Local SEO is the work of getting found when someone searches for something near them. Plumber, dentist, coffee, law firm. The results that appear on a map with three business listings above them are the prize, and they are ranked by a different set of rules to the blue links below.
What the local pack is
Those three map listings are called the local pack. They sit above the organic results on most location based queries, take the majority of the clicks, and are populated from Google Business Profile rather than from your website. You can rank first organically and still be absent from the pack.
What Google weighs
Google has been unusually open about this. Three factors decide local ranking.
- Relevance. How well your profile and site match what was searched. Categories, services and the words on your pages all feed this.
- Distance. How far you are from the searcher, or from the place they named. You cannot change this, which is why service area coverage needs thought.
- Prominence. How well known you are. Reviews, mentions in local press, links from nearby organisations and your general organic strength all count.
The work that moves it
Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, including the categories most businesses leave half-filled. Keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere it appears, because inconsistency splits the signal. Earn reviews continuously rather than in bursts, and reply to them. Build pages for the places you actually serve, with real detail about each one rather than a template with the town name swapped.
Multi-location businesses have a harder version of this problem. Each location needs its own profile, its own page and enough unique content to justify existing. Our search team handles this across estates of dozens of sites.
Common questions
Do I need a physical address for local SEO?
You need a verifiable address to have a Google Business Profile, but you can hide it and show a service area instead. That suits trades and mobile businesses. Virtual offices and mailboxes violate the guidelines and can get profiles suspended.
How many reviews do I need?
There is no threshold. What matters is having more reviews than the businesses you compete with, gathering them steadily rather than in a single suspicious burst, and keeping them recent. A profile whose newest review is two years old reads as dormant.
How long does local SEO take?
Profile work can shift results within weeks, which makes it unusually fast for search. Prominence takes longer because reviews and local coverage accumulate slowly. Three months is a reasonable point to judge progress.
The one-paragraph version sits in our glossary entry for local SEO.
