In Pau, in south west France, the first page of Google comes down to a handful of places. Queries such as “création site internet Pau” (website design Pau) or “agence web Pau” (web agency Pau) are typed thousands of times a year, and almost every click lands on the top three results and the map pack. Fifteenth or thirtieth amounts to the same thing: nobody sees you. This page sets out how Aloha Pixel, as an SEO agency in Pau, works on the organic rankings of a local business, with which deliverables and on what timetable.
What local SEO actually produces
Local search does not manufacture awareness, it catches an intention that has already formed. When somebody types “plombier Pau” (plumber Pau) or “cabinet comptable Pau” (accountancy firm Pau), they are not discovering a need: they are looking for someone to do the job, now. It is the most qualified traffic there is, and the cheapest over the long run, because it is not paid for by the click.
Three zones fight for the screen on a search of that kind. The map pack at the top, fed by Google Business Profiles. The organic results next, fed by the pages of your own site. And, depending on the sector, the directories and marketplaces that take up whatever is left. A serious local strategy works the first two at the same time, because each one strengthens the other.
The method, in four stages
1. The audit, before any promise
Nothing is committed to before we have looked under the hood. The audit covers how many pages are genuinely indexed, speed measured on mobile, heading structure, title tags and meta descriptions, internal linking, duplicate content, the health of the sitemap, and sixteen months of Search Console data.
That last item is the most revealing. A site can pile up thousands of impressions without a single click, which means it is judged relevant but never quite relevant enough to reach page one. The diagnosis then changes completely: the job is not to create content, it is to concentrate what already exists.
2. Clearing out the cannibalization
This is the most widespread mistake, and the most expensive. Three pages on the same site chase the same phrase, with near identical titles. Google picks one more or less at random, changes its mind from one month to the next, and none of them gathers enough signal to break through. The correction is to give each page a single intent, rewrite the titles accordingly, and point the other pages at the one that is meant to win.
This stage costs almost nothing and often produces the first visible gain, because it calls for no new content at all.
3. Content that answers real questions
A page that simply repeats “agence SEO Pau” (SEO agency Pau) ten times stopped ranking a long time ago. What works is a page that answers precisely what the person was after: what it costs, how long it takes, what is included, what happens if it does not work.
The editorial work, then, is to identify those questions, often from the real searches Search Console reports back, and to answer them without detour. Each page gets its own heading structure, its internal links and its frequently asked questions marked up in structured data.
4. The monthly monitoring
Search rankings drift on their own: a plugin update breaks a tag, a competitor publishes, Google alters its criteria. The monthly monitoring checks positions on a set of phrases agreed with you, checks indexing, corrects technical regressions and keeps content coming.
The report is short and readable: what moved, why, and what is planned for the following month. No three-hundred-line spreadsheet that nobody reads.
The Google Business Profile, your best local ally
On a geolocated search, the map pack takes the most visible part of the screen, often above the first organic result. It does not depend on your site but on your Business Profile, and it obeys rules of its own.
Three signals count above all others: the distance between the searcher and your address, the consistency of your details across the whole web, and the volume and the freshness of your reviews. The third is the only one you can move quickly. A business with twelve recent reviews goes ahead of a competitor sitting on forty that are three years old.
Consistency, for its part, is a matter of fine detail: the same name, the same address and the same phone number on your site, your profile, your social accounts and the trade directories. One number that differs from one platform to the next is enough to blur the signal. The full method is set out in our guide to local SEO in Pau.
How to recognize a serious SEO agency
The trade carries a reputation, and it did not come from nowhere. A few signals let you make up your mind quickly.
The guaranteed first position. Nobody controls Google’s algorithm. An agency that guarantees a precise place is in practice guaranteeing a phrase with no competition, chosen because it is easy to win and worth nothing commercially.
The quote with no deliverables spelled out. A monthly figure should correspond to named actions: how many pages are worked on, how often reports arrive, what technical scope is covered. “SEO optimization” is not a deliverable.
Ownership of the accounts. Search Console, analytics, Business Profile, domain name: all of it should be in your name, with your provider holding delegated access. If you cannot revoke an access in three clicks, you do not own your own visibility.
The length of the commitment. SEO takes time, which obliges nobody to sign for twenty-four months. A provider confident in its results has no need to hold you by contract.
SEO: how much, and in what form
Two packages cover most of what a Pau business needs.
| Package | What it covers | Price |
|---|---|---|
| SEO Essentiel | Initial audit, tags and structure corrected, local keywords, position tracking and a monthly report. | €89/month |
| SEO Premium | Everything in the package above, plus regular content production, work on local citations and a monthly strategy review. | €149/month |
Amounts in euros, VAT not applicable, article 293 B of the French tax code. No minimum term, cancellation from the client area. What a top of the range engagement actually covers is explained in our article on the premium SEO package, and the budget question in the one on how much SEO costs.
What we ask of the client
An engagement only works if both sides do the work. In practice, three things are expected from your end: proofreading the content written about your business, because you alone know how your customers put their need into words; asking your satisfied customers for reviews on a regular basis, a simple gesture that costs nothing and weighs heavily in local search; and passing on the information that changes, a new service, a new address, new opening hours.
Without that, the search work still moves forward, but at half the speed.
Start with a diagnostic
The first useful step is not a quote, it is a survey of where things stand. Which phrases does the site already appear on, at what position, with how many impressions? The answer is often enough to redirect the strategy completely, and it asks for nothing more than read access to your Search Console.
Book thirty minutes or describe your situation in writing. To understand our approach to search in detail, our SEO method is set out step by step. If your market runs wider than the department, the organic search page presents the offer without the geographical anchor.
Also worth reading: 7 SEO mistakes that sink your Google visibility
Start your SEOAsk for a diagnostic
