Most of the GDPR advice you have read does not apply to you any more.
The UK left the EU with its own data protection regime, its own cookie rules and its own regulator. Almost every English language article about consent banners was written for the EU, and the parts that differ are exactly the parts a British site gets wrong.
Start with the free 15 point site check. Two working days, no call required.
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What is actually different about selling into the United Kingdom
The specifics that change the build, not a list of countries I will work in.
The regulator
The Information Commissioner's Office. In practice the ICO is more pragmatic about audience measurement than several EU authorities, which changes what your banner has to do rather than removing the duty.
What the site must publish
Regulation 6 of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, plus the company number and registered office details a limited company owes under the Companies Act.
The cookie rule
PECR, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, sitting on top of UK GDPR. PECR is the one that bites on cookies, and it is not the same text as the EU version.
Checkout
Pounds sterling, cards dominant, and Klarna widely expected on anything with a basket over about fifty pounds.
What usually goes wrong on a UK site
An EU consent banner bolted onto a UK site
A banner configured for the strictest EU reading, which annoys British visitors without being what PECR actually asks for, and still fires analytics before the choice is made.
No company details anywhere
A limited company has to publish its registered name, company number and registered office. A contact form and a city name is not that, and it is the first thing a cautious buyer checks.
Pages aimed at searches nobody runs
Service pages written around the words the business uses internally rather than the words buyers type, which is why the traffic is flat even though the site reads well.
A rebuild that dropped the old addresses
A redesign that changed every URL with no redirect map, so years of accumulated search positions went to 404 pages on launch day.
Not sure which of those it is? Send the web address and the written 15 point check says so in two working days, free.
What the work actually is
The same list whether you are in the United Kingdom or anywhere else I work.
The 15 point technical check
Speed, indexing, structured data, redirects, consent and the rest, written out in the order worth fixing rather than the order a crawler found them.
Pages for what buyers search
Built from real search data in the language your buyers type, not translated from an English page and hoped over.
A redirect map before anything moves
Every old address mapped to a new one and tested before launch, because this is the step that loses rankings when it is skipped.
Tracking that waits for consent
Nothing loads before a choice is made, and the banner says what it does. This is the part regulators are actually acting on.
Google Ads on a flat fee
A fixed monthly amount whatever the spend, so the advice does not get more expensive when the budget does.
Shopify and WooCommerce moves
Products, variants, media and URLs moved with the search positions held, on the same domain where that is possible.
Custom systems when software is the problem
Order flows, stock feeds and internal tools, when the honest answer is that no amount of marketing fixes the process underneath.
Plain monthly notes
What was done, what it changed and what is next, in a page you can read without a glossary.
Want the number first? Every price is published, including the ones I would not charge you.
Why the UK is a different legal job, not a lighter one
Since the end of the transition period the UK has had its own version of the GDPR, read alongside the Data Protection Act 2018, and its own cookie rules in PECR. The wording of the consent standard is close to the EU text, so people assume the practical answer is identical. It is not. The ICO's published position on analytics is that the focus has to be how the site is used rather than who is using it, that the output has to be aggregate information which cannot identify anybody, and that a third party analytics supplier using the data for its own purposes takes you outside that reading.
That matters because it is a narrower exemption than it first looks, and wider than the one several EU regulators apply. A UK site set up by copying a German consent configuration ends up doing more than it needs in one place and less than it needs in another. I have written the detail of how the analytics question actually resolves in the guide to GDPR and analytics, including what the ICO says and where it parts company with the CNIL.
The published details nobody thinks are their problem
Regulation 6 of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 is the UK end of the same European duty that gives Germany its Impressum. It is less famous because nobody in Britain built an industry out of enforcing it, which is why most UK sites quietly fail it. The list is short: who you are, where you are established, how to reach you electronically, your VAT number if you have one, and your trade register details.
If you also sell into the EU, the version that binds you is the one in the market you are selling into, not the one where you are sitting. That is the part that catches British companies with European customers, and it is the subject of the imprint guide, which sets out which country's list applies to you and why.
A furniture retailer: three storefronts, three ad accounts and a CRM
A Dutch furniture retailer with three brands and a ten to twelve week order cycle, where the online numbers alone made a busy business look like a failing one until the measurement was fixed.
What I will not do
Said before you ask, because it is usually the deciding part.
Promise a position
Nobody controls Google's results, and anyone who promises a ranking is either guessing or lying. I will tell you what is winnable and what is not, with the search data in front of you.
Hold your accounts
Analytics, Search Console and every ad account are registered in your name from day one. If you stop working with me you lose nothing but me.
Bill a percentage of ad spend
A percentage pays me more when you spend more, which is the wrong incentive. Advertising is a flat monthly fee whatever the budget.
Take the work if it is the wrong spend
If the free check says your problem is not a website problem, the report says so and I tell you what would actually move the number.
Rather just ask? One question by email or WhatsApp is fine.
Cities in the United Kingdom
The same work and the same published prices, written for each place.
The rest of the British Isles
Neighbouring markets, each with its own regulator, language and checkout.
Every market I work in is listed on where I work, with what differs in each one.
Fair questions before you get in touch
You are not based here. Does that matter?
It has not so far. Everything runs by email and WhatsApp, the accounts are in your name, and the work is the same work wherever it is typed. I am in Pakistan and I say so on every page, because finding that out later is worse than reading it now.
Do UK GDPR and EU GDPR need two different banners?
Usually one banner, configured once, satisfying whichever standard is stricter for each category. Two banners is a maintenance problem that creates its own errors. What matters more is that nothing loads before the choice, which is where most implementations actually fail.
We are a limited company. What exactly has to be on the site?
The registered company name, the company number, the registered office address and, if registered, the VAT number. It does not have to be on every page, but it has to be somewhere a visitor can find without hunting.
Why are the prices on the website?
Because the alternative is a quote form, and a quote form exists to get you on a call before you know the number. The free 15 point check, the 290 euro audit and the monthly and rebuild prices are all published. You can decide before you ever write to me.
Will a rebuild cost us our rankings?
Only if the redirects are an afterthought. The map gets written before anything moves, every old address is tested against the new one, and the domain stays the same wherever that is possible.
How long before any of this shows up in search?
A new page on a site that already carries some authority can move within weeks. On a site with very few links pointing at it, expect months, and expect the first movement on specific questions rather than on the obvious commercial terms. I will not give you a date, because nobody controls the result. What I will give you is the order of the work and what each step is meant to change.
Send your web address. That is the whole first step.
The written 15 point check comes back within two working days, free. It says what is holding the site back, in the order worth fixing.