Google's Local Ranking Factors

| SEO

Google's Local Ranking Factors

 

Google has finally opened up a little more about their local ranking factors so what really enables you to achieve a place in the local 3 pack at the top of the search engine results page?

Google recommend that your Google My Business page includes as much data about your business as possible, that your listing is verified, that you have accurately displayed your opening hours, that you respond to all of your reviews and add several photos. All this information will help people find your business in the local search.

However, in terms of ranking Google still outline the importance of relevance, distance and prominence but they have expanded on them giving us a clearer understanding of their ranking factors.

Here are Google’s local ranking factors:

1) Relevance

This factor is determined by how relevant the local listing is to the persons search. By having a fully completed listing including detailed business information will help Google better understand your business, enabling them to match your listings to more relevant searches.  

2) Distance

The distance factor can’t really be helped as it is based on where your office is located. The distance factor focuses on how far your office location is from the search result. If a location isn’t specified within the search, Google will calculate the distance based on what is known about the users location.

3) Prominence

Prominence is based on how well-known the business is. As Google states “some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local ranking. For example, famous museums, landmark hotels or well-known store brands that are familiar to many people are also likely to be prominent in local search results.”

Prominence is also calculated based on the information Google can find about the business from across the web. This could be things like links, articles and directory listing.

Google reviews also have an impact on the rankings, so the more reviews you have with positive ratings, the more likely you are to appear in the local search rankings.

Your website’s position in the search results is also a factor so SEO will help you achieve a top 3 local spot.

 

If you follow these 3 crucial factors and have a completed and detailed business listing then there is no reason why you won’t be able to achieve a local business ranking. 

Luke Stanley