What is SEO and what is it for? A guide for local businesses

SEO (search engine optimisation) is the set of improvements made to your website and your Google listing so that Google understands what you do and where, and shows you to the people searching for exactly that. It helps customers who are already looking for what you offer find you at the moment they search, and you don't pay for each visit the way you do with ads.

Say you run a hair salon in La Laguna. On a Tuesday afternoon, someone types “hair salon in La Laguna” into their phone, and Google shows them a map with a handful of businesses and, below it, a list of websites. If your salon appears there, that person can call or message you with one tap. SEO is what gets it there.

What is SEO, explained simply?

Imagine the internet is a huge shopping centre with millions of shops. When someone walks in looking for something specific, Google acts as the information desk: it listens to what they want and tells them which shops to go to, in order.

SEO stands for search engine optimisation; it's sometimes also called search engine positioning. It's the improvements made to your website and, if you run a local business, to your Google listing, so that the information desk understands what you offer and recommends you to the people looking for it.

Google sums it up like this in its SEO Starter Guide: SEO is about helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site and decide whether to visit it. Put another way, it's about showing Google that your website is a good answer to what that person is looking for.

It helps to tell two kinds of results apart. Organic results are the ones Google ranks on its own, and that's where SEO works. In its guide to how Google Search works, Google explains that it doesn't accept payment to rank pages higher. The ones labelled “Sponsored” are ads, and those are paid for per click.

What is SEO for in your business?

A beautiful website that Google misunderstands is like a lovely shop on a hidden street: whoever finds it is happy, but very few people find it. Above all, SEO helps you:

• Get found by people who are already looking for you. Your website is visible at any hour to people searching for what you offer, right when they search. They already have the need; all that's left is choosing who to call.
• Arrive with some of the trust already earned. When someone doesn't know you yet, the first thing they learn about you is what they see on Google: your website, your photos, your opening hours and your reviews. If all of that is clear and up to date, it's easier for them to get in touch.
• Keep what you've worked on. With ads you pay for every click, and the day you stop paying, the ad stops showing. What's done for SEO (the copy, the structure of the website, the listing and the reviews) stays there when you stop, although rankings can shift over time.
• Compete with bigger or longer-established businesses in your area. In local searches, a well-built website can put you ahead of veteran companies. With the new website we built for them, Demoliciones Tenerife reached 4th place on Google for “demoliciones tenerife” in under 4 months (September 2026), ahead of companies with more than 30 years in the sector; we tell the story in the Demoliciones Tenerife case study.

What is local SEO?

When someone searches for a service with a place name (“plumber in La Orotava”, “pastry shop in Mataró”) or types “near me”, Google usually shows a map with several businesses before the list of websites. Local SEO is the part of SEO that gets you shown there, on Google and Google Maps, when someone searches for what you do in your area. For a business that serves customers in its town or on its island, it's the SEO that matters most, because people who search this way usually want to hire someone soon.

According to Google Business Profile Help (Google Business Profile is your business's free profile on Google and Google Maps), local results depend mainly on three things:

• Relevance: how well your listing matches what the person is looking for.
• Distance: how far your business is from the person searching.
• Prominence: how well known your business is, which Google works out from what it finds about you online, such as links, articles and reviews.

Distance depends on where you are, but you can work on the other two. On that same page, Google says that businesses that provide complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results, and makes clear that a better local ranking can't be bought.

If you work with tourists or foreign residents, as many businesses in the Canary Islands do, it helps to have your website in English as well as Spanish, so you show up when people search in their own language.

The three pillars of SEO, explained simply

Google takes many factors into account when ranking results, and almost all of them fit into three ideas anyone can understand.

1. Content (what you say)

Your website has to answer your customers' questions clearly and usefully. If you do renovations, saying “we do renovations” falls short: explain what kinds of renovation you do, how you work, which towns you cover and what questions your customers usually have before they call you. Each page should say what you do and where, in the words your customer would use to search for you.

2. Website structure and speed (how you say it)

Your website has to load fast, be secure and look good on a phone, with a menu that's easy to find. Speed matters because many people get tired of waiting: according to Google (2016), 53% of mobile visits are abandoned if the page takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Under the hood, the website also has to be well organised, with clear headings, one page per service and structured data (information Google reads even though visitors don't see it), so that Google understands each page first time.

You can test your website with our free speed test or with Lighthouse, Google's tool that scores a page from 0 to 100 on speed and on how ready it is for search engines. For reference, the website we built for Pollo Frito Chino, a fried chicken buffet in La Laguna, scores over 90 out of 100 for mobile speed and 100 for SEO in Lighthouse (September 2026). If yours is slow to load, our article on why a WordPress website can be slow goes through the most common causes and how to fix them.

3. Reputation (who talks about you)

Google needs signs that your business can be trusted. When other websites in your sector, online newspapers, associations or local directories link to your website or mention you, Google takes it as a sign of trust. In local SEO, reviews count too: Google says that more reviews and positive ratings can help a business's local ranking. Ask your happy customers to leave one and reply to every review, including the less positive ones.

Timing: why SEO moves more slowly than ads

An ad shows from day one, while SEO needs more time because every change you make to your website takes a while to be reflected on Google. In its SEO Starter Guide, Google explains that some changes take a few hours to take effect and others several months, and that you'll usually want to wait a few weeks to see whether your work has had an effect on search results. In local searches, it's normal to start noticing movement between 3 and 6 months, depending on how competitive your sector is; for Demoliciones Tenerife, it took under 4 months to reach 4th place.

Google also admits in that guide that no secret will automatically put you first. Google decides the order, so what can be promised is the work done each month and a report so you can see what it's achieving. We explain it in more detail in how long SEO takes to show results.

How do you start improving your rankings?

Professional SEO takes method and consistency, but there are basic things you can check today:

1. Use your customers' words. Write your copy thinking about how an ordinary person would search for you: they type “fix a leak” rather than “plumbing installation repairs”.
2. Complete your Google Business Profile. It's free and it's what shows up on Google Maps: add the right category, your address or the area you serve, your opening hours, phone number, website and real photos.
3. Answer your customers' questions on your website. An FAQ section or a blog with useful articles helps Google understand what you do and who you can help.
4. Ask for reviews. When a customer leaves happy, ask them to leave you a review on Google, and reply to every one, because that's what the next customer reads before calling you.
5. Check which searches bring you visits. Google Search Console, a free Google tool, tells you which searches you appear for, your average position and how many people click.

How we do SEO at Zelerix

We build every website from scratch, without templates or WordPress, so it loads fast on mobile and Google understands what your business does and where. Our packs also include the website in two languages.

On that foundation, we handle ranking on Google and Google Maps for the websites we build, for businesses in Tenerife and the rest of Spain. The SEO setup costs €390 and then it's €200 a month, IGIC included, with a report every month. There's no minimum term: if one month you decide to stop, you cancel. We only do SEO on websites we've built, because the website's speed and code are the foundation of its ranking.

If you still need the website, the Corporate + SEO pack costs €1,150, IGIC included: it comes with the corporate website of up to 5 pages, the domain, hosting, your Google Business Profile, the SEO setup and the first 2 months of SEO and maintenance; after that, SEO continues at €200 a month until you cancel. Before you pay, we prepare a free demo of the website for you to see on your phone; if you like it, we finish it, and if you'd rather leave it, you owe us nothing.

If you already have a website and want to know where you stand today, ask for the free SEO analysis: we'll tell you where you appear on Google, what your competitors in your area are doing, what you'd need to get ahead of them and whether it's worth rebuilding your website. In Tenerife we come to your business, and with the rest of the Canary Islands and Spain we work remotely, by WhatsApp, phone, email or video call.

In short

SEO is the work that helps Google understand what you do and where, and show you to people searching for it. It helps customers who already have the need find you, and the work stays on your website. For a local business, what matters most is what your website says, how well it's built, your Google Business Profile and your reviews, and results start to show within a few months.