Running local SEO customer interviews without the usual guesswork

What to take away

• A plumber in Leeds who wins most work through Google Business Profile and word of mouth is the kind of customer to interview first, because their answers shape what you sell.
• Qualify on three filters: trading location in England, influence over marketing spend, and a local catchment rather than a national one.
• Five to eight interviews per segment surfaces repeated themes. More calls add detail, not direction.
• Ask how customers chose, not what they think of SEO. Buyers describe outcomes, not channels.
• Treat the notes as evidence inside a wider audience research process.

Why run interviews instead of only reading reports

Published data tells you how many people search. It rarely says who signs the invoice, what triggered the search, or which competitor they rang first. Interviews close that gap.

Skip this step and you pitch the wrong service to the wrong buyer. A shop owner in Bristol may want footfall. A mobile hairdresser in Sheffield wants bookings within three miles. Both buy local SEO, but they measure success differently.

For the wider method, the local SEO audience research guide for England shows how interviews sit alongside search data and competitor checks.

Set inclusion criteria before you book anyone

Write down who qualifies. Three filters do most of the job for England-focused work. First, the business trades from a fixed or service-area location in England. Second, the person you interview influences or approves marketing spend. Third, the business competes inside a town, city or county rather than nationally.

Exclude national brands with one head office buyer, franchisees who cannot change their own listings, and sellers with no geographic catchment. Their answers distort the pattern.

Geography shapes habits too. Many sole traders in England register with HMRC and handle marketing alone, so the self-employment detailed information from GOV.UK is useful background when you plan questions about who actually does the work.

Build a question set that survives a 30-minute call

Keep to eight or ten open questions and leave room to follow up. Useful openers: how did your last five customers find you, what did you try before hiring help, and what would make you switch provider.

Ask about the moment of need, not the channel. A customer who describes needing someone the same day is telling you more than one who names a search engine.

Know the limits on promises. The ASA and CAP explanation of advertising regulation covers the rules that apply to online marketing and SEO claims, which is worth reading before you repeat results back to an interviewee.

Record calls with consent, transcribe, and tag answers by theme. Do not open with your own service description, because it contaminates the answers.

Worked example with labelled figures

Take an illustrative agency in Norwich selling local SEO services at £600 a month. It interviews six customers over three weeks.

Four of the six say they chose the agency after a recommendation. Two found it through a local search. Suppose the agency spends £450 a month on ads and content. If the interviews produce two referrals next quarter at £600 a month each, that is £3,600 in added annual recurring revenue. The process cost roughly 12 hours of staff time.

Treat figures like these as planning assumptions, not quoted results, and label them illustrative. Pair interview themes with profile work such as the local SEO buyer personas: data and sources method so the numbers attach to a named audience.

Use official data to sanity-check the themes

Interview themes come from small samples, so test them against national patterns. The ONS leisure and tourism statistics show how household spending on local services shifts over time. That helps you judge whether a complaint is personal or seasonal.

Where interviewees and the data disagree, ask why before you change your service.

Record the sample size in every summary you write up.

Common questions

How many interviews are enough?

Five to eight per segment usually surfaces repeated themes. Stop when new calls stop producing new answers, and note the sample size when you report findings.

Should I pay interviewees?

A small voucher is common and keeps no-shows down. Check your client contracts before offering incentives, and keep the amount consistent across participants.

Can I use interview quotes in marketing?

Only with written permission and only if the quote is accurate. Advertising rules on testimonials and claims apply, so keep evidence for anything you publish.

Do I need interviews if I already have search data?

Not always, but search data rarely explains motivation. Interviews tell you why a search happened, which shapes your pitch.