Brighton and Hove is one city with two names, a seafront that draws visitors all year and a centre full of independent shops, cafés and small creative firms. That mix means a guesthouse in Kemptown, a record shop in North Laine and a three-person design studio in Hove each need something different from Google. I am not based in Brighton and Hove. I work from London and Reading, and projects for businesses here run remotely.
How a Brighton and Hove project runs remotely
Day to day, we talk on video, swap notes by email and keep the plan in a shared document, after you give me access to the site, Search Console and your Business Profile. Setting up, reporting and the monthly routine do not change from one client to the next, so I describe them once, in how I run SEO projects for businesses around the UK.
The step that is specific to this city comes at the start. Many Brighton and Hove businesses serve two groups of people who search in different ways: residents, who search from inside the city on the day they need something, and visitors, who often search from London or elsewhere days or weeks before they travel. So we agree which group matters most to you, and I look at Google from both sides: once with the location set to your own street, and again from the towns and cities your visitors travel from.
What changes about search in Brighton and Hove
Brighton, Hove or both
Visitors tend to type “Brighton”, even when the place they want is in Hove. Many Hove residents, on the other hand, use the Hove name and search with it. A business with a Hove address should keep that address exactly as Royal Mail records it on the website, the Business Profile and every directory listing, and then use “Brighton and Hove” or “Hove, near Brighton” in page titles and copy where a visitor would need it. That covers both habits without misleading anyone about where you are.
Neighbourhoods people know by name
Searches here often name an area instead of the city: “vintage clothes North Laine”, “brunch Kemptown”, “florist Seven Dials”, “café Hanover”. Visitors also mix up the Lanes and North Laine, which sit close together but are different streets with a different feel. If you trade in one of them, say which on your home and contact pages, and add a sentence on how to walk to you from the station or the seafront. That one honest sentence answers the visitor’s real question and gives Google a clear signal of where you are.
Crowded map results in the centre
In the Lanes, North Laine and along Western Road, a search for a café, a barber or a gift shop brings up a local pack drawn from dozens of businesses within a short walk of each other. Distance separates almost nobody, so the details decide it: the most accurate primary category, opening hours that match reality on bank holidays, current photographs of the shopfront and the inside, and a steady stream of new reviews. An independent that keeps its Google Business Profile up to date every month will usually do better than one that set it up once and left it.
Visitor trade has sharp peaks
Hotels, guesthouses, holiday lets, restaurants and attractions see demand bunch around summer weekends, bank holidays and the city’s big events, such as the Brighton Festival and Fringe in May and Pride in August. People start searching for rooms and tables well before those dates, so a page published the week before is too late to help. Plan around seasonal keywords with a simple calendar: refresh event and offer pages several weeks ahead, keep last year’s event pages live and update them instead of starting new ones, and put prices and availability where a phone user can see them without opening a PDF.
If you run Google Ads for visitor trade, check the campaign’s location targeting. A campaign aimed only at people physically in Brighton and Hove misses the Londoner planning a weekend away. The setting that includes people showing interest in your area reaches them, and a separate budget for peak weeks stops quiet months eating the money.
A crowded field for marketing and creative services
The city has a large number of small agencies, studios and freelancers, so searches for web design, branding or marketing services are some of the most contested searches in the city. Adding “Brighton” to every heading will not set a studio apart from the next one. What does is a page for each thing you are genuinely good at, such as a platform you build on or a sector you know well, with written project pages that explain the brief and the result, naming clients only with their permission.
Coverage runs along the coast
With the sea to the south and the South Downs behind, the city’s trades, cleaners and mobile services tend to cover a strip along the coast, from Shoreham and Worthing in the west to Peacehaven and Newhaven in the east, and inland to Lewes or Burgess Hill. A business that goes out to customers, instead of having them come in, belongs on Google as a service area business, with a service list limited to towns you would genuinely drive to. Give Lewes or Worthing its own page only if you can write something true and particular about it, for instance the jobs you take on there or the days you cover it.
When a consultant outside the city is the wrong choice
Brighton and Hove has a big local marketing community, so you are not short of people nearby. If you want someone to photograph your rooms on a bright morning, film your venue during the Fringe or post to your social accounts from the seafront as things happen, a Brighton-based marketer is the better hire, since none of that works from a desk in London. A local firm also suits you better if you want a person sitting in on weekly team meetings, or one studio to design, build and then market a new website.
Where your adviser sits makes no difference to your place in the map results. That rests on your own address, category and reviews, as I explain on the local SEO service page.
Services that fit a Brighton and Hove business
- Google Business Profile optimisation, for independents in the Lanes, North Laine and Kemptown competing in tightly packed map results.
- Hotel SEO, for hotels, guesthouses and B&Bs that want more direct bookings from visitors planning ahead.
- Restaurant SEO, for restaurants, cafés and bars whose trade swings between quiet midweek winters and packed summer weekends.
- Shopify SEO, for independent shops that sell online to customers who found them on a visit.
Getting started
The quickest start is a free SEO audit request. Include your website, the part of the city you trade from, and whether your customers are mostly locals or visitors. I will look at the searches each group makes, see where your site falls short and reply with the one fix I would tackle first.