Do You Need an SEO Specialist in Hull? Check These Four Things First

The question I would put to any small business owner in Hull who has been offered a monthly SEO retainer is this: have you checked the basics yet? If not, hold off. Check four things first, because on most small sites the biggest wins cost nothing but an afternoon.

That is the honest version of the SEO question. Before you hire anyone, find out whether the basics are broken. If they are, no amount of monthly activity will help. If they are fine, you can hire with a clear idea of what you are buying.

Can Google actually find and index your pages?

Open Google Search Console. It is free, and you only need to prove you own the domain. Look at the Pages report. It tells you how many of your pages are indexed and, more usefully, why the others are not.

It is common for a small site to have a page live for months that Google has never been shown. Sometimes a setting in WordPress is asking search engines to stay away. Sometimes the page is orphaned, meaning nothing links to it. Both are quick to fix, and no specialist should be charging a retainer to find them.

Is the site fast enough on a phone?

Most local searches happen on a phone, often on mobile data. Run your homepage through PageSpeed Insights and read the mobile result, not the desktop one. Ignore the headline score and look at the three Core Web Vitals: how quickly the main content appears, how stable the layout is while it loads, and how fast the page reacts when someone taps.

A slow site is rarely a mystery. It is usually oversized images, too many plugins, or underpowered hosting. I wrote about the plugin side in how many WordPress plugins is too many, and the same logic applies to scripts that other tools add without telling you.

Does each page say what it is about?

Every page needs its own title, its own description and one clear heading. If your homepage, services page and contact page all carry the same title, Google has no way to tell them apart. Check the page titles by searching site:yourdomain.co.uk in Google and reading what comes back. If you see "Home" and "Untitled", that is your first job.

Write the title the way a customer would search. "Plumber in Hull" beats a clever company slogan every time. A plumber does not need to be poetic to be found.

Is your local information consistent?

For a business that serves a town or a county, the local signals matter as much as the website. Your Google Business Profile should match your site exactly: same business name, same address or service area, same phone number, same opening hours. Small differences between them confuse the picture Google builds of who you are.

Then look at the other places your business is listed, such as directories, social profiles and trade bodies. If an old address or a dead phone number is sitting in one of them, correct it. It is dull work, and it is exactly the sort of thing that moves a local result.

What an SEO specialist is actually for

Once those four things are sound, a specialist can add real value. They can find the searches your customers use that you have not written about, work out which pages deserve to be stronger, and fix the deeper technical problems such as redirects, duplicate pages and structured data. I covered what that deeper work looks like in what a technical SEO audit in Hull actually looks like.

If you do hire someone, ask three questions. What exactly will you do each month? How will I see the results? What happens to the work if I stop paying? A good answer is specific and written down. A vague answer about "boosting visibility" is a sign to keep your money.

The same advice applies to any web hire. I put together a list of questions to ask a WordPress developer before you hire that works just as well for an SEO person.

Where I would start

If you want a plain starting point, my technical SEO work begins exactly where this article does. I check indexing, speed, page titles and local consistency, and I give you a short written list in order of what matters most. Some of it you can do yourself in an hour, and some of it needs a developer. I will tell you which is which.

I do not think anyone should pay a monthly fee to have a switched-off search setting found. Fix the basics once, then decide if you need ongoing help.

If you want a second pair of eyes, book a free 30 minute surgery with me. Bring your domain name and I will look at your Search Console and your Google profile with you. You can get in touch here.