Total Clean London Review

Hedgehog Digital

Prepared by Hedgehog Digital

What this review covers

01Backlinks
02SEO and AI visibility
03Google Ads
04Enquiries
05New sectors
06Website design
07Franchisee data
08Cresswells
09Next steps

Domain Authority has risen from 22 to 32

Over the last two years

October 202422Domain Authority

October 202632Domain Authority

Up 10 points in two years

What has caused this increase?

Over the last two years we have focused on earning links from relevant, trusted sites rather than chasing volume: industry directories and trade bodies, London business listings, supplier and partner pages, and articles placed with publications that cover commercial property and facilities management.

We have also removed low quality links pointing at the site. Domain Authority has climbed steadily throughout, which shows the link building is working and the gains are compounding.

Domain Authority by quarter

Domain AuthorityLatest

Referring domains have doubled since 2022

Referring domains

766

Up 27 on the last report

Backlinks

9,600

Up 1% on the previous month

Referring domains, January 2022 to October 2026

Referring domainsTrend

Top referring domain categories

New sectors are now producing enquiries

Genuine website enquiries since January 2024 from the sectors we have targeted

The new and expanded sectors we have targeted

Five new commercial sectors, and medical expanded, all now producing enquiries

Medical and healthcare,
expanded

Schools, nurseries
and colleges

Restaurants, cafés
and hotels

Events
and venues

Accountancy
and legal firms

Tender
opportunities

Six new franchise sites, built for free

Each franchise site was delivered at no extra charge on top of the retainer. We wrote all of the page content and built new topic clusters for every location, so each site launched ready to rank rather than as an empty template.

Work worth more than £15,000, at no cost to Total Clean

Birmingham
Basildon
Romford
Solihull
Hull
Nottingham

Manchester enquiries

Genuine enquiries

Regular and big jobs

Real phone calls

Spam removed

Form enquiries by year

Form enquiries by sector

Warrington enquiries

Genuine enquiries

Regular and big jobs

Real phone calls

Spam removed

Form enquiries by year

Form enquiries by sector

St Albans enquiries Stopped paying for marketing in June 2026

Genuine enquiries

Regular and big jobs

Real phone calls

Spam removed

Form enquiries by year

Form enquiries by sector

Competitors we have turned away

Both of these commercial cleaning companies approached Hedgehog Digital for the same kind of work we do for Total Clean. We declined each of them so that nothing we learn or build for Total Clean is ever used to help a direct competitor.

Total Clean is the only commercial cleaning company we work with

Xenon Services

xenon-services.co.uk

Addison Cleaning Solutions

addison.cleaning

Building a website takes a whole team

An agency would normally put eight specialists on a site like this.

Web designerLayout, look and brand on every page

UX designerHow visitors move through the site to enquire

CopywriterService pages, sector pages and articles

SEO specialistKeywords, structure and rankings

Web developerBuilds, hosts and maintains the site

Conversion specialistTurns visits into calls and forms

Image researcherSources and licenses every image

Project managerKeeps it all on time and joined up

We cover every role, for London and every franchise site we have built, so your team can focus on running the business.

Designed and built for you

Every page on the London site and the six franchise sites we built is designed and built by us. We match the colours to the brand, choose the fonts, and then build the entire site page by page, so the whole network looks and works like one company.

Colour matching

#b8da02#0d8187#212529#eff5fd

A palette matched to the brand and applied across every site

Font choices

AaPlus Jakarta Sans for headings

AaInter for body text

Chosen for readability on screen and set consistently throughout

Site build

Then we build the entire site: every service, sector and location page, plus about, blog and contact

Professional copywriting, by humans

Every word on the London site and the six franchise sites we built is written by our team. We research it, write it, optimise it for search and publish it, so Total Clean never has to find the time.

Every page researched, written and published for you

Service pages

Every service page on the London site and the six franchise sites we built, researched and written from scratch.

Sector and cluster pages

The sector clusters that now bring in a third of all genuine enquiries, planned, written and linked by us.

Location and franchise pages

All location pages, including the six new franchise sites, each written for its own area.

Two articles a month, optimised to rank

Every month we write two articles for Total Clean, each planned around a topic people search before they enquire. Each article takes about a week and draws on three parts of our team: content to write it, SEO to target the right keyword, and development to publish it. Total Clean doesn’t need to lift a finger.

About a week of work per article, across content, SEO and development

Research

What people search for before they enquire, what competitors cover and which cluster needs support. Content and SEO.

SEO planning

The keyword, the cluster it belongs to and the internal links, so each piece earns rankings. SEO.

Write and publish

Writing, editing, sourcing the image and publishing it on the site. Content and development.

We source and pay for every image

Every image on the London site and the six franchise sites we built is sourced and paid for by us. Our content and design team pick images from iStock, Unsplash and Pexels, make sure they match the brand and each other, and cover every licence through our own subscriptions.

What we do

Sourcing

Chosen by our content and design team to suit each page and sector

Matching

Edited and colour-matched so every image fits the brand

Licensing

We pay for iStock and Unsplash subscriptions, so every image is licensed by us

Sizing and optimisation

Cropped, compressed and tagged for search so pages stay fast

What we need to keep your brand looking professional and trusted

Photos of the team at work

On site, on the job, with clients

Photos of the office

The people and the place behind the brand

Staff in uniform

Real Total Clean cleaners, not stock models

Video

Short clips for the site, articles and social media

Before and after job photos

The strongest proof of the quality of your work

Where the site ranks

main keywords on page one of Google. Semrush, 14 October 2026.

Top 3

Page one

By sector

Where rankings have dropped

All keywords

Keyword	Position	Change	Monthly searches	Result

Visibility in AI answers

ChatGPT, Google AI and Gemini mentions of the site. Semrush, October 2026.

AI visibility score

Mentions

Monthly audience reached through AI answers

Mentions, citations and cited pages

Against competitors

Site	AI visibility score	Mentions	Citations	Cited pages

Mentions by AI platform

Google Ads since January 2024

Total Clean's own ad spend with Google, January 2024 to October 2026.

Leads counted by Google

Spend

Cost per phone lead

Cost per form lead

Search leads a month, as counted by Google

Cost per click and cost per lead

The phone calls behind those leads

Calls logged by the ads since 2024. Under 30 seconds is not counted as real.

Calls logged

Real calls

Typical real call

Missed calls

How long the calls lasted

Calls are getting longer. In 2026, 31% of real calls lasted over two minutes, against 12% in 2024, so fewer calls but better ones.

Current project

What Total Clean pays today.

SEO£995 a month

Link building£2,000 a month

Total£2,995 a month

No price increase since 2020

SEO fee by year

The same work at a typical UK agency

Monthly work	Typical agency price a month
SEO for the London site	£1,500 to £3,500
Two articles a monthoptimised to rank	£500 to £1,200
Link buildingan ongoing monthly programme	£2,000 to £5,500
All of the above	£4,000 to £10,200

Typical UK agency rates, 2026, from published pricing guides (Whito, Whitehat SEO, Cambria Digital). Page design and the six franchise sites we built would normally be charged as separate projects on top.

Franchise reviews: none past 25

Google reviews for every Total Clean franchise, against the most-reviewed cleaning firm in the same area. Google Maps, 19 October 2026.

Most reviews, any franchise

Reviews across all 21

No Google listing found

franchises with no reviews to show

Top local rival, typical

reviews, middle figure across the 21 areas

Total Clean against the top local rival

Total Clean franchiseMost-reviewed local rival

Reviews are the first thing a buyer checks on Google Maps, and they decide who gets the call. Every franchise is outnumbered, most of them many times over.

Total Clean Franchise enquiries

Genuine enquiries

Typical money to invest

Named an area

Spam removed

Genuine enquiries by year

Everything the forms received

Every genuine enquiry

Date	Area wanted	Money to invest	Form	Note

171 of the spam entries came from a bot attack on the site between December 2023 and February 2024, which Total Clean already knows about. The rest were later bots and sales pitches.

From the four forms on totalcleanfranchise.co.uk: the contact form, the franchise page form, the masterclass sign-up and the case study download. Each one was read and marked genuine only if it had a real name, email address and UK phone number and was about owning a franchise. Repeats within two months count once; people who came back later count again. No names or contact details are shown.

SEO: London and every franchise

SEO for London and all 21 franchise sites, starting with the fixes the site audit found.

01London and franchise SEO
02902 low text-to-HTML pages
0345 pages re-optimised
04Internal links to home
05Keyword research
06Page titles and meta
07Schema markup
08Technical audit and fixes
09Google Business Profiles
10Two articles a month
11Rank tracking by location
12Monthly reporting

New website

The new London site is nearly complete. Launch is when everything in this review starts to show.

01Final design sign-off
02Every page tested
03Speed
04Accessibility and security
05London and location content
06Sector and service pages
07Image sourcing
08Team, reviews and case studies
09301 redirects
10Technical SEO
11Tracking
12Launch monitoring

Link building: Domain Authority 32 to 40

Reaching 40 needs a bigger budget, or years at today’s pace. Competitors are doing the same.

01Domain Authority 32 to 40
02Budget sets the pace
03Matching competitor links
04Digital PR placements
05Industry and trade directories
06London business listings
07Partner and supplier links
08Monthly new-link report

Franchises: 21 sites, one programme

Every franchise gets its own site on the same consistent design, with its own content and SEO.

01Same site design for all
02Same design as London
03Content for every location
04SEO for every franchise
05Google Business Profile each
06Local review routine
07One article a month each
08Reporting per franchisee

AI SEO: get Total Clean into AI answers

AI visibility is 20 out of 100. This helps ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI read and cite the site.

01Site structured for AI
02Rich snippets in place
03Pages rewritten for AI
04LLMS file added
05Robots pointed to the file
06Target AI terms researched
07AI visibility tracked
08Mentions and citations grown

Google Ads: run properly, paid directly

Total Clean pays Google directly. We manage the account and build pages that convert, for an ongoing monthly fee: £750 up to £5,000 ad spend a month, £1,200 above.

01Total Clean pays Google
02Ongoing management fee
03New landing pages
04Lower cost per acquisition
05Call tracking, 30-second rule
06Campaigns by sector
07Bids and negative keywords
08Monthly leads report

Investment

One package for the year ahead. All prices exclude VAT; ad spend is paid to Google separately.

Every month, excluding VAT

£12,700a month

01
SEO for LondonTechnical SEO, two articles a month and reporting
02
SEO for the franchise networkAll 21 locations and the franchise recruitment site
03
SEO for CresswellsContent and local SEO for the Cresswells site
04
Backlinks and link buildingNew backlinks every month, included in the price
05
AI SEO across every siteIncluding the recruitment site and Cresswells
06
Google Ads managementThe account and landing pages, ongoing every month

One-off, excluding VAT

£28,500new websites

01
A new London websiteDesign, full build, content and launch
02
All 21 franchise sitesMoved onto the same new design as London

Alongside this, we are also building new websites for Cresswells and the franchise recruitment site, at no extra cost.

All prices exclude VAT. The monthly figure assumes Google Ads spend of up to £5,000 a month. Above that, Google Ads management is £1,200 a month instead of £750.

Cresswells now has a new website. A modern, professional home online, and a proper foundation for the business to grow from.

Cresswells needs links to grow

Domain Authority since the new website

Before the new website2Domain Authority

October 20268Domain Authority

Four times higher, with 293 referring domains

The foundations are in. We have built the new site and grown its authority, but like the other websites, it now needs more links to keep growing.

Competitors are investing, and growing fast

They have woken up to SEO. Semrush, 21 October 2026.

Referring domains, last 12 months

Referring domains by Authority Score

Site	81 to 100	61 to 80	41 to 60	21 to 40	0 to 20	41 and over

Dazzle | referring domains

Fantastic Cleaners | Authority Score

36 to 39

In five months, December 2025 to May 2026, on a heavy backlink campaign. Its ranking keywords have doubled since December.

The last 12 months

Site	Authority Score	Change	Referring domains	Change

Group by Show

Good enquiries held, small ones fell. Regular and big jobs held at around 200 to 230 a year, while small and domestic enquiries dropped from 139 in 2024 to 36 in 2025, and 28 so far this year. That is exactly what the targeting set out to do.

Show

Sector breakdown

Sector	Enquiries	Green	Amber	Red	Green share

Sectors are assigned from keywords in the company name and message, so some enquiries will be in the wrong group. "Other / not stated" means the message gave no clue.