Independent search consultancy

Stevenage / Hertfordshire / UK

Good business.
Now make it
easier to find.

Local SEO and AI search, with the enquiry in mind. TomHow helps you understand how customers find your business and what stops them getting in touch.

Explore the £350 starter Talk to Tom

Fixed scope. No retainer required. Direct founder access.

The work, connected
A customer is looking

“Who can help
near me?”

GoogleMapsAI answers
Your business
Clear serviceReal evidence
An obvious next step
A search-to-enquiry journey.
An illustration of the work, not a results forecast.

Local firstBased in Stevenage. Working across Hertfordshire.

Search is changingGoogle visibility and AI answers considered together.

Evidence before promisesA clear baseline. A practical order of work.

01 / The complete journey

A search result is
only the beginning.

More pages are not always the answer. We look at discovery, the decision and the contact path as one connected job.

01

Be found.

Connect your services to the places and questions your customers search for.

Local SEO + Google
02

Be understood.

Give people and AI search systems clear answers, accurate facts and useful evidence.

AI search + GEO + AEO
03

Make contact easy.

Give the right visitor a clear next step, then check that the enquiry actually arrives.

Website + enquiry path

02 / Find the weak link

Where does the journey stop?

Choose what you are seeing. Get a useful starting point, without a made-up website score.

Check 01Discovery

Check visibility before publishing more.

Start with the searches your customers actually make and the places you serve. Establish whether the right pages appear before changing the whole website.

Evidence to look for

  • Google Search Console impressions and indexing
  • Business Profile details and service area
  • Service and location pages that match the search
Explore local SEO
Check 02Consideration

Check what customers see before they arrive.

An impression means a result appeared. It does not mean someone read it. Look at position, query intent and the page title together before assuming the offer is wrong.

Evidence to look for

  • Page and query pairs, with dates and positions
  • Titles that explain the service and the location
  • A specific next step that matches the search
Explore search optimisation
Check 03Enquiry

Follow the contact path like a customer.

Make it clear who the service is for, what happens next and how to get in touch. Then check the form, phone and email routes. A button click alone is not a lead.

Evidence to look for

  • A clear service, useful proof and a next step
  • Contact routes checked on a phone
  • Stored enquiries reconciled with analytics
See the local visibility starter
Check 04AI discovery

Start with questions, then inspect the evidence.

Record the buyer question, system and date. Check what the answer actually says and which sources it uses. One mention is not a reliable trend.

Evidence to look for

  • A repeatable set of real buyer questions
  • Clear service facts and useful supporting pages
  • Dated mentions and citations, with limits
Explore AI search

03 / A smaller first step

Know what needs
fixing first.

The local visibility starter reviews one website, one Google Business Profile and one primary service area. You get a dated baseline and the three most useful next changes.

See the full scope

£350Fixed scope

Website review
Up to 5 priority pages
Local presence
1 Business Profile + area
Your next steps
3 prioritised changes
Founder explanation
Written findings + follow-up

A review and repair plan. Implementation is agreed separately. No guaranteed rankings or enquiries.

04 / Evidence you can inspect

Clear questions.
Traceable answers.

Search visibility needs more than a green dashboard. The useful question is what changed, where the evidence comes from and what to do next.

Example record structure
QuestionWhat is the buyer asking?
SourceWhich search or AI system?
ContextWhen, where and how checked?
FindingWhat can we actually show?
ActionWhat is the next useful change?

Method illustration. No client results shown.

Google and AI search.
Different evidence.

Local SEO starts with the searches and locations that matter to your business. AI search work examines how ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini describe a business and the sources their answers cite.

Generative engine optimisation (GEO), answer engine optimisation (AEO) and citation tracking help organise that work. They do not guarantee that an answer will mention you.

Use the free local SEO checklist ↗How reporting works ↗Understand GEO ↗Understand AEO ↗Citation tracking ↗

05 / The person behind the work

Work with Tom.
Understand the next step.

TomHow is run by Thomas Howcroft, an SEO and AI search consultant based in Stevenage. The work starts with your business, your service area and the customer you want to reach.

Start small with the local review. If the evidence calls for a larger audit or ongoing work, we agree the scope separately.

Tell Tom about your website Larger projects ↗