One Thursday in March, at ten at night, someone types «pool maintenance in Palamós» into their phone. They're not in Palamós: they're in their flat, a hundred kilometres away, thinking about the house they'll open up at Easter. That search is a customer, and a town like this has plenty of them. SEO in Palamós is, to a large extent, about being found by those people.
Almost half the homes in Palamós aren't anyone's main residence
According to the Idescat housing census, Palamós has 13,007 homes, and 5,814 of them are nobody's main residence: second homes, or flats that stay shut for much of the year. That's 44.7%. Across Catalonia as a whole, the share is under one in four.
Then add every summer on top. Idescat estimates that the seasonal population is equivalent to 4,449 people living here all year round, almost a quarter more than the residents, and the town has 987 hotel beds and more than 5,000 campsite places. With 18,921 registered residents in 2025, Palamós works for far more people than actually live in it.
For SEO, this means that a large share of your customers don't search for you from the next street. They search from home, in another city, days or weeks before they come. And that search works differently.
How Google decides who to show when people search from elsewhere
Google explains it in its help page on local ranking: local results are mainly based on three things. Relevance, which is how well your profile matches what's being searched; distance; and prominence, how well known you are, with reviews and the websites that link to you among its signals.
When the person searching is a hundred kilometres away, the distance to their phone is about the same for every business in Palamós. That factor stops breaking the tie, and the other two decide: who explains best that they do this in Palamós, and who has the most proof of doing it well.
When they search here: «near me»
Someone who's already in town searches differently: «where to eat», «pharmacy open now», «bike hire», often without even typing the name of the place. There, distance really does rule, and the business that's close by with an up-to-date profile wins. We cover that here-and-now search in our article on web design in Palamós.
When they search from home: SEO in Palamós starts with saying «Palamós»
Someone searching from elsewhere almost always types «Palamós», or «Calonge», «Platja d'Aro», «Palafrugell», because they aren't there. If your profile, your pages and your reviews don't say clearly what you do and in which towns, Google has nothing to connect you with that search, however good you are.
What people with a house in Palamós search for
They don't search for the same things as someone on a campsite holiday. They want the house ready when they arrive and someone trustworthy looking after it while they're away. These are some typical searches:
- Opening up and preparing the house: cleaning before they arrive, bed linen, something in the fridge.
- Maintenance: the pool, the garden, the shutters, the damp the winter leaves behind.
- Emergencies from a distance: a leak, an alarm going off, a storm that's knocked something over.
- Building work while the house is empty: renovations, painting, carpentry, taking advantage of nobody living there.
- Management: seasonal lettings, property management, insurance, someone to take care of everything.
They all have one thing in common: the customer hires you without seeing you. They can't drop by your premises or watch how you work. They decide on what they find on Google, which is why SEO in Palamós carries more weight in these sectors than in almost any other.
What gets you chosen by people who don't know you
Reviews that say what you did and where
A review that says «very good» doesn't help much. One that says «they fixed the pool at our house in Palamós before Easter and sent us photos» is worth far more: it gives Google words and a place, and gives the next customer the reassurance they need. Ask for them when you finish each job, in winter too; here's how to get Google reviews without taking risks.
Photos of real jobs in the area
For someone hiring from far away, a before-and-after photo of a garden, a freshly painted terrace or a house made ready is more convincing than any text. Upload them to your profile and your website, and say where they were taken.
Being reachable outside office hours
People who live in another city look you up at night or at the weekend, which is when they think about the house. A WhatsApp button in plain view and a same-day reply make the difference against a business that only has a landline.
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We reply the same day. No commitment, no sales pitch.
Your Google profile: the service area, with real place names
If you go to the customer's home (cleaning, gardening, pools, repairs), your Google Business Profile can show a service area instead of your address, or as well as it. Google lets you set up to 20 service areas by town or postcode, as long as they're no more than about two hours' drive away. Here it makes sense to list the towns where you really work: Palamós, Calonge i Sant Antoni, Vall-llobrega, Castell-Platja d'Aro, Palafrugell, Mont-ras or La Bisbal, for example. No more, no less.
And it all has to match: the same name, the same phone number and the same services on your profile and on your website. If one place shows one set of opening hours and the other shows different ones, someone searching from far away has no way of knowing which is right.
One page per service, saying Palamós where it matters
The most common mistake is a website with a single page that covers everything. If you do pool maintenance, gardening and cleaning, each one deserves its own page, with what it includes, the area you cover and a job you've done in or around Palamós. That way Google can show the exact page to someone searching for exactly that. We go into more detail in the services page.
On those pages, answer what people who are far away ask: whether you send photos when you finish, whether you keep a copy of the keys, roughly what it costs and how long it takes you to get there in an emergency. Those are the doubts that decide the call.
The calendar: what you do in autumn shows in spring
SEO isn't instant. With a well-kept profile, calls can start coming in within weeks, but searches for services usually take several months to move; we give real timeframes in how long SEO takes to work.
In Palamós that has a practical consequence. Houses get ready for Easter and for the summer, and building work is booked while they're empty. If you start working on your SEO in May, you arrive too late for the season. What you sow between October and February is what brings in the calls when people start opening up their houses.
AI recommends businesses in Palamós too
More and more people don't search on Google: they ask ChatGPT or Gemini «who can look after the pool at a house in Palamós?». Those assistants recommend whoever explains themselves clearly and has proof online: a website that says plainly what you do and where, reviews that back it up and details that match everywhere. That's what generative engine optimisation (GEO) is about, and it's built on the same foundations as SEO.
How much SEO in Palamós costs
Our prices are published on our pricing page and they don't change from one town to another.
- Basic Presence, €400 a month: three articles a month on your website and three on your Google profile, replies to every review and visibility in AI tools.
- Mid Presence, €750 a month: five and five, plus management of your Google Ads and Meta ads campaigns.
- Advanced Presence, €1,500 a month: seven and seven, campaigns and two posts a month on your social media.
All plus VAT and with no lock-in. If you don't have a website yet, Your Landing is €100 a month and Your Website €200, with hosting, email and maintenance included. What we do at each stage is on our SEO page.
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SEO in Palamós, done from right here
We're three partners working at the same table, at the Palau Firal in Sant Antoni de Calonge, right next to Palamós. We know the difference between February and August in this town because we live it. You're welcome to drop by if you let us know first, or we can talk it over on WhatsApp.
Send us the link to your website and to your Google profile, and we'll tell you what we'd do first so that people searching from elsewhere can find you. No commitment. You can also write to us through the contact form.
Tell us what you need and we'll give you a price
We reply the same day. No commitment, no sales pitch.