Googles three local signals: relevance, distance, prominence. Which you can control, why the primary category matters most, and why review recency counts.
Google ranks local results on three signals: relevance, distance and prominence. Only two of them are within your control. This article covers which fields of your business profile actually affect ranking, the role of reviews, and what needs doing on the website side.
For any business with a physical store, showroom or service area, local search often brings more customers than the website does. "Near me" searches and map results carry the highest purchase intent — the person searching usually plans to act that day.
Google's three signals
| Signal | What it measures | Can you control it |
|---|---|---|
| Relevance | How well your profile matches the query | Yes — through profile completeness |
| Distance | How far the business is from the searcher | No |
| Prominence | How well known the business is | Yes — through reviews and mentions |
You cannot change distance. Local SEO work therefore means focusing on the other two: profile completeness (relevance) and your presence elsewhere (prominence).
Relevance: completing the profile
Google matches you to relevant searches to the extent it can understand your business. Every field left empty reduces the number of queries you can match.
- Primary category. The field with the strongest effect on ranking. Choose the one that describes your business exactly rather than a generic option; add secondary categories too, but getting the primary right is decisive.
- Business name. Must be your real trading name. Stuffing keywords into the name is a policy violation and can get the profile suspended.
- Services and products. Enter every service separately — these directly widen the queries you can match.
- Opening hours. Keep them current including holidays; wrong hours damage both user experience and the trust signal.
- Website link. Link to the page for that branch or service, not the home page.
- Description, photos and attributes. Photos raise both clicks and trust.
NAP consistency
Your business name, address and phone number should appear in the same format everywhere online — your website, social profiles, directories and listings. Inconsistent information makes it harder for Google to evaluate the business correctly and hurts local ranking.
A practical check: search your business name and phone number on Google and list every record that appears. Fix every old address, closed branch or differently formatted phone number you find. The work is tedious but among the highest-return tasks in local SEO.
Prominence: reviews and outside presence
Prominence measures how well known your business is, with two main inputs: how many places on the web mention you and the reviews you receive.
| Dimension | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Count | More reviews mean a stronger prominence signal |
| Rating | A high average contributes positively to ranking |
| Recency | 50 reviews from two years ago are a weaker signal than 5 from this month |
Recency is the most overlooked dimension. Collecting reviews should not be a campaign but a continuously running process: a short reminder after a sale or service completes turns a few new reviews a month into a habit.
Replying to negative reviews also produces signal. An unanswered negative review tells both a prospective customer and Google that the business is not paying attention.
What to do on the website side
- Location pages. A separate page per branch carrying content specific to that area — address, map, hours, branch-specific services and directions.
- LocalBusiness structured data. Mark up name, address, phone, hours and coordinates, exactly consistent with the profile.
- Contact page. NAP details should be present as text — an address embedded in an image cannot be read.
- Area-specific content. Pages carrying genuine information about the city or district you serve, not the same text duplicated with the city name swapped.
For the technical foundations on the site side, see our technical SEO checklist.
Multi-branch businesses
With more than one location you need a separate profile and a separate location page for each branch. A common mistake is collecting all branches in one profile, or pointing every profile at the home page. Each profile should link to its own location page, so users reach the right information and Google can evaluate branches separately.
Measurement
- Search visibility — how many searches showed your profile, and how many were by business name versus category searches? Growth in category searches is the real indicator of local SEO work.
- Actions — directions, calls and website clicks. These are the actual conversions.
- Review flow — is the monthly count of new reviews steady or declining?
Common mistakes
- Adding keywords to the business name. A policy violation; the profile can be suspended.
- The wrong primary category. Filling the highest-impact field with a generic option.
- NAP inconsistency. Old addresses and differently formatted phone numbers weaken the signal.
- Treating review collection as a campaign. Recency is a dimension; a one-off pile of reviews loses value over time.
- Pointing every profile at the home page. Branches cannot be distinguished from one another.
Conclusion
There are two signals you can control in local SEO: profile completeness and prominence. The first is one-off but meticulous work — the right category, a complete service list, consistent NAP. The second is continuous: a steady flow of reviews and growing mentions on the web. With both running, you start appearing in results even when distance is against you.
At Commerslab we run corporate websites and local visibility work together. See our corporate website service or request a local visibility assessment for your business.
