Reyt then, here's summat that surprised us.
We've been doing a proper deep-dive into our own search performance lately — Search Console, the lot. And we found something that a lot of local businesses will recognise, even if they've never looked closely enough to spot it.
For the search term "graphic design," we rank around position 3 in Huddersfield. Top of the first page, near enough. That's the bit everyone chases — get to page one, get near the top, job done.
Except the clicks weren't coming. Zero. Nowt.
Ranking And Getting Found Are Two Different Jobs
It took us a minute to get our heads round it too. You'd think position 3 means people are landing on your site. But ranking just means Google reckons you're relevant. Whether anyone actually clicks through depends on what they see in that little snippet — the title, the description, whether it looks like it's actually for them.
Turns out you can do all the hard graft getting the ranking right and still lose the click to a competitor two spots below you, just because their title said something yours didn't.
What We Did About It
We rewrote our own title and meta description for the graphic design page — not just stuffing the keyword in and hoping, but actually saying something. Specific, direct, giving folk a reason to pick us over the next result down.
- New title leads with our 25+ years and straight, fair pricing — not just the keyword
- New description gives a clear reason to click and a clear next step
- Social share previews — the bit that shows up on LinkedIn and Facebook — updated to match, so the story's consistent wherever the link lands
Basic stuff, but easy to skip when you're focused on the ranking number instead of the person doing the searching.
Why This Matters If You're A Local Business
If you've had someone tell you your SEO's "doing well" because you rank on page one — ask the follow-up question. Are folk clicking? Are they getting in touch? A good ranking with no clicks isn't a result. It's a near miss.
Worth five minutes in your own Search Console to check. And if you'd rather someone just tell you straight where you stand, run your site through our SiteCheck tool — instant, honest, no sales pitch.