If you’ve heard that your business needs local SEO but aren’t quite sure what it involves, you’re not alone. It’s a term that gets used a lot and explained very little. This article covers what local SEO is, how Google decides which local businesses to show, and what that means for a business like yours.
When we talk about local SEO here, we mean everything that affects how your business shows up when someone nearby searches for what you do: the map results in Google Search, often called the map pack; Google Maps itself, including the app many people use on their phones; and the regular search results for local searches.
What is local SEO?
Local SEO is the work of helping your business show up when people nearby search for the services you offer. It brings together your Google Business Profile, your reviews, and your website, so that Google sees your business as a relevant, trustworthy, and nearby answer for searches like “chimney repair” or “dentist near me.”
Regular SEO is about helping your website rank for searches wherever they happen. Local SEO adds location to the picture. Google uses where the person is searching from to decide which results are most useful, so for many service searches, it shows businesses close by.
How does local SEO work?
Google decides which local businesses to show based mainly on three things: relevance, or how well a business matches what someone searched for; distance, or how far the business is from the person searching; and prominence, or how well-known and trusted the business is. Local SEO is the work of strengthening each of these wherever you can.
Google explains this on its own page about how local results are ranked. Here’s what each one means for your business.
Relevance: does your business match the search?
Google looks at how well your business matches what the person is looking for. Your Business Profile does a lot of this work: your primary category, the services you list, and your business description all tell Google what you do. Your website adds to it, especially when each main service has its own page. In Whitespark’s annual survey of local SEO experts, the primary category on your Business Profile is rated the single most important factor for the map results.
Distance: how close are you to the searcher?
Google measures how far each business is from the person searching. This is the one factor you can’t really optimize, because you can’t change where your customers are. It’s why the map results can look different from one neighbourhood to the next, and why a business located in a town usually has an advantage for searches in that town.
Prominence: how well-known and trusted are you?
Prominence is Google’s word for how well-known a business is. Google says it’s based partly on how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. This is the factor that rewards doing good work over time: happy customers leave reviews, and a business people talk about tends to get mentioned and linked to.
One more thing worth knowing: Google says there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Ads can appear alongside the results, but they’re labelled as sponsored and sit separately from the listings Google ranks on its own.
What’s the difference between SEO and local SEO?
Regular SEO helps your website rank for searches wherever they happen. Local SEO focuses on searches where location matters, and it includes your Google Business Profile and the map results, not only your website. The two overlap, but they’re driven by different things.
Whitespark’s survey of local SEO experts shows the difference clearly. For the map results, the biggest influences are your Business Profile and your reviews. For the regular search results, they’re your website’s content and the links pointing to it from other websites.
| Map results | Regular search results | |
|---|---|---|
| What shows up | Business Profiles | Websites |
| Where it appears | The map pack in Google Search, and Google Maps | Google Search |
| Biggest influences, according to the experts surveyed | Business Profile details and reviews | Website content and links from other websites |
| How much your location matters | A lot, because distance is one of Google’s main factors | Less, though your pages still need to be relevant to the area you serve |
For most local service businesses, the answer isn’t one or the other. Your Business Profile helps people nearby find you on the map, and your website gives Google, and your customers, the detail behind it. If you’d like the fuller picture on regular SEO, Is SEO worth it for a small business? covers how it works.
How do service-area businesses show up in local search?
A service-area business, one that works at customers’ homes or job sites and keeps its address hidden, can still show up in the map results. But Google ranks it based on the address it verified its profile with, not the list of service areas it enters. That means it’s strongest near its home base and has a harder time in towns farther away.
Many contractors and home service companies set up their Business Profile this way, because customers don’t visit them. Google allows it, and it’s the right setup when you don’t serve people at your address. It changes how your listing looks and how far it reaches:
| Storefront business | Service-area business | |
|---|---|---|
| Address on the listing | Shown, with a pin on the map | Hidden, with the service area shaded on the map instead |
| Directions button | Yes | No |
| Where Google measures distance from | The business address | The address used to verify the profile, even though it’s hidden |
| What listing service areas does | Not applicable | Shows customers where you work, but doesn’t extend where you rank |
That last row surprises a lot of business owners. Testing by the local SEO firm Sterling Sky found that the service areas you list don’t affect ranking. In their words, the only impact the service area has is visual.
Here’s what that looks like in practice. Picture a Lower Mainland trades contractor with an office in Langley, whose profile lists Vancouver, Burnaby, and Coquitlam as service areas. For searches in Langley, the business is right at the centre of Google’s distance calculation, so it has a real chance in the map results. For someone searching in Vancouver, 40 or 50 kilometres away, Google will usually favour similar businesses located much closer. The contractor may still appear there occasionally, for example if there are few nearby competitors, but listing Vancouver as a service area doesn’t make that happen.
This isn’t a penalty. Local search is designed to show people businesses close to where they are. A service-area business can still compete well near its home base by being strong on the other two factors: a complete, accurate profile and a steady flow of good reviews. To reach customers farther away, it usually relies on its website, with helpful pages about its services and the areas it serves, which can rank in the regular search results, and on advertising, which lets it choose exactly where to show up.
What does it take to improve your local rankings?
Since distance is fixed, improving your local rankings comes down to strengthening relevance and prominence. In practice, that means a complete and accurate Business Profile, a steady flow of reviews, a website with a clear page for each service, mentions and links from other reputable websites, and keeping all of it current over time.
Here’s what’s involved, at a high level:
- A complete, accurate Business Profile. The right primary category, your services, hours, photos, and a clear description of what you do.
- A steady flow of reviews. Asking every happy customer, and replying to the reviews you receive, good or bad.
- A website that backs it up. A page for each main service, clear information about where you work, and a site that loads quickly and works well on a phone.
- Mentions and links from reputable websites. Local organizations, industry associations, suppliers, and community groups that mention or link to your business.
- Consistent business information. The same business name, address, and phone number everywhere your business is listed online.
- Ongoing attention. Local search keeps changing, and so do your competitors. A profile and website that are kept current tend to hold their ground.
How quickly this pays off depends on your market and your competition. How long does local SEO take? covers what to expect.
Each of these is a manageable job on its own, but together they add up to steady, ongoing work, and it’s easy for it to slip when you’re busy running a business. I look after these details for my clients every month as part of a Monthly Growth Plan, from the Business Profile and reviews to the website and tracking which calls come from search, bringing in trusted specialists where they add value. If you’d like to talk about what that could look like for your business, let’s schedule a call.
