Local SEO

For any business serving a geographic area (shops, restaurants, clinics, contractors, law firms), local SEO is its own discipline with its own ranking system. Queries with local intent ("dentist near me", "coffee shop downtown") trigger the local pack: a map plus a short list of businesses that absorbs much of the attention before classic organic results begin. Increasingly, those same queries also trigger AI answers in Search, AI Mode and Google Maps, which draw on the same business data.

How Google ranks local results#

Google names the factors explicitly in its Business Profile help:

Google also states: "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google." Local Services Ads and Maps ads are paid placements, not rankings.

Google Business Profile: the core asset#

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is your local pack and Maps presence. Treat it like a second homepage:

• Claim and verify at business.google.com. Verification methods vary by business (video, phone, postcard and others).
• Categories: the primary category is the strongest relevance lever, so be precise ("Espresso bar" beats "Coffee shop" if accurate) and add every legitimate secondary category.
• Complete everything: hours (including holiday hours), services or menu, products, attributes, booking links, and real photos of the premises, team and work.
• Post updates when you have something real to say (offers, events, new services). Opinion: posts are more useful for conversion and keeping AI answers current than as a ranking lever.
• Keep it current: a wrong opening time costs you customers directly, and it now also feeds AI answers that people act on without visiting your site.

Service-area businesses#

If you visit customers rather than receiving them (plumbers, cleaners, mobile mechanics), you're a service-area business. Google's rules (help):

• "If you don't serve customers at your business address, remove your address from your Business Profile."
• You can list up to 20 service areas (cities, postcodes or regions).
• The overall area "shouldn't be more than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based".

Virtual offices, coworking desks you don't staff, and PO boxes aren't eligible addresses. A hybrid business (a showroom that also does call-outs) can show its address and add service areas.

Reviews#

Reviews drive both prominence (count, rating, recency) and conversion, because people read them.

• Ask consistently: a post-purchase email or SMS with a direct review link to every customer.
• Respond to everything, especially negatives, professionally and concretely. Responses are public marketing, and Google's own ranking tips encourage replying.
• Specific reviews help: reviews that mention the service and place ("great emergency boiler repair in Leeds") tell customers, and plausibly Google, what you do. You can't script them, but great specific service produces great specific reviews.

If you use review markup on your own site, the same principle applies: Google's review snippet guidelines added a rule against fake and undisclosed incentivized reviews on 2026-07-24 (Structured Data).

Local search and AI#

Local results are where AI features touch real-world decisions fastest. What's confirmed, and what's only reported:

• AI Overviews and AI Mode use your profile. Google's AI optimization guide says generative AI responses can include information about local businesses, and that Google Business Profiles "can help your products and services to be visible in both AI responses and other Google Search results". A complete, accurate profile is the main input you control. See SEO for AI Mode & AI Overviews.
• Ask Maps (Gemini in Google Maps). Launched 2026-03-12 in the US and India on Android and iOS, it answers conversational place questions using "information from over 300 million places, including reviews from our community of more than 500 million contributors", and can book restaurant reservations (Google). Expansion to 150+ countries was reported in August 2026 (trade press). Detailed reviews, attributes and fresh photos are what it can draw on.
• AI calling businesses. Since 2025-07-16, US searchers can tap "Have AI check pricing" and Google's AI calls local businesses for prices and availability (Google). Google says "businesses are always in control via their Business Profile settings": go to More → Business Profile settings → Advanced settings and use the "Google automated calls and text messages" toggles (help). At I/O 2026 (2026-05-19) Google also announced agentic booking for local services in the US.
• AI local packs (reported). In January 2026 Joy Hawkins reported AI-style local results showing one or two businesses instead of the usual three, often without call buttons, on about 8% of tracked keywords, with some businesses seeing visibility fall 50% or more (Search Engine Roundtable). Google hasn't commented, so treat it as a trend to watch in your own GBP data.
• Independent "best of" lists. Google documents a top places list feature that shows curated lists mentioning a business. The lists must be "genuine, independent, and not sponsored" and not templated, so local PR that gets you into real "best X in town" articles now has a visible payoff (Digital PR & Brand Signals).

Beyond Google: Bing and Apple#

Google dominates, but not every local search happens there.

• Bing Places for Business controls how you appear in Bing search and Bing Maps, and Microsoft's Copilot draws on Bing. You can import an existing Google Business Profile instead of starting from scratch. It takes minutes and is free.
• Apple Business (which replaced Apple Business Connect, Business Essentials and Business Manager on 2026-04-14) lets you claim your place card and control how your brand and locations appear across Apple Maps, Wallet, Mail, Siri and Safari. Apple also announced Maps ads for the US and Canada from summer 2026 (Apple). iPhone users asking Siri or Maps for "coffee near me" see Apple's data, not Google's.

NAP consistency, citations and markup#

Citations are mentions of your Name, Address and Phone (NAP) across the web: directories, maps services, industry listings. Engines and AI assistants cross-reference them to confirm you're real and located where you claim.

• Keep NAP consistent everywhere (pick one format for suite numbers, abbreviations and phone formatting)
• Cover the majors: Google, Apple, Bing, Yelp, Facebook and the directories that matter in your industry and country
• Fix old addresses and phone numbers after a move: stale citations confuse both customers and machines

Mirror it on your site with LocalBusiness structured data, using the most specific subtype that fits:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "CafeOrCoffeeShop",
  "name": "Crema District",
  "url": "https://cremadistrict.com",
  "telephone": "+1-503-555-0188",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "414 Oak Ave",
    "addressLocality": "Portland",
    "addressRegion": "OR",
    "postalCode": "97205",
    "addressCountry": "US"
  },
  "geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": 45.5231, "longitude": -122.6765 },
  "openingHoursSpecification": [{
    "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
    "dayOfWeek": ["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday","Sunday"],
    "opens": "07:00",
    "closes": "18:00"
  }]
}
</script>

Markup helps Google understand the page; it doesn't replace a verified Business Profile and isn't a ranking shortcut. Events you mark up must now be held at a physical location to be eligible for event rich results (online event properties were removed on 2025-06-05).

Location pages without doorways#

The local pack isn't the whole game: localized organic results sit below it.

• One landing page per real location, with distinct content: team, photos, parking and directions, local testimonials, opening hours, embedded map. Not city-name find-and-replace.
• Service × area pages only where demand exists and you genuinely serve it ("water heater repair in Beaverton"), backed by your keyword research.
• Local relevance content: neighbourhood guides, sponsorships and community involvement, which also earn the local links that build prominence.

Measuring local performance#

GBP's Performance view (help) shows:

• Views: people who viewed your profile, split by Search and Maps and by device
• Searches: the search terms that showed your profile (updated monthly)
• Interactions: calls, messages, bookings, direction requests and website clicks

Add UTM parameters to your GBP website link (for example ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp) so profile clicks are distinguishable in GA4. Track calls and direction requests month over month: if AI local results are taking clicks in your market, you'll see views hold while interactions fall. Combine it with Search Console data for your location pages and a local rank grid tool if you need position data by neighbourhood.

Next: Digital PR & Brand Signals, earning the mentions and coverage that build prominence beyond your own site.