SEO · Essex
Get found by the
people looking
for you.
Local SEO and Google Business Profile for Essex small businesses.
Most small businesses in Essex are invisible in search, not because their service is worse, but because nobody has ever told Google what they do or where they do it. Meanwhile a competitor with a properly filled-in Google Business Profile and a handful of reviews sits in the map results collecting the calls.
A2 Project handles local SEO as a hands-on monthly service. Keyword research grounded in what people actually type, on-page work, Google Business Profile management, and reporting that tells you in plain English what changed. One person on the account, start to finish.
What's included
Everything your search
presence needs
Local SEO
Optimisation for the searches that carry buying intent in your area. Service plus location terms, not vague industry keywords that never convert.
Google Business Profile
Full setup and ongoing management. Categories, services, photos, posts and review strategy, which is what actually drives the map results.
Keyword Research
Real search volume from Google's own data, not guesswork. If a term gets ten searches a month, we will tell you rather than sell you a campaign around it.
On-Page Optimisation
Titles, descriptions, headings, internal linking and page structure. The unglamorous work that decides whether a page ranks at all.
Technical Health
Indexation, site speed, mobile rendering, schema markup and crawl issues. Problems here quietly cap everything else you do.
Monthly Reporting
What moved, what did not, and what is next. Written so you can read it in five minutes and know where your money went.
Who it's for
Built for Essex
small businesses
Local SEO from A2 Project is built for independent businesses across Southend, Shoeburyness, Chelmsford, Basildon, Colchester and the wider Essex area. Trades, clinics, professional services, specialist retail. The approach does not change by industry. What changes is the language your customers actually search for, and finding that is the first job.
- —You know people search for what you do but you never appear
- —Your competitors sit above you on Google and you are not sure why
- —You have a Google Business Profile you have never really set up
- —You have paid for SEO before and never saw a report you understood
Experience
The work, not
the theory
A2 Project has run local SEO for a dental clinic, a mortgage broker and a gas and heating installer. Different industries, same discipline. Work out what customers actually type, make the site and the Google Business Profile answer it properly, then report honestly on what moved.
Regulated industries are not a problem either. Financial services work means operating inside a compliance framework where everything published goes through approval before it goes live. If your sector has rules, they are part of the process rather than an obstacle.
Every engagement includes monthly reporting that shows what moved, what did not, and what is being worked on next. If a report does not tell you that, it is not a report.
Pricing
What it costs
Local SEO and Google Business Profile management is £550 per month, with a one-off £500 setup fee covering onboarding, the initial audit and the strategy.
SEO also sits inside the Plus and Pro plans, which bundle it with social, email and reporting under a single monthly fee. If SEO is all you need, the standalone rate above is the one that applies.
No minimum contract dressed up as a discount and no percentage of your spend. A flat monthly fee, and you can see exactly what it buys.
FAQ
Common
questions.
For local search, expect to see movement in three to six months and meaningful results in six to twelve. Google Business Profile optimisation can show results faster, sometimes within weeks, because the local pack responds more quickly than organic listings. Anyone promising page one in thirty days is either targeting terms nobody searches for or is about to do something that gets you penalised.
Local SEO and Google Business Profile management from A2 Project is £550 per month, plus a one-off £500 setup fee covering onboarding, the audit and the strategy. Across the wider UK market, small business SEO typically runs between £400 and £1,500 a month depending on competition and scope. Be cautious of anything priced very low, because at the bottom of the market the work is almost always automated.
Local SEO targets searches with geographic intent, such as plumber in Southend, and is heavily influenced by your Google Business Profile, reviews and proximity to the searcher. Regular SEO targets searches without a location attached and competes nationally. Most small businesses need local SEO first, because that is where the buying intent is.
Yes. For any business serving a local area it is the single highest-return thing you can set up, and it is free. It drives the map results that appear above the normal listings, and reviews on it are one of the strongest local ranking factors there is. Setup and ongoing optimisation is included in the SEO service.
No, and neither should anyone else. Google does not sell rankings and no agency controls the algorithm. What we do commit to is a clear plan, work you can see, and monthly reporting that shows exactly what has moved. If the numbers are not going the right way, you will hear it from us first.
Usually yes. Most of the work is content, structure and local signals rather than a rebuild. If there is a technical problem holding the site back, we will tell you what it is and what it would take to fix, rather than quietly billing around it.
Work with A2 Project
Ready to be found
in your own town?
About
I'm Matt Sladden, founder of A2 Project. I started my career working with small businesses across Southend, across every industry, before moving on to work with household names and consulting for one of the world's leading creative agencies, where I worked alongside huge names in the automotive space such as BMW, MINI and Ferrari.
I now bring that experience back to where it started. Think of me less as an agency and more as your dedicated marketing manager, someone who embeds themselves in your business, understands your goals, and gets things done.