Brighton, Hove or Shoreham? How local search actually works here

Yes. Plenty of searches still use Hove, Shoreham, Portslade or a neighbourhood name as the place, even when the same person might say “Brighton” to someone who doesn’t know the area. That is ordinary language, not a loophole.

Your Business Profile and your website should describe the location honestly. If you are in Hove, say so. If you are a service-area business based in Brighton & Hove and you travel to Shoreham, say that in a way that matches how you actually take work — not as a string of town names in the business title.

That still leaves room to mention the names people actually type. A Hove café can say it is in Hove, and also note that many visitors will search for Brighton. A tradesperson who covers Shoreham can say so on a service page without pretending the van is based on the high street there. The line is honesty: the words should match the jobs you would take, and the address field should stay boringly accurate.

Only when you genuinely serve that place and have something specific to say: the work you do there, the way people reach you, any real limitation on the area you cover. A page that is identical to your Brighton copy, with the town name swapped, is usually not worth having.

Thin area pages are a common way to make a small site look bigger than it is. They rarely help, and they can get in the way of the useful pages — your genuine services, your real location, your contact details. If you do need area content, treat it as content marketing with a proper brief, not as a template run.

Write it accurately and once, then repeat that version. “Brighton & Hove” is the local authority; many addresses are in Brighton or in Hove as the post town. Use the form that matches your letterhead, your Companies House or trading details, and the premises itself.

Do not add a more fashionable neighbourhood to the business name, and do not list every nearby town in the address field to cover more searches. If the listing cannot be found, or looks like a different pin, see Why isn’t my business showing on Google Maps? before you create a second profile.

Neighbourhood names — Kemptown, the Lanes, Portslade, Hangleton and the rest — matter because people use them. They are useful in body copy, in directions, and in a genuine service description. They are not a reason to publish a thin page for each one, and they should not replace the official address on the profile.

If you are a shopfront business, the pin should be the shop. If you travel to customers, the profile should follow Google’s service-area rules. In both cases, local SEO is about matching the listing to how you actually trade, not about covering every name on the map. A short, accurate description of the area you cover is more useful than a long list of neighbourhoods you hope to rank for.

• Guidelines for representing your business on Google — name, address, service areas and categories.
• Business eligibility and ownership guidelines — who qualifies, and what a genuine location is.