In January, a Newcastle party bus company asked me to get it into the top 3 on Google for party bus hire within 90 days. On the map scan we ran on 10 April, Autograph Limousines was in the top 3 across 44.97% of the grid for "party bus hire in newcastle", which made it 3rd of every business in the scan for how often it showed up there. It didn't get there in a straight line, so below is the whole 90 days: what we did, what each scan showed, and the week it slipped back.
I'll be upfront about why I'm showing you this. Rank on Google sells the same kind of deal now, top 3 on Google in 90 days, or £500 back, and if you're thinking about paying for it, this is what those 90 days look like from the inside.
Where it started
Autograph hires out limousines, party buses and chauffeur cars across Newcastle and the North East, and it already had a Business Profile, a website and a Quality Business Award for 2025. What it didn't have was much of a presence when someone in Newcastle searched for a party bus.
The first scan, on 8 January, had it in the top 3 across 3.55% of the map, with an average position of 18.85. At almost every point on the grid it came up 20th or lower.
Map scan, 8 Jan 2026, "party bus hire newcastle", 13x13 grid over 373.35 km². Avg rank 18.85, top 3 across 3.55% of the map.
The first month: the profile, the directories and the landing page
The first job was a full review of the Business Profile, with a list of changes sent to the owner for approval before anything was touched. From then on the profile got a new photo and a new post every week, and that carried on for the whole campaign.
By the middle of February the business was listed on its first 30 directories, including Apple Maps and Bing, and the headings on the website's main landing page had been fixed. By the end of February the rest of that page's content was done as well.
This is the bit worth knowing if you're ever paying for SEO. On 6 February, on the same grid as the first scan, the average position had gone from 18.85 to 8.95, but the share of the map in the top 3 had actually dropped, from 3.55% to 2.37%. That looks great on a report, but an average of 8.95 still meant the business was rarely in the top 3, which is where most of the clicks go, so the number that matters had barely moved yet.
The second month: more directories and the service pages
Through late February and into March the directory work carried on in batches, taking the business from 30 listings to over 100 by 6 March and to around 150 a week later. At the same time I built out the service pages on the website and rebuilt the main services page so each service linked properly to the others.
We had tightened the scan grid by then, so these scans only compare with each other. The share of the map in the top 3 went from 7.69% on 20 February to 10.65% on 26 February, then fell back to 8.28% on 6 March.
The one thing I asked for in almost every weekly update was fresh reviews, because by the end of February the newest review on the profile was twelve weeks old. That part sits with the business rather than with us, and it's worth doing whoever you hire.
The week it jumped, and the week it fell back
In the week to 20 March I made a set of changes to the Business Profile aimed squarely at party bus searches, and drafted the location pages to go up next. On the same grid and keyword as the scan a week earlier, the share of the map in the top 3 went from 5.33% to 23.08%, and the average position from 7.44 to 5.12.
Map scan, 13 Mar 2026, "party bus hire newcastle", 13x13 grid over 129.67 km². Avg rank 7.44, top 3 across 5.33% of the map.
Map scan, 20 Mar 2026, same keyword and grid. Avg rank 5.12, top 3 across 23.08% of the map.
A week later, on 27 March, it fell back to 8.88%, with an average of 6.15.
Nothing had been undone. In my experience Google takes one to three weeks to settle after changes to a Business Profile, and the positions move around while it does, so the right call was to leave it alone and keep the weekly posts going rather than start changing things back. If you ever get a report showing a drop like that, one scan on its own tells you very little, and what matters is the direction across several scans on the same grid.
Into the top 3
At the start of April I rebuilt the homepage. It now features the Quality Business Award for 2025 with links to the business's other awards, and it has a short about section, a why choose us section, FAQs, a location section, links out to trusted sources, and a clear call to action.
On 10 April the scan for "party bus hire in newcastle", on the same grid, had Autograph in the top 3 across 44.97% of the map, with an average position of 4.10. By the time the 90 days ran out in the middle of April the top 3 was hit, and Autograph kept us on to look after the profile every month.
Map scan, 10 Apr 2026, "party bus hire in newcastle", 13x13 grid over 129.67 km². Avg rank 4.10, top 3 across 44.97% of the map.
What this means if you're thinking about paying for local SEO
The average position moves first and the top 3 comes later. A report that only shows your average can look great for weeks before you're in the positions people actually click on, so ask to see how much of the map you're in the top 3 for.
It doesn't go up in a straight line either. The share of the map in the top 3 fell back three times on the way up in this campaign, so judge it on the direction across scans on the same grid, never on one week.
And not every search behaves the same way. We've been tracking airport chauffeur searches for the same business since May, and on our 30 July report it still wasn't in the top 3 anywhere on the grid. That's exactly why we scan a business before we quote it, rather than promising a timeline for a search we haven't looked at yet.
How we measured this
Every figure in this post is as printed on the map scans. Each scan checks where the business shows up at 169 points on a 13 by 13 grid, for one search. The grid changed twice during the campaign, from 373.35 km² (8 January to 13 February) to 143.68 km² (20 February to 6 March) and then 129.67 km² (13 March onwards), so I've only compared scans taken on the same grid. The search was "party bus hire newcastle" in every scan apart from the one on 10 April, which was run for "party bus hire in newcastle".
If you want to see where your own business sits before you spend a penny, run a free scan of your town. You'll get the same kind of map as the ones above, and a quote to fix whatever it finds.
J
Runs Rank on Google and Nivoro Marketing from Bishopton, Renfrewshire.