Despite the digital age resulting in the world connecting, people value what is close to them. 46% of Google searches have local intent, meaning that potential customers put a lot of stock in finding businesses close to their location.
Local SEO is now extremely important to small businesses with increased competition in local search. If you have strong local SEO, you can rise to the top of the Local Pack results, standing out for local Google search and Google Maps queries.
We’re going to look at what the local SEO ranking factors are, what you can do to improve your local SEO and what mistakes to avoid.
What Is Local SEO?
Local SEO is the strategy utilised by businesses to improve their search rankings in local-based user searches.
SEO is the broad term for this sort of work: keywords, optimising content, and having a strong website. Local SEO is more specific, focused instead on Google Business Profile optimisation and ranking higher in the map pack.
For example, a standard search may be:
- SEO agency
- Plumber
- Web design company
Whereas a local search would be:
- SEO agency Edinburgh
- Plumber near me
- Web design company in Glasgow
By looking to improve local SEO, you are looking to meet users’ more specific search intents.
How Does Google Rank Local Businesses?
Google bases local search rankings on three main principles:
- Relevance: How well a business profile matches a search query.
- Distance: How far the user is, physically, from the business.
- Prominence: How well-known and trusted the business is.
Google Business Profile Optimisation
Google Business Profile is a tool that you can use to manage how your business appears in Google Search and Maps.
Having a complete profile is very important to local SEO, as customers are 70% more likely to consider purchasing from a business with a complete GBP.
An optimised GBP should contain:
- Correct business categories
- Services you offer
- A business description
- Opening hours
- Relevant and regularly updated photos (logo, cover photo, business photos)
These Google Business Profile ranking factors are important to SEO because Google relies on quality profiles to aid zero-click searches, help with AI search results and signal to Google that the business is trusted and used by real people.
Reviews and Reputation
The platforms and corners of the internet where you can leave a review are endless, but the dominant platform remains Google Reviews, with 71% of the market share.
Businesses that rank well have:
- A sizeable quantity of reviews
- The reviews are of good quality
- Recent reviews
- Respond to both positive and negative reviews
Google reviews are important for SEO because they boost your local ranking, demonstrate your willingness to engage with customers, boost trust and reputation and are clear trust signals to users.
NAP Consistency
NAP is short-hand for Name, Address and Phone number. These are elements that appear in directories, your website, review platforms and on your GPB.
Having this information be correct and consistent across all platforms helps with citation consistency as Google use these to verify your business is real and helps with rankings. Conflicting NAP can confuse potential customers, result in poor rankings and harm trust.
Local Citations
Local citations are mentions of your business that tend to feature your NAP.
These citations are more often found in major directories, such as the Yellow Pages and Yelp. You can also put your business information into industry-specific directories to help prove your legitimacy and improve your reputation.
With local citations, it’s not about getting as many as possible; it’s about where these citations appear. Having a citation on a relevant platform demonstrates more to Google and potential customers than appearing on heaps of generic directories.
On-Page Local SEO
On-page SEO is the term to describe all the things you can do on a website to help it perform better in search engines.
When it comes to local SEO, you should:
- Have location-specific landing pages
- Have separate service pages
- Include descriptive title tags
- Compelling meta descriptions to help Google and users know what the page is about
- Local keywords to improve visibility
- Internal linking helps Google and users find other relevant information
Local Content
Local content is content that is created specifically for people in the area where your business is located. This type of content can come in many forms, including:
- Area pages
- Local guides
- Case studies
- FAQ pages
You can use local content as part of social media marketing, asking for community content in the form of submitted images, informative guest blogs and advertise hosting a local event.
This type of content will match hyper-focused keywords and intent to local users, create a connection to your local area and improve your local SEO.
Backlinks
Backlinks are links back to your pages from others. This could come in the form of local sources, industry sources and news sites.
When you get backlinks, you signal to Google and users that you have authority. You are to be trusted and have the confidence of others, proving that you are credible.
Local backlinks can show your community connection, being trusted and used by others in the area and are relevant. Examples of local backlinks include:
- Linked on local news sites
- Linked by local industry associations
- Mentioned by local bloggers
- Appearing on the local government website
Proximity to Searcher
Google wants to deliver search results that are relevant and useful. They prioritise showing businesses that are physically close to the user at the time of their search, perhaps even when there are no local identifiers in the search query.
Because of this, a business may rank differently for different users, depending on where they are.
You cannot directly optimise for proximity, but if you build up strong trust, topical strength and authority over time, in the wider local area, you begin to see yourself ranking higher. Or, if you serve a large area but have one location, creating pages and content for different areas can help you rise in rankings in multiple places.
Website Performance
Even for local audiences, web design is vitally important.
A well-run and easy-to-use website will improve user experience and make it easier for Google to crawl and index your site, improving your rankings and bringing people back to visit.
You need to focus on:
- Page speed: To avoid people getting frustrated and reduce bounce rate.
- Mobile usability: Google prioritises mobile-friendly pages.
- Technical SEO: Optimising your website infrastructure (site security, internal linking structure) makes it easier for Google to navigate, understand and rank your site.
- User experience: Fast-loading pages, clean design, and images all increase engagement and make your potential customers’ time on your site more enjoyable.
Behavioural Signals
Behavioural signals are user interactions that Google looks at to see how well your content performs for users.
Important behavioural signals include:
- Click-through rates: The percentage of users who click on your link on the SERP
- Calls: How many clicks on the “call” button on your site
- Direction requests: How many people click the “Directions” button to your business on Google Maps.
- Website visits: How many users go on your website.
User engagement boosts your online visibility because these interactions show Google that people visit your site, interact with it and find it useful.
Local Schema Markup
Schema markup is a type of structured data code that can help Google more easily understand the content of a page, as well as what it says on it.
Local business schema markup is code that you add to your website so Google can have important details like your address, phone number, opening hours, and geolocation. With local business schema markup, you can appear in rich results, enhanced results that have more detail, such as star ratings, opening hours and price range.
Employing this type of structured data can lead to increased visibility, click-through rate, and better voice search and AI optimisation.
Consistent SEO Activity
SEO is a long-term process, continually evolving, rather than a one-off task.
To remain relevant in the eyes of Google and consumers, you need to make regular updates to what your business puts out. That means creating fresh content, garnering new reviews, updating old content and images and always looking to optimise where you can.
Google can even help you get started if you’re feeling overwhelmed.
Common Local SEO Mistakes
If you are looking to improve your Google Maps SEO, here are some missteps to avoid:
- Incomplete Google Business Profiles: Reduces visibility in local searches.
- Duplicate listings: Confuses search engines.
- Keyword stuffing: Affects user experience, and you miss out on localised phrases.
- Ignoring reviews: Damages trust and reduces visibility.
- Inconsistent business information: Affects credibility and damages local SEO.
- Thin location pages: Pages with little value will fail to rank high locally.
Local SEO Checklist
The most important actions you should take to help your local business rankings are:
- Optimise your Google Business Profile
- Encourage and engage with reviews
- Maintain NAP consistency across all platforms
- Build local citations
- Improve on-page SEO
- Create great local content and gain strong backlinks
- Improve website performance and technical SEO
- Consistently monitor and improve SEO
Get Professional Help With Your Local SEO Strategy Today
Google’s search algorithm is always updating, but the most influential local SEO for small business ranking factors are consistently relevance, distance and prominence.
To meet these requirements and boost your local SEO successfully, you should focus on:
- Google Business Profile optimisation
- Website optimisation
- Reviews
- Citations
- Authority building
Even as a small business, you can stand out from the crowd. Get in touch with Max Web Solutions today for professional local SEO support.
Posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2026 in SEO.
