County Durham, DH9
When someone in Craghead needs a plumber tonight, they open Google and tap one of three names under the map. Our SEO Stanley work aims to make your business one of those three, in the villages where your van already goes.
The price is £399 a month, VAT included. Hamza Shafiq, the owner, is based a short drive away in Ushaw Moor. You can meet him in Durham or start with a phone or video call.
Small firms, big share. The town has 670 business sites, and 600 of them employ fewer than ten people. Builders and other construction firms make up the largest group, at 130. (Nomis, UK Business Counts 2026)
Electrician map check, 18 Oct 2026
Same two firms, almost every place we typed.
Our map check
On 18 October 2026 we searched Google for “plumber” and “electrician” with seven place names: the town itself, Annfield Plain, South Moor, Craghead, Tanfield Lea, Burnopfield and Dipton. Thirteen of those 14 searches showed a map pack with three firms. We wrote down every name, its review count and the town on its listing.
| Stanley | Annfield Plain | South Moor | Craghead | Tanfield Lea | Burnopfield | Dipton | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumber A (101 reviews, no town shown) | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | |
| Plumber B (12 reviews) | ● | ● | ● | ● | |||
| Electrician A (25 reviews) | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | no map | ● |
| Electrician B (91 reviews) | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | no map |
Names are hidden. Each dot is a place in the top three.
Finding 1
It had 101 reviews on the day and hides its address, which Google allows for firms that work at the customer’s home. Its reviews name the jobs, so Google shows tags on them such as “radiator repair” and “pipework”. Proof and coverage travel further than an office does.
Finding 2
29 of the 39 places went to firms whose listing says “Stanley”. Nine more show no town at all. The last one says “Newcastle upon Tyne”.
Finding 3
The bar here is lower than most owners think.
Finding 4
Two went to an appliance repair firm, one to an appliance shop and one to a plumber.
How we checked
Google UK in Chrome on the evening of 18 October 2026, with Google’s location set to the town. Map results shift with the searcher’s location, so this is one evening’s picture. Your own check will show your own trade.
What people search
Keyword tools put about 90 searches a month on “plumber stanley” and about 40 on “electrician stanley”. The same tool shows close to zero for the trade with Annfield Plain, Craghead, South Moor, Tanfield Lea or Dipton. Only “electrician burnopfield” shows a small number. (KWScanner, UK, checked 18 October 2026)
Trade + village
Two things follow from that.
Your listing should win the town search first. That is where the volume is, and the village searches follow the same firms anyway, as the table above shows.
You do not need a page for every village. For local SEO for small business owners in the trades, one strong page that names the villages you cover, with real jobs in each, does more than ten thin copies.
One warning on the word itself
The related searches for “electrician stanley” are full of tool bags and tool kits from the brand of the same name. Your page needs “County Durham” or “DH9” close to the town name, so Google knows you mean the town and not the brand.
Why the wrong firms rank
Google says it ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence. Whitespark’s 2026 study of local ranking factors puts the primary category at number one for the map pack. It ranks a visible address seventh, which makes the plumber above, with no address shown, a useful reminder: strong reviews can outweigh it.
So when a shop that sells appliances wins an electrician slot, it usually means the real electricians nearby have not given Google enough to go on. Their category may be vague, their services list empty, or their feedback thin.
The name rule
That last point matters. Whitespark ranks keywords in the business name third, which is why some firms stuff them in. Google’s rules still say the name must match the name you use in the real world. Stuffing it with place names can get a listing suspended. A firm whose real name includes the town is fine. One that adds it to rank is not.
Two local quirks
Two local quirks showed up in our searches, and both change how you set up a listing.
NE16
Its postcode is NE16, and Royal Mail gives Newcastle upon Tyne as the post town. So firms based there show “Newcastle upon Tyne” on Google, even though the village sits just over the hill. When we searched “electrician burnopfield”, Google gave an AI answer instead of a map, and that answer pointed people to a trade directory first.
DH9
The web results for “plumber south moor” included pages about Southmoor near Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and about Ushaw Moor near Durham.
Price, in pounds
Our price is £399 a month, and VAT is already in that figure. You commit to three months at the start. Some trades need longer, and we tell you that before you sign, not after.
Ask Google this question and its AI answer quotes US dollars, from $500 to $2,500 a month, even on google.co.uk. Here are UK figures instead, from prices published this year:
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| Rubik Digital, October 2026 | Local SEO for one location: £500 to £2,000 a month |
| Dotwall, July 2026 | Most UK small firms: £150 to £800 a month |
| Tyneside Marketing (named by Google AI Mode for this town) | SEO on its own from £950 a month |
| Direct Submit, based at Kip Hill | £150, £225 or £350 a month; VAT not stated |
| Total Results, based in the town | No SEO price on its site |
| HS Tech Solution | £399 a month, VAT included |
One local firm starts lower
Prices checked on each site on 18 October 2026. So yes, one local firm starts lower than us. If a £150 plan covers what you need, take it. Ours puts the village check, listing work, site fixes and AI checks in one price, with VAT already counted.
Some sums
Some sums for a one van trade: if £399 brings in one extra boiler job or rewire a month, it usually pays for itself. If your diary is full until spring, wait. We would say so on the first call.
What Google's AI said
On 18 October 2026 we asked Google’s AI Mode to name the best SEO company for a small business in the town. Three firms came back. Just one has its base in DH9. The other two are based in Middlesbrough and North Shields.
It then gave three tests for picking a firm. Here they are, with our honest answers.
| AI Mode’s test | Our answer |
|---|---|
| Does the firm focus on the map pack, not national rankings? | Yes. For a trade in DH9, the three map places matter most. |
| Does it avoid locking you into a long contract? | Partly. We ask for three months, because less than that rarely shows anything. Once those three months end, you choose month by month. |
| Is the price clear? | Yes. £399 a month, VAT included, on this page. |
The AI then asked two questions back: what kind of business you run, and whether you want the town only or the whole county. Those are good questions. They are also the first two we ask.
One more honest note. When we searched for SEO services in the town, Google’s AI Overview listed only firms with an address in the town on their Google profile. We are based in Ushaw Moor, so we do not show there, and we will not invent an address to get in.
The first three months
Step 1
We run your trade across the villages you cover, the same way we did above, and show you who wins each one.
Step 2
Category, services, name, hours, photos and service areas, all fixed in one go.
Step 3
We tighten your pages, add the villages you really work in and clean up your details on other sites.
Step 4
You get a short message to send customers after a job. Then we rerun the village check and show you what moved.
Who you deal with
From the first chat to each monthly report, Hamza is the person you deal with. He owns HS Tech Solution and runs the work.
From his home in Ushaw Moor, it is roughly 21 minutes by car to the town centre. Most owners here prefer a quick call at the end of the day. If you would rather sit down face to face, he meets clients in Durham.
Meet other owners
Fancy meeting other owners from this end of the county? Business Durham runs the North Durham Business Network. The next one is on Thursday 19 November 2026, 8:30 to 11am, at Beamish Hall Hotel. It is free, but you need a ticket.
A real result
Most of our past clients are in Australia, so our clearest SEO result is there too. It is an electrician’s site.
Flat
Clicks did not rise
In Google Search Console, its impressions went from 375 to 4,600. The average position is 2.7. Over that period, the number of clicks did not rise. Being seen more came first. Turning those views into calls is the work that follows, and we would rather tell you that than hide it.
Where we work
We help firms in the town centre, Annfield Plain, South Moor, Craghead, Tanfield, Tanfield Lea, Catchgate, Oxhill, New Kyo, Dipton, Burnopfield, Beamish, Greencroft and East Stanley.
Need a new site first? See web design in Stanley. For everything else we do here, see the Stanley hub page. Next door, there is SEO in Consett and SEO in Chester-le-Street.
Questions
Most often the profile is not verified, the category is wrong, or the searcher is too far away. Search your exact business name first. If you appear for that but not for your trade, the problem is relevance or reviews. That is something we can fix.
A new, verified profile can appear for its own name within days. Showing in the top three for a trade search in town usually takes longer, often two to four months. It depends on how much proof and detail the firms above you already have.
No. The normal three map places are free and cannot be bought. Google also sells adverts that sit above or inside the map, marked “Sponsored”. We saw one on a local search here. Those are separate from SEO and paid per click.
Yes, for local trades more than most. Google’s AI answers and its map both draw on your profile, your reviews and your website. In our DH9 searches, the map still appeared for 13 of 14 trade searches. The firms in it were the ones with complete listings.
It happened in our check. A plumber rated 3.1 stars sat in three top threes, helped by 30 reviews and an address in the town. Stars still shape who gets the call, though. Reply calmly to bad reviews, fix the cause, and ask more happy customers to post.
Probably some. Distance is one of Google’s three tests, so the map leans towards firms near the searcher. Change your address the day you move, keep the DH9 villages in your service areas, and keep asking customers there to rate you.
Your address must stay as Royal Mail has it, so the post town stays Newcastle. Add the town and the DH9 villages as service areas. Then name them on your website, with a line that says how short the drive is.
Only if that is your real trading name, on your van and invoices. Google’s rules ban extra keywords in the name, and listings get suspended for it. Put the trade in your category and services, and put the town in your page text instead.
Maybe not yet, if the diary is full. Groups work well when people know your name. But the person who reads “anyone know a good sparky?” often searches your name next. If your listing is thin, the firm above you gets the call instead.
No, you do not. Our keyword check found almost no searches for trades with village names. One strong town page, naming the villages and the jobs you have done there, works better than a stack of copies. Google also treats copied town pages as spam.
Free village check
We will run the same 13 search check for your trade and send you the grid, with your name on it or missing from it. No cost and no hard sell. If SEO Stanley work will not pay for itself in your trade, we will say so plainly.
Ring Hamza on +44 7474 277315, or use the form below.