Local SEO
Local search is decided by three things: how relevant you are to the query, how close you are to the searcher, and how well known you are. Two of those are yours to work on.
What local SEO covers
Local SEO is the work that makes a business visible to searchers in a specific place: the map pack, local organic results, and the business profile itself. It combines an accurate business listing, consistent details across the web, reviews, location pages, and local links from organisations in the same area.
The three ranking inputs
| Input | What it means | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Relevance | How well your business matches the query | Accurate categories, services listed, on-page content per service and place |
| Distance | How close you are to the searcher | Nothing directly — but a second real location changes the geography |
| Prominence | How well known the business is | Reviews, citations, local links, press, and general organic strength |
Google Business Profile
- Pick the most specific primary category that describes the business, then add secondary categories only where they are genuinely accurate.
- Complete every field: hours including holidays, services, attributes, service area, and a description written for a person rather than a keyword list.
- Add real photos regularly. Profiles with current imagery get more interaction, and interaction is a prominence signal.
- Use Products and Services entries to state what you actually sell, with prices where you can publish them.
- Answer questions in the Q&A section yourself before someone else answers them wrongly.
NAP consistency and citations
A citation is any mention of your business name, address and phone number, linked or not. They matter because they corroborate the same business identity across the web.
- Write the canonical version of your name, address and phone number once, and use it everywhere without variation.
- Fix the big aggregators and industry-specific directories first; the long tail of generic directories adds very little.
- Clean up duplicate listings, especially after a move or rebrand. Two profiles for one location split every signal.
- Publish the same details on your site in LocalBusiness structured data so the machine-readable version matches.
Location and service pages
One page per location, and one page per service where the service is searched separately. The failure mode is templated pages with the place name swapped in: they read as doorway pages and rarely rank.
- Genuinely local content: the team at that location, parking, transport, opening hours, nearby landmarks, area-specific work you have done.
- Embed the map and the specific address, not a generic company-wide contact block.
- Link between location pages sparingly and from the main navigation clearly.
- Give each page a distinct title and description naming the place the way locals name it.
Reviews
Ask every satisfied customer, at the moment the work is done, with a direct link. Reply to all of them, including the critical ones — the reply is read by the next prospect more often than the review itself. Never offer anything in exchange for a review.
Local link building
Local links are unusually attainable because the relationships already exist. Sponsorships of a team or event, supplier and partner pages, local press, chambers of commerce, community organisations you actually support, and educational institutions you work with all produce genuinely editorial links from organisations rooted in your area.
The same rules apply as anywhere else: earn them, do not buy them, and verify the link actually went live afterwards.
Measuring local visibility
- Business Profile insights: calls, direction requests and website clicks are closer to revenue than rank.
- Rank tracking must be location-specific; a national average tells you nothing about the map pack.
- Search Console queries filtered to place-name terms show where you are gaining ground organically.
- Track by location separately when you have more than one; averages hide a failing branch.
Frequently asked questions
What is local SEO?
Local SEO is the work that makes a business visible to searchers in a specific place: the map pack, the local organic results, and the business profile itself. It combines a well-maintained business listing, consistent business details across the web, reviews, and pages that genuinely serve each location.
What matters most for map pack ranking?
Relevance to the query, distance from the searcher, and prominence — how well known the business is, judged from reviews, citations, links and general web presence. Distance is the one you cannot change, which is why the other two get the effort.
What is NAP consistency?
Name, address and phone number matching exactly across your site, your business profile, and every directory that lists you. Variations are not fatal, but they weaken the confidence that all those listings describe the same business.
Do reviews affect local rankings?
Review count, rating and recency all feed prominence, and review text gives engines topical context. Never incentivise or fake them: platforms filter suspicious patterns and a purge is far more damaging than a slow honest climb.