Areas
Where we work, and how the map behaves on and off the island
One page, not one per district. Google filters district pages that repeat themselves, and we would rather tell you how each part of Portsmouth actually searches. Distances are from the city centre by road, which on an island with three bridges is what matters.
Portsmouth
The map centres, and what each decides
Portsea Island is four miles long and the map centres on the phone, so a business can be first in Southsea and invisible in Cosham. The mainland suburbs are their own maps again.
- Southsea and the seafront
- The visitor trade and the terraces behind it. Its own map for food, drink and beds; the profile says Southsea first.
- Old Portsmouth, Gunwharf and the centre
- The harbour, the shopping, the station, the ferry crowds. Searches from people passing through as well as living here.
- Fratton, Milton and Eastney
- The big terraced grid: home services, garages, the trades' bread and butter. Match days at Fratton Park move the hospitality searches.
- North End, Copnor and Hilsea
- The family suburbs on the island: plumbers, electricians, childcare, the school-run businesses.
- Cosham, Drayton and Farlington
- The mainland: the hospital, the Lakeside offices, bigger houses and bigger jobs; a separate map centre for most trades.
- Paulsgrove and Wymering
- The estates under the hill, under-served on the map for most trades and cheap to win.
Across the water
The towns, the distances, and what we do for each
We take clients in all of these. What changes is the plan: a Portsmouth base with an honest page for the towns you genuinely serve, or a second profile where you really have a second base.
| Town | From the centre | How we treat it |
|---|---|---|
| Fareham | 9 miles | A separate map centre; one honest page for businesses that serve it, named with the distance. |
| Gosport | 6 miles | A ferry away and a different map; one page where you take work across the harbour. |
| Havant | 7 miles | A separate map centre; one honest page for businesses that serve it, named with the distance. |
| Waterlooville | 8 miles | A separate map centre; one honest page for businesses that serve it, named with the distance. |
| Emsworth | 9 miles | A separate map centre; one honest page for businesses that serve it, named with the distance. |
| Hayling Island | 9 miles | Seasonal and its own map; named on your area page, a page for marine and holiday trades. |
| Chichester | 18 miles | A separate map centre; one honest page for businesses that serve it, named with the distance. |
| Southampton | 20 miles | Its own city and its own map; a page only for businesses that genuinely work there. |
Why not a page per district
The doorway trap, in one paragraph
Twenty pages that say “plumber in Southsea”, “plumber in Fratton”, “plumber in Copnor” with the rest identical are what Google's spam policy calls doorway pages. They stop being indexed, and when the filter catches them it tends to take the good pages with it. A business that genuinely works in Gosport gets one Gosport page that could not be mistaken for the Portsmouth one: the jobs done there, the ferry or the road, the price for it. That page ranks. The other kind does not.
The water, as a rule
Google's map measures distance as the crow flies, so a Gosport business can appear for a Southsea search across the harbour mouth while a Cosham one does not. The service area on the profile and the pages on the site are how you tell Google which side of the water you actually work on.
See what is stopping your business ranking in Portsmouth
Send us your website and your trade. You get a plain-English audit of where you stand against the three Portsmouth businesses above you, and a fixed price. No meeting, no long contract.