Local SEO
Local search runs on a different set of rules from the rest of organic search. The map pack is ranked largely by your Business Profile, your proximity to the searcher and your reviews – and your website is the supporting evidence rather than the main exhibit.
In most cities the top of the page belongs to directories and franchises
Search a service in any city and look at what you get: three or four paid results, a map pack, then Yelp, Thumbtack, Angi and the national franchise. The independent operator who actually does the work is often below all of it.
That is a solvable problem, and unusually it is solvable faster than most organic search work, because the map pack rewards things you control directly – completeness, consistency, reviews and genuine local relevance – more than it rewards domain authority accumulated over a decade.
- #1Organic result for the city’s head terms – above Yelp, Thumbtack and the national franchises
- <1 yrFrom domain purchase to the top of the city’s results
- 128KSearch appearances in sixteen months across the service area
- $0Ad spend. The entire result was earned
What actually moves local rankings
In the order we do it, which is not the order most checklists use.
The Business Profile first, always
Categories chosen precisely, services listed individually, hours accurate, service area defined to match where you work, and your own photographs. For a local business this outranks almost everything you could do to the website.
A page for each service and each area you genuinely serve
Built to be the best answer for that specific combination, not spun from a template. Fifty near-identical city pages is a pattern Google has recognised for years and it does not work.
Reviews, asked for systematically
Volume, recency and the words customers use all matter. A steady trickle beats forty reviews in one week, which looks exactly like what it is.
Consistent details everywhere they appear
Name, address and phone number identical across every directory, profile and citation. Unglamorous, and inconsistency genuinely suppresses local visibility.
The words customers actually use
People do not search the way trades describe themselves. The language on the page should match the language in the query, and the fastest way to learn it is the paid search terms report.
Local references, not national links
A mention from a local chamber, supplier, sponsor or news outlet does more for local relevance than a generic link from a higher-authority site with no geographic connection.
Proximity is real and you cannot optimise it away
The map pack weights how close the business is to the person searching. If you are twenty miles from the centre of a city, you will not consistently appear for searches made in that centre, whatever anyone sells you. Service area businesses can extend reach, but not indefinitely.
What this means practically is that the winnable radius is smaller than most people hope, and the right response is usually to dominate it completely rather than to spread thinly across a whole metro. Where proximity blocks you, paid search will reach the searchers organic cannot – which is one of the clearer cases for running both.
Local search, answered plainly
We are brand new with no reviews. Is it hopeless?
No, and it is the situation the case study above started from. A new local business with a properly built profile and a genuine review habit can outrank established competitors inside a year, because most of them have never done the basics.
Can we outrank Yelp and Thumbtack?
For the specific city-and-service combinations you actually serve, frequently yes. Those directories rank on breadth. A page that is genuinely the best answer for one service in one city can beat them on that query, and that query is the one that produces customers.
How many service areas can you cover?
As many as you genuinely serve. Not more. Pages for areas you do not really cover produce enquiries you cannot fulfil and a pattern Google treats as low quality.
Should we buy reviews?
No. Beyond the obvious, filtered reviews do not count and platform enforcement has become considerably better. Ask every satisfied customer instead, and make it take ten seconds.
Do we need ads as well?
Often yes, early, and especially where proximity limits your organic reach. The two work well together – see SEO vs PPC.
Find out what your city’s results actually look like
A free written review of your local visibility – your profile, your map pack position, and who is currently taking the traffic you want.
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