Most owners have never checked properly, because searching from your own phone, logged into your own account, standing in your own shop, shows you a result nobody else sees. Checked properly, plenty of good businesses in Swansea are not in the map pack at all for the thing they mainly do.
Three listings sit above the normal results for almost every local search with intent behind it. Being fourth is not a near miss, it is a different business.
Position in that pack is decided mostly by three things: how relevant Google thinks you are, how close you are to the person searching, and how prominent you are. You cannot move proximity. Relevance and prominence are exactly what this work is.
Relevance is categories, services, the words on your site and whether any of it matches what people actually type. Prominence is reviews, citations, local links and whether the rest of the web corroborates that you exist and do what you claim. Neither is quick, and neither is mysterious.
The same few things, done consistently, measured, and reported in a way you can check.
Positions pulled from the locations your customers actually search from, not from your office. A grid across the town rather than one number, because local rank changes street by street and a single figure hides it.
Volume and recency both count. The aim is a steady trickle from real customers asked at the right moment, not thirty in one week that look exactly like what they are.
Getting your name, address and phone number identical everywhere that matters, and getting you listed where you are missing. Dull, and it moves the needle more than most things that sound better.
Chambers, suppliers, trade bodies, sponsorships, the local press when there is a genuine reason. In a town this size the list of links worth chasing is short and mostly known, which makes it achievable rather than endless.
Service and area pages that give Google something to rank and a visitor something to read. Written to be useful, not stuffed with place names.
£400 to £750 a month
No minimum term. If it is not working after six months you should stop, and I would rather you did than carry on paying out of politeness.
Where you sit in that range depends on how competitive your trade is locally and how much needs fixing before the ongoing work can start. Trades in Swansea are competitive. Some professional services are barely contested at all.
The check is free and it comes back in writing. If the answer is that you are doing fine, that is the answer.