Worthing is its own market
Worthing is a large seaside town around ten miles west of Brighton in West Sussex, with its own pier, a long promenade and a town centre built around South Street, the main north-south axis, and Montague Street, pedestrianised in 1968 and home to a weekly Wednesday market. Its suburbs stretch from Goring in the west to Broadwater and Durrington to the north. It has a large residential population, including many retirees and families, and a steady stream of people moving from Brighton and London for more space.
Because it is a town of its own rather than part of the city, Worthing searches return Worthing businesses. Someone searching “accountant Worthing” is rarely interested in a firm in central Brighton, so local businesses that make their location clear compete in a smaller field.
Worthing’s economy
Public administration, education and health together form the largest part of Worthing’s economy, with Worthing Hospital a major presence. Alongside that there are established manufacturing and life sciences employers, including GSK, and a long tail of small businesses.
- Healthcare and care: dentists, physios, care homes, home care and private clinics.
- Retail and hospitality in the town centre and along the seafront, from the Royal Arcade opposite the pier to cafés and restaurants on the promenade.
- Professional services: solicitors, accountants, financial planners and estate agents serving a large home-owning population.
- Trades and home improvement across the suburbs.
- Leisure and culture, around venues such as the Connaught Theatre, the historic Dome cinema of 1911 and the Grade II listed pier, voted Pier of the Year in 2019.
The seafront in more detail
Worthing Pier opened on 12 April 1862, designed by Sir Robert Rawlinson, and was rebuilt and reopened in 1935 after a fire. Its Pavilion Theatre, part of Worthing Theatres alongside the Connaught, sits at the promenade end. Worthing Museum and Art Gallery holds collections ranging from costume and toys to archaeology and local history. On summer weekends the promenade fills with visitors who search on their phones for cafés, fish and chips, ice cream and things to do. Seafront businesses that keep their profiles accurate, with seasonal hours, current photos and clear directions, usually do well from that traffic.
How Worthing customers search
A lot of Worthing demand is considered rather than impulsive. People choosing a care home, a solicitor for a will or a financial planner read carefully, compare several options and often search on behalf of a parent or partner. They want clear explanations, visible prices where possible, reviews and an easy way to make contact. Suburb names matter: “dentist Goring” or “plumber Durrington” are common because people want someone close by.
The seafront and town centre bring more immediate searches from visitors and day trippers, especially in summer: cafés, places to eat, things to do and shops near the pier.
What we do for Worthing businesses
Local SEO is the core for most of them: a complete Google Business Profile, the right categories, accurate hours, photos and a reliable way to collect and answer genuine reviews. Our guide to Google Business Profiles applies just as well along the coast.
On your website we make sure each service has a clear page, that your town and the suburbs you serve are named plainly, and that the site works well on mobile, which is part of our technical SEO work. For businesses where customers do research first, content that answers their questions honestly earns trust and enquiries. Keyword research shows which suburbs and services actually have search demand, so we do not build pages nobody looks for.
For hospitality businesses on the seafront, the same principles as our guide to winning direct bookings apply: clear, bookable information that Google can read.
Common gaps we find
Many Worthing businesses rely on word of mouth and have websites that have not changed in years. Typical gaps include no mention of the suburbs they serve, contact details that differ between the website and Google, no reviews for long stretches, slow pages on mobile and a single page trying to cover every service. For considered purchases such as care, legal or financial services, a lack of clear information is the biggest problem: if a searcher cannot quickly see what you offer, who you help and how to get in touch, they move on to the next result. Fixing those basics often brings results within a few months.
Talk to us
We work with businesses all along the coast from Brighton to Worthing. Read our case studies, or get in touch for a plain-English review of your Worthing visibility.