, you have to cover them all SEO wise, you need to design your Skegness website to target them, same as a London plumbing business or Manchester plumbing business would have a website targeting their specific area(s).
This might sound obvious (it is), but it is surprising how many plumbing websites barely mention the areas covered! Some plumbers sites I’ve seen, their area wouldn’t be mentioned at all if they didn’t include their business address.
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