Mid Sussex Catering

Where things stand

The technical basics are sound: the site is fast, on HTTPS, fully indexable and in the sitemap. The problems are around the site rather than inside it. The business changed its name from Mid Sussex Hog Roast and the old name is still live across listings, the blog template and the Facebook link. Half the site's content is published but unreachable from the navigation. There is no schema and no Search Console data flowing yet.

What we mean by "the entity"

Search engines no longer rank a website on its own. They keep a record of the business behind it, a single idea of who Mid Sussex Catering is, where it operates, what it does and how trustworthy it is. That record is the entity. Everything in the first half of this plan is about making that record clear, consistent and unmistakably one business.

The practical rule is simple. One name, one phone number, one website address and one service area description, written the same way everywhere, with the old name retired or marked as a former name rather than deleted. The 141 Google reviews are the most valuable part of the record, so every change is made in a way that keeps them.

The plan, in order

1. 1
   Unblock Search Console and re-crawlThe property owner adds the Lumar login as a Restricted user in Search Console. Attach the property to the project, drop the import filter from 1 click to 0 clicks (the zero-click queries are the gap list), upload a target query list of services by town, and run one crawl. That gives observed and target relevance data together.
2. 2
   One hour of Webflow fixesBlog collection title template, two name variants, global canonical, nav and footer links to Blog and FAQs. Removes the old brand from every blog title and makes 14 orphaned pages reachable.
3. 3
   Two client decisions, then the canonical NAPHog roast: offered or not. Legal name: confirm from the incorporation certificate. Then write down the one record every listing is checked against: name, phone, URL, categories, hidden address, service areas.
4. 4
   Citation clean-upGoogle duplicate first, then Bing, Apple and Facebook (the data layer everything else copies), then the niche directories, keeping their reviews.
5. 5
   SchemaLocalBusiness with areaServed, sameAs, legalName and alternateName for the old names. Separate working session to come.
6. 6
   Content and semantic tuningFuneral page first, then town pages for the core area, then individual venue pages. Link the existing blog posts into each. Add menus, indicative pricing and FAQs so the pages also answer AI queries.
7. 7
   Paid versus organic, per serviceOnce Search Console and Keyword Planner data are in. Funeral is urgent and low-comparison, suited to paid and Maps. Weddings have long lead times and suit content.
8. 8
   ReviewsA steady request after every event, pointed at the one surviving Google profile.

Decisions needed from the client

Search Console access

Search Console is Google's own report of which searches the site appeared for, how often it was clicked and in what position. It is the evidence behind every content decision in this plan, and it is not yet flowing into the analysis.

• The Google account currently connected to the analysis tool cannot see the Search Console property. The property is held under a different Google login.
• The analysis was run before the account was connected, so the first crawl could never have included the data.

What the crawl shows

Funeral catering hypothesis

Google most likely matches "funeral catering" to the homepage or to the orphaned blog post rather than to a service page, so the result does not answer the searcher. Search Console page and position data will confirm which URL carries those impressions. If the average position is 5 to 8, a 6.7% click rate is normal and the fix is a dedicated page, not a title rewrite.

Citation audit: what matters most

The core is healthy. The main Google Business Profile is correct and carries all the review equity. Protect it above everything else; the mess is around it, not in it.

Fix order follows the data flow: Google, then Bing, Apple and Facebook (the sources that aggregators copy), then the niche directories. Fixing the data layer first means MapQuest, Wheree and similar scraper sites correct themselves.

Assumptions we have checked

• Funeral click rate. 50 clicks from 750 appearances is 6.7%. Whether that is poor depends on where the site appears in the results. In the top three it is a problem; at position five to eight it is normal. We will know once Search Console is connected.
• Companies House. A registered company name that differs from the trading name is ordinary and not a problem in itself. The site should carry "Mid Sussex Catering is a trading name of [registered name] Ltd" in the footer, and the same link in structured data. The citation audit suggests the registration may already be Mid Sussex Catering Ltd; the incorporation certificate will confirm.
• Redirects from the old domain. We have been told these are in place. We will check the old domain directly, because a check of the new site cannot confirm it.
• Analytics. The site does have Google Analytics, running behind the cookie consent banner, so it records visitors who accept cookies. What is missing is tracking of enquiry forms and phone calls, which is what tells us whether the work is producing business.

Open gaps