Local ranking factors

What are local ranking factors?

Local ranking factors are the signals Google uses to decide which businesses to show, and in what order, in the local pack and Google Maps. Google says local results are based mainly on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. Everything else feeds into one of these three.

Put simply, relevance is how well a profile matches the search, distance is how far the business is from the searcher or the place named in the query, and prominence is how well known and trusted the business is.

Relevance comes largely from your Google Business Profile: your categories, business description, services, products and attributes, along with the content of your website. Your primary category is one of the clearest signals of what you are.

Distance is calculated from the searcher’s location, or from a place named in the query, such as “dentist in Bristol”. If Google does not know where the searcher is, it uses what it knows about the search. You cannot change distance, which is why a business rarely ranks well everywhere in a big city.

Prominence reflects how well known a business is, online and offline. Google says it uses information from across the web, such as links, articles and directories, and that review count and rating factor in. It also says your position in web results is a factor, so normal SEO best practices apply. Famous landmarks and well-known brands get a boost because they are prominent in the real world.

Google also states that you cannot pay to improve your local organic ranking. Beyond Google’s summary, the exact weight of each signal is not public. Surveys of local SEO practitioners exist, but they are opinions and correlations, not confirmed factors.

Why local ranking factors matter for SEO

Knowing the three factors keeps your effort on the things that work. You control most of relevance, you can build prominence over time, and you cannot change distance, so you measure it with a geo-grid instead of worrying about it.

It also helps you avoid tactics that break Google’s guidelines, such as stuffing keywords into the business name to fake relevance, or fake addresses to fake proximity. Both can get a profile suspended.

Finally, it explains why local and organic SEO are connected. The same website that supports your profile’s relevance also earns the links and rankings that feed prominence. A business with a thin site and a strong profile is leaving one of Google’s named signals on the table.

How to improve local rankings

1. Relevance: choose the most accurate primary category, add relevant secondary categories, and fill in services, products, attributes and a plain description.
2. Relevance: give each location and main service its own useful page on your website, linked from the profile.
3. Distance: make sure your address pin is correct. If you serve customers at their homes, set a service area instead.
4. Prominence: earn genuine reviews steadily and reply to them.
5. Prominence: build accurate citations and links from local press, organisations and industry sites.
6. Prominence: improve your website’s organic SEO, since web ranking also feeds local prominence.
7. Keep hours and details accurate so Google can trust the profile.
8. Measure with a geo-grid across your area, not from one point.