Local SEO Guide for Small Businesses for 2025
A flooring company in Portland watched its call volume drop 47 percent in six weeks.…
We are the #1 Boston SEO Agency
Driving leads shouldn't be that hard. But it is. Boston is one of the largest cities in the country and competition is fierce. Getting on top and staying there means you need to be one of the first businesses found in online search. Whether that is your GBP on Google Maps or showing up on the top of the search results page. Get in touch and we can discuss the best path forward for your business.
"I wouldn't go anywhere else. Gabe's knowledge of SEO and marketing has been an invaluable asset to my company."
Every business is different, so there isn't a one size fits all approach to lead generation. For some industries Google Maps is king. For others organic search and Google Ads is the main driver. Whatever services you need, I have over 13 years of experience in driving traffic and building revenue.
42% of all local search clicks go to the top 3 results, and 29% of those go to the first Google map pack result. When a business enters the map pack, they see an average traffic increase of 126%.
Boston is a competitive city, no matter the industry. By investing in local SEO, you are taking a step toward financial security and more local market share. My clients dominate their local search results.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the now and the future. It focuses on tactics proven to increase your brand's AI visibility in Google AI Overview, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude AI.
If your website is not making you money then there's a problem. I focus on designing visually-stunning websites that increase conversions, search traffic and provide a great user experience.
My name is Gabriel. I have spent the last 13 years helping businesses large and small achieve greater financial success through search engine optimization and high conversion web design and development. You get one-on-one service and a partner that cares about your businesses success as much as you do. I'm a 3rd generation entrepreneur, so I was raised to understand how important your business is.
"You can focus on your business while I get you more leads and more customers."
Gabriel Bertolo
Founder and Lead SEO Specialist
Customer Satisfaction
Years of Experience
Nick V.
"I wouldn't go anywhere else. Service is quick, responsive and reliable. Gabe's knowledge of SEO and marketing have been an invaluable asset to my company."
Therese Wagner
"He was patient and responsive to all my needs. It was exciting to watch my website go from page 25 to page 1 on Google. It has been a pleasure dealing with a small USA based business regarding SEO."
Harry O.
"SEO Company Boston is hands down the best SEO company I've worked with. Gabe is a true expert in his field. Highly recommend!"
Austin M.
"SEO Company Boston is the best! We had no local visibility before hiring them and now we're on the top page of Google in the maps section. We're getting so many more calls. Last month we made a 5X return on what we're paying him. Thanks so much Gabe!"
Aslan S.
"We’ve partnered with a handful of SEO agencies over the years, but none came close to what SEO Company Boston delivered. In just a few months, our leads shot up and our Google Maps rankings improved way more than we expected."
Dara O'Brien
"He is responsive, knowledgeable, and a real pleasure to work with. He demystified the process and helped educate us regarding best practices and how to optimize new content as we move forward. We are happy to recommend him!"
How much does SEO cost in Boston?
Price: starting at $1,500/mo
Local SEO is for businesses that serve a specific city or town. Some examples are: dentists professionals, home service providers, financial service providers, etc.
Price: starting at $3,500/mo
National SEO is for businesses that serve the entire U.S. Ideal for service businesses with different locations across different states and e-commerce brands.
Turn all that red into a sea of green
Google analyzes thousands of on and off page factors to determine the topic, trustworthiness, and the quality of a webpage in relation to the search query. The bottom line is that Google wants to provide the best for the user. By optimizing your website for algorithm ranking factors we increase search visibility which increases organic traffic. More traffic means more revenue for you.
Showing up in the map pack on Google Maps can transform a businesses revenue. 45% of the clicks for any given search go to one of the 3 businesses in the map pack, with over 20% of ALL clicks going to the #1 ranking Google Business Profile.
Ranking high in Google Maps is caused by a number of factors. Proximity plays a role, the closer you are to the searcher the more likely you'll show up higher. The number of Google reviews and overall Google Business Profile rating is also important.
There are a number of more technical off page tactics I employ to improve your Google Maps ranking. On page SEO, optimizing the GBP itself, improving local intent by utilizing business listings, all the way to building specific types of backlinks.
Keyword research is one of the first parts of onboarding for a new SEO client. Choosing the right keywords to optimize a website for is key. I use advanced keyword research tools to look at local intent, buyer intent, search volume, trends, and competition. Every business is different and while there will be many overlaps with competition, you may have specific long-tail keywords that are more specific to you and what you offer. Hyper relevance with a high search intent keywords can yield powerful results.
It depends on how deep we want to go. For most projects, as long as the site is accessible to me, is in good shape, and has ways to implement on-page SEO, things are fine. Responsive design and mobile optimization are important as well. Sometimes a client comes with a site that is in need of a rebuild to make the most out of SEO and to help drive conversions.
For clients who want to make the most out of SEO, I offer high-conversion web design. With this service, I redesign your site using conversion rate optimization best practices so that your website converts at a higher rate, so we can squeeze as much revenue out of the new organic search traffic.
Local SEO takes all traditional SEO service aspects but adds more tactics to drive local search traffic. Traditional SEO is more for national, e-commerce, and enterprise brands. These are businesses that focus on the whole U.S. While local SEO is ideal for businesses that serve a specific geographic area like a city or a town.
Local SEO focuses on on page and linkbuilding that are the cornerstones of traditional SEO. It also focuses on ranking your Google Business Profile to rank in the Google Maps map pack and getting local topically relevant links. These tactics help your business show up when people are searching for your service in your city, or searching for your service "near me".
There are a lot of mistakes that can hurt your SEO performance. And I've seen them all. But here is a list of the most common issues that can hinder your SEO efforts.
I tend to tell all clients that results can take up to 6-8 months. Often my clients see results faster, but it can vary wildly. There are a lot of factors at play that determine this. Google core updates and competition level for the industry are the two main ones.
You can make all the right changes to a website but we have to wait for Google to crawl the site and recalibrate where to place you in the SERPs. It is impossible for an SEO to gauge how long it will take. I've had clients that see a 4x traffic increase in a month or two, and others can take several months.
I recommend clients don't start Search engine optimization unless they can commit to a minimum of 6-months. This gives me the time to work through my system and time for search engines to reorient the site.
My entire goal is to increase revenue for you. I work to get you a positive ROI as quickly as possible and then grow that ROI over time. If you're paying me $2,000/month, I want to see you generating at least $4,000/mo in new revenue within 6-12 months.
Here are some recent clients results:
PPC ads can be very effective when done right. And they can be a huge waste of money if they aren't. PPC ads are a great way to start driving new leads while organic SEO is being worked on. There are many overlaps between PPC and SEO. Keywords are used for both, and apply to each other. PPC is also a great way to test messaging.
The goal with PPC ads is to get a good ROAS (Return on ad spend). The average ROAS my PPC campaigns get are 3.5X. This means on average, if a client spends $2,000/month on Google Ads they are generating $7,000 in revenue.
Backlinks are an important aspect of search engine optimization. Search engines look at your backlink profile to determine value and trustworthiness. The more high quality, topically relevant sites that link to your site the better chance you have to rank higher. When building links quality matters. Bad backlinks can harm your websites SEO potential. I only build links from sites that are healthy, topically or geographically relevant to the brand, and have a good authority.
Here are some factors that I use to evaluate links:
My hourly rate is $150 and packages are based on the number of hours per month at that rate. Local SEO packages start at $1,500/month, and national and e-commerce SEO starts at $3,500/month. These are just the starting at prices and really depend on a few factors I evaluate before I give you a proposal. The biggest factors are competition level and the region we're targeting. A plumber in East Boston might do great with a $1,500/month Local SEO package, whereas a cosmetic dentist in Lincoln, MA might require a $3,000/month Local SEO package.
For national SEO, E-commerce SEO, and enterprise SEO the starting point is $3,500/month. My average national SEO monthly retainer is $5,500. This is because these kinds of companies are going after much more competitive keywords with a higher search volume. This requires more intense analysis and more extensive link building campaigns.
SEO is a monthly service because you're never "done". The search landscape is always changing. New Google updates can shake everything up. A competitor can start an aggressive SEO campaign and take over, a new competitor can open up shop and steal market share. With monthly SEO we can stay on top and continue to implement strategies to make it even harder for your competition outrank you.
There are times clients have hired me for one-off SEO projects. Often this is for an audit, an advanced on page SEO treatment, or a one-off link building campaign.