Search any service plus a town name and the screen fills before you reach a single website: an ad, then a map with three businesses on it, then eventually the ordinary blue links. That three-business box is the local pack, and for most local searches it takes the majority of the attention on the page.
Google has been unusually open about how the pack is built. Three factors: relevance, distance and prominence. Understanding what each means — and how much control you actually have over it — saves a lot of money on the wrong work.
Relevance: does your profile match the search?
Relevance is how well your business matches what somebody typed. It is driven far more by structured profile data than by prose.
- Primary category — the largest single factor. A 'Contractor' will lose to a 'Roofing Contractor' for roofing searches, every time.
- Secondary categories — each one extends the set of searches you are eligible for.
- Services list — individually listed services, each with a real description, match directly against query wording.
- Business description — modest weight, but it costs nothing to write properly.
- Your website — the pack draws on your site as well. A dedicated page for the service you want to rank for reinforces the match.
Distance: the factor you cannot buy
Distance is measured from the searcher to your verified location. It is heavily weighted, and it is the reason the honest answer to "why am I not ranking in Windsor?" when you are based in Chatham is often "because you are 75 kilometres away".
Two consequences worth internalising:
- There is no single ranking position. You might be first for someone standing outside your shop and invisible to someone across town. Any report claiming 'you rank #2 for plumber Chatham' without naming a measurement point is describing one arbitrary location.
- Adding a hundred towns to your service area does not extend your reach. Service area affects eligibility, not the distance calculation. A business in Chatham does not become close to London by typing London into a box.
What you *can* do about distance is compete on the other two factors hard enough that Google widens the radius it will consider for you. A prominent, highly relevant business gets shown further out than an anonymous one. That is real, and it is slow.
Prominence: how well known you are
Prominence is Google's read on how established and well regarded the business is, assembled from signals across the whole web rather than from your profile alone.
Reviews
The most visible prominence signal, and the one small businesses most consistently under-invest in. What matters:
- Volume relative to your local competitors — not an absolute number. Twenty-five reviews is strong in a small town and thin in a city.
- Recency. Forty reviews that stop two years ago read as a business that used to be good. A steady trickle beats a burst.
- Rating. Perfect 5.0s across a large count are treated with some suspicion; 4.6 to 4.9 is the credible band, and buyers say the same.
- Content. Reviews mentioning the specific service and town add relevance as well as prominence.
- Your replies. Reply to all of them. It demonstrates an active business and it is read by every future customer.
Citations and mentions
Consistent listings of your name, address and phone number across directories, chambers of commerce and local organisations. The returns diminish fast — the top twenty directories plus genuinely local sources do nearly all the work, and paying for hundreds of low-quality listings does close to nothing.
Links and local coverage
Links from local news, the chamber of commerce, suppliers, trade associations, sponsored teams and local charities matter disproportionately for local prominence. A mention in your town's paper is worth more than a generic guest post on a national marketing blog.
Your website
The pack considers the site behind the profile: does it load fast, work on mobile, describe this service, name this area, and carry LocalBusiness structured data. A weak website caps how far the profile alone can carry you.
A realistic order of work
| Priority | Work | Effort | Typical time to show |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fix primary category and complete services | 1 hour | 2–4 weeks |
| 2 | Complete every remaining profile section | 2 hours | 2–6 weeks |
| 3 | Build a repeatable review request habit | Ongoing | 1–3 months |
| 4 | Fix name/address/phone inconsistencies in top directories | 3–4 hours | 1–3 months |
| 5 | Build service and location pages on your site | 1–2 days | 2–4 months |
| 6 | Earn local links: chamber, sponsorship, suppliers, press | Ongoing | 3–6 months |
How to measure it honestly
Because results vary by the searcher's position, checking your own ranking from your own desk is close to meaningless — your device location and search history both distort it.
- Use the profile's Performance report as the primary measure: calls, direction requests, website clicks, and the split between discovery and direct searches. These are actions, not positions.
- Use a grid-based rank tracker if you want positional data — it samples a set of points across your service area and shows a map of where you appear. That is the only honest way to express local rank.
- Track enquiries by source in whatever system you use. Ranking is a proxy; enquiries are the point.
Common questions
- Why does my business rank differently for me than for my customers?
- Because local results are calculated from the searcher's location, and Google also personalises based on history. Your own searches are the least reliable data you have about your rankings.
- How many reviews do I need to rank in the map pack?
- There is no threshold. What matters is your position relative to the businesses currently ranking in your town. Look at the three in the pack, count theirs, and aim to pass the third one while replying to everything you receive.
- Can I rank in a town I do not have an address in?
- In the organic blue links, yes — a well-written service-area page can rank anywhere. In the map pack, it is much harder, because distance from the searcher is weighted heavily and is measured from your verified location.
- How long does local SEO take to work?
- Profile fixes can show within two to four weeks. Review and citation work typically shows over one to three months. Link building and content compound over three to six months and keep going. Anyone promising pack placement in a fortnight is describing a coincidence or a violation.