Local SEO Fundamentals: How Local Search Works

Short answer

Google describes how local results are chosen in one sentence: "Local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity." Local search ranks businesses, mostly through their Business Profiles, against a searcher's location, and it does this alongside the ordinary web results for the same query. Local SEO is the work of making your business information complete, accurate and well regarded, so that it matches the right searches from the people near enough to become customers.

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The Three Factors, in Google’s Words

Google’s local ranking help page defines each factor:

Factor	Google's definition	What you can influence
Relevance	"how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for"	Categories, description, services and other profile details
Distance	"how far each business is from the customer who's searching"	Your real address or service area, kept accurate
Prominence	"how well-known a business is"	Reviews, ratings, links and mentions across the web

The third factor appears as “popularity” in Google’s summary sentence and as “Prominence” in the section that defines it. On distance, Google adds: “If a customer doesn’t share where they are, Google uses what it knows about their location.” On prominence, it names inputs: “how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have”, and “More reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking.”

Two statements set the limits. Google says it keeps “the search algorithm details confidential”, so Google doesn’t publish weights for the three factors. And: “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.” Paid placement is a separate ad product, covered in Local Services Ads.

Building prominence is slow work: reviews, mentions and links come from customers and other sites over time. Businesses that want outside help with it can work with Nashville SEO agencies with neighborhood-level expertise.

Local Results and Web Results

A local query can show two kinds of results: business listings, on the map and in the local results block, and ordinary web pages. They come from different sources:

Local results draw on Business Profile information: name, address, hours, categories, photos and reviews.
Web results are pages from websites, ranked by Google’s general ranking systems.

A business can appear in one without the other. That’s why local SEO runs on two tracks: the Business Profile for local results and the website for web results, with the website also supporting prominence through the links and mentions it earns.

How Searches Signal Local Intent

Query form	Example	What tells Google it's local
Place named	"plumber in Austin" or "vet 37215"	The location in the query
No place named	"Italian restaurant" on a phone	The query type and the searcher's location
"Near me" or "open now"	"coffee near me"	The words themselves, plus location; hours matter for "open now"
Brand plus place	"Target Chicago"	A specific business and area

Google’s own example of the second type: “a customer might find local places near them if they search for ‘Italian restaurant’ on their phone.”

Keyword targeting for each form is covered in local keyword strategy.

What Google Asks You to Do

Google’s help page lists the steps it recommends:

Verify your business. Google: “This tells Google that you’re authorized to represent the business, so it’s more likely to show up in search results.”
Keep information complete and accurate. “Businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results.” That includes your address if customers visit, hours including special hours, your category and attributes such as parking or Wi-Fi.
Respond to reviews. “Positive reviews and helpful replies can help your business stand out.”
Add photos and videos.
Add in-store products, where available for retail businesses.

Profile work in detail is covered in Google Business Profile optimization, reviews in local reviews management, and everything else people find when they look a business up in reputation management for local businesses.

The Rules for Profiles

Google’s guidelines for representing your business set eligibility. A business qualifies if it “either has a physical location that customers can visit, or travels to customers where they are”. Within that:

Address: create the profile “for your actual, real-world location.” A virtual office, a mailing address where you don’t operate, “isn’t eligible for a Business Profile.”
Service areas: businesses that serve customers at their locations “should have one profile for the central office or location with a designated service area”, and service-area businesses should hide their address from customers. Details are in service-area business SEO.
Categories: “Use as few categories as possible to describe your overall core business”, choose specific ones, and “Do not use categories solely as keywords”.
Name: it “should reflect your business’s real-world name”.

Google opens these guidelines by saying the requirements exist “To make sure your Business Profile won’t be suspended”.

The Website’s Part

The website supports local search in three ways: it matches what the profile says, it gives relevant pages for web results, and it earns the links and mentions that count toward prominence. In practice that means your name, address and phone shown the same way as on the profile (NAP consistency), pages for the services and areas you actually cover (local landing pages), and structured data where it fits (LocalBusiness schema).

Measuring Local Performance

The Business Profile performance report shows searches (“The search terms people used to find your business”), views, and actions such as calls, direction requests, website clicks and bookings where a booking provider is connected. Google notes that the searches metric “is updated at the start of each month.” Search Console covers the website’s web results; the two together show both tracks.

Where to Start

Claim and verify your profile.
Fill in every field that applies, accurately.
Choose the fewest, most specific categories.
Check that your website shows the same name, address and phone.
Ask customers for reviews and reply to them.
Review the performance report monthly, when the searches data updates.

When your business appears in the web results for a local query but not in the local results, or the reverse, work on the track that’s missing: the Business Profile for the local results, the website for the web results.