In October I looked at how Derry businesses show up on Google and what their websites get right and wrong. This time I’ve done the same for the rest of County Londonderry: Coleraine, Limavady, Magherafelt and Portstewart.
I ran 20 everyday searches for each town, such as “plumbers coleraine” or “dentist magherafelt”, and took the top 20 Google results for each one. That gave 1,580 results. I then checked the homepages of the 243 local business websites that appeared, using the same checks as the Derry study, so the figures can be compared.
No individual business is named or scored. The figures below are totals only.
Key findings
- Local businesses’ own websites hold just 27% of the top 10 results, against 44% in Derry. In the top 3 it’s 33%, against 53% in Derry.
- Directories and booking sites take 45% of the top 10, twice the Derry figure. Yell, Tripadvisor, Fresha and Booksy turn up again and again.
- Facebook pages alone make up 17% of the top 10 results. For many searches, a business’s Facebook page is what people see, not its website.
- Portstewart is the hardest town to stand out in. Only 19% of its top 10 results are local business websites, and 55% are directories.
- Almost every site is secure and mobile-ready (95% and 96%), as in Derry.
- 74% have no local business structured data, which helps Google understand who and where a business is. In Derry it was 71%.
- 57% don’t name their town in the homepage title, the headline Google shows in search results. In Derry, 38% left out Derry or Londonderry.
- 39% have no tap-to-call link on the homepage, and 29% have neither a tap-to-call link nor a contact form.
- The median mobile PageSpeed score is 62, almost the same as Derry’s 61. Only 7% of homepages load their main content within Google’s 2.5-second target on a simulated phone.
Who gets the top 10 results?
Each result was sorted into one of five groups. The chart and table show the share of the top 10 and top 3 results across all four towns, with the Derry top 10 figure for comparison.
| Result type | Top 10 | Top 3 | Derry top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Directories and booking sites | 45% | 39% | 22% |
| Local business websites | 27% | 33% | 44% |
| Social media and forums | 19% | 20% | 19% |
| News, council, tourism and jobs sites | 5% | 4% | 9% |
| National or regional chains | 3% | 4% | 7% |
The gap with Derry makes sense. There are fewer businesses in each town, so fewer have a website that ranks, and directories fill the space. That also means the bar is lower: a well-built local site has less competition here than in Derry.
By town
Coleraine has the highest share of local business websites in the top 10, and Portstewart the lowest.
| Town | Local business websites | Directories | Social media |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coleraine | 33% | 41% | 18% |
| Magherafelt | 30% | 38% | 22% |
| Limavady | 26% | 48% | 19% |
| Portstewart | 19% | 55% | 18% |
By service
The share varies a lot by service. For solicitors, dentists and physiotherapists, about half the top 10 results across the four towns are local firms’ own websites. For hairdressers, builders, hotels and electricians, it’s 10% or less. Those searches are dominated by Facebook, booking apps such as Fresha and Booksy, trade directories and hotel booking sites.
What the local websites get right, and what they miss
These figures cover the homepages of the 243 local business websites that ranked. Only homepages were checked, so a business may have some of these on other pages.
| Check | Missing | Derry |
|---|---|---|
| Local business structured data | 74% | 71% |
| Town name in the homepage title | 57% | 38% |
| Tap-to-call link | 39% | 32% |
| Meta description | 24% | 20% |
| H1 heading | 23% | 24% |
| Footer year of 2024 or earlier | 16% | 14% |
| Mobile layout | 4% | 2% |
| HTTPS | 5% | 2% |
The good news: security and mobile are mostly sorted
95% of the sites use HTTPS and 96% have a mobile layout. A handful still don’t, and browsers will warn visitors about a site without HTTPS.
Structured data: still the most common gap
74% of homepages have no local business structured data. This is a small piece of code that tells Google the business name, address, phone number and opening hours in a form it can read reliably. 32% have no structured data of any kind. You can test a page with Google’s Rich Results Test.
Not saying where you are
57% of homepages don’t mention any town in the County Londonderry area in their title. The title is the headline Google shows in search results, and it’s one of the clearest signals of where a business works. This was a bigger gap than in Derry, where 38% left it out.
Making it harder to get in touch
39% of homepages have no tap-to-call link, so someone on a phone has to copy the number by hand. 29% have neither a tap-to-call link nor a contact form on the homepage.
Missing headings and descriptions
24% have no meta description, so Google picks its own snippet of text to show. 23% have no H1, the main heading that tells visitors and search engines what the page is about.
Signs of neglect
16% of homepages show a copyright year of 2024 or earlier, and the oldest is 2007. Four sites that still rank were parked, for sale or showing a placeholder.
Slow to load on a phone
Each homepage got one Google PageSpeed Insights mobile test. Scores of 90 or more count as good and under 50 as poor.
| PageSpeed measure (mobile) | County Londonderry | Derry |
|---|---|---|
| Sites tested | 230 | 133 |
| Median score | 62 | 61 |
| Scoring 90 or more | 5% | 5% |
| Scoring 50 to 89 | 78% | 75% |
| Scoring under 50 | 17% | 20% |
| Median Largest Contentful Paint | 9.1 seconds | 8.7 seconds |
| Main content within 2.5 seconds | 7% | 4% |
| Main content taking over 10 seconds | 44% | 41% |
| Layout shift within Google’s limit | 83% | 81% |
Google also has real-visitor data for 58 of the sites. It rates 20 of them as fast, 25 as average and 13 as slow. Lab scores move by a few points from one run to the next, so treat them as a guide.
Cookie consent: worth checking
124 homepages load Google Analytics or Tag Manager. Leaving out Wix and Shopify sites, which handle consent in their own way, 65 of 229 sites (28%) load analytics with no recognised consent tool. That isn’t automatically a problem: since February 2026 UK rules allow some analytics without prior consent under certain conditions. But advertising tags still need consent, so it’s worth checking what your site loads.
What the websites are built on
| Platform | Sites | Share |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 101 | 42% |
| Squarespace | 16 | 7% |
| Wix | 11 | 5% |
| Shopify | 3 | 1% |
| Other or custom | 112 | 46% |
Every gap in this study can be fixed on any of these platforms.
What to do about it
In smaller towns the competition for the top results is mostly directories and Facebook pages, not other local websites. A website that covers the basics has a real chance of being one of the few local sites Google shows. The local SEO checklist for Northern Ireland covers each of these in more detail.
| Check | How to check | Typical fix |
|---|---|---|
| Do you appear for your main service and town? | Search it on your phone, logged out | Mention the service and town on the homepage and in a page for that service |
| Town in the homepage title | Look at the browser tab or your Google result | Edit the page title in your SEO plugin or site settings |
| Tap-to-call link | Tap your number on a phone | Make the number a tel: link |
| Local business structured data | Google’s Rich Results Test | Add LocalBusiness markup through an SEO plugin or your platform |
| H1 and meta description | View the page source or use a free SEO checker | Add one clear H1 and a short description |
| Speed on a phone | pagespeed.web.dev | Compress images, cut unused plugins and scripts |
| Cookie consent | Check which tags your site loads | Add a consent tool if you run advertising tags |
| Footer year | Scroll to the bottom | Update it, or set it to change automatically |
How the study was done
- Searches: 20 everyday services, each paired with Coleraine, Limavady, Magherafelt and Portstewart, such as “plumbers coleraine”. That makes 80 searches. One, “florist portstewart”, returned no results in the tool, so 79 searches are counted.
- Results: the top 20 organic Google results for each search, taken on 10 November 2026 using SE Ranking, with Google UK set to Coleraine as the location. That gave 1,580 results. Map results and ads were left out. The Derry study used Semrush’s UK database, so the two sets of figures are close but not identical in method.
- Sorting: each result was put into one of five groups: local business website, directory or booking site, social media or forum, national or regional chain, and news, council, tourism or jobs site.
- Homepage checks: 263 local business websites appeared. 247 loaded for an automated check, and 4 of those were parked or placeholders, leaving 243. Each homepage was checked for HTTPS, a mobile layout, a title, a meta description, an H1, a town name in the title, a tap-to-call link, a contact form, structured data, the footer year, the platform, analytics tags and around 40 cookie consent tools.
- Speed: one Google PageSpeed Insights mobile test per homepage, using lab data on a simulated mid-range phone. 230 sites returned a score.
- Privacy: no individual business is named or scored. Totals are available on request.
You’re welcome to quote or chart these figures with a link back to this page.
Want to know how your website compares?
If you’d like to know how your own site measures up on these checks, get in touch. 53Marketing offers website design and SEO for businesses across Northern Ireland. You can also start with the free Website SEO Health Check. If you’re based in Derry, the Derry study has the figures for the city.
Jamie Somers, 53Marketing