Local SEO: how nearby customers find you

Local SEO covers the searches where location matters. That might be an area someone types into the search box, like "winery in Kavala", or simply where they happen to be standing when they look for "accountant near me".

On searches like those, Google may show results from Maps and the local pack alongside the rest of the search results. The job of Local SEO is to help Google understand what your business offers, where it operates, and which local searches it is relevant to.

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1) What Local SEO is, and what it isn't

Local SEO is not just "ranking high on Google Maps".

In ordinary SEO, Google is trying to find pages that are relevant, useful and trustworthy for whatever someone is looking for. Local searches add one more thing on top of that: geography.

So it isn't enough for Google to work out that you are, say, an accountant. It also has to work out where you are, or which areas you serve.

That is why your Google Business Profile matters, but it is only one part of Local SEO.

Your profile gives someone the basics they need to find you: name, location, hours, phone number, photos and reviews. On the website you can explain more clearly what you do, which services you offer and who they are for.

You need both.

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2) How Google decides which local business to show

Google names three main factors for local results: relevance, distance and prominence.

• Relevance: how well your business matches what someone is looking for. The right category on your Google Business Profile, the services you list and the content on your site all help Google understand what you actually do.
• Distance: how close the business is to the location the search relates to. If the search doesn't include a location, Google works from what it knows about where the person is.
• Prominence: how well known and established the business appears to be. Reviews, mentions on other websites, links to your site and your general presence online can all play a part here.

The three work together.

That is why a business a little further away can still appear above a closer one if Google considers it a better match for what the person is looking for.

Exactly how much each factor weighs is not public. So there is little point hunting for which one "counts for 20%" and which for "40%". It is far more valuable to look after the things you can genuinely influence.

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3) Google Business Profile: what's worth getting right

For a lot of local businesses, the Google Business Profile is the first point of contact with a potential customer.

They can look at the profile, check the hours, read a couple of reviews and pick up the phone without ever visiting the site.

So the basics have to be right, and the profile has to reflect the business as it is today.

• Primary category: pick the one that best describes what your business is. Secondary categories are worth adding only where they genuinely match the services you offer.
• Name: use the real business name. If a keyword is normally part of that name, it obviously stays. What you don't need is to bolt on descriptions and search terms purely because you'd like to show up for them.
• Address or service area: set it according to whether customers come to you or you travel to them.
• Hours: keep them current, especially around holidays and one-off changes. Few things annoy a customer more than finding a business closed when Google says it's open.
• Services and products: write clearly what you offer. Lists stuffed with keywords aren't needed.
• Description: say in plain words what you do, who for, and in which area.
• Photos: add real images of the place, the products or the work. And when you have something new to show, upload it. A profile with recent photos of the business itself gives a far better picture than a set of old or generic ones.
• Website link: choose the page that properly represents that particular business or location. It doesn't have to be the homepage in every case.
• Posts: the Google Business Profile lets you publish updates, offers and events, with photos or video if you want. If there's something a customer would benefit from knowing, use it. You don't need to publish something every week just to make the profile look active.
• Keeping it current: when something about the business changes, update the profile too. A new service, different hours, a new phone number or anything else a customer needs to know should stay up to date.

We don't know which field carries more weight than another. What we do know is that the more complete and accurate the information is, the easier it is for Google to understand what the business offers, and for the person reading to decide whether it's what they're looking for.

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4) Reviews: ranking, trust and choice

Reviews do two different jobs.

The first is about your presence in local results. Google itself mentions reviews when it explains how prominent a business appears.

The second is simpler still: reviews directly influence the customer's choice.

Faced with three similar businesses, someone will very likely look at how many reviews each one has, how recent they are, what customers write and how the business replies.

In practice:

• Ask for an honest review from real customers after they have bought from you, used your service or worked with you.
• Ask steadily over time, rather than trying to gather a lot of them at once.
• Reply like a human being, to the positive ones and the negative ones alike.
• If a customer wants to add photos of the product, the place or the result of your work, even better. Photos help the next customer understand the experience the review describes. There's no reason to treat it as some technical trick for better rankings, though.
• Asking for an honest review is legitimate. Fake or bought reviews, incentives and any other attempt at manipulation are a different matter entirely.

"Reviews aren't decoration on a profile. They're often among the last things someone reads before choosing."

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5) Local SEO doesn't happen only inside Google Maps

The Google Business Profile has a fixed structure and limited room. On your site, by contrast, you can explain in full what you offer, who it is for and what someone needs to know before choosing you.

That counts for a lot when you also want to appear in the rest of Google's results for searches that combine a service with an area.

A good local page needs clarity above all.

• One clear purpose: the page should cover one specific topic or serve one specific need. It doesn't need to try to cover every possible search.
• A clear title and proper headings: the main heading should say plainly what the page is about and, where it matters, which area it covers.
• Real information about the area: not just a city name repeated through the copy. What helps is information genuinely connected to how the business operates there.
• Contact details: address, phone, hours or any other useful information should be easy to find.
• Structured data (schema), where it's needed: it is a way of giving Google the basic facts about the business in a clear, standard form. For a local business that might be LocalBusiness, or a more specific type that fits it better. We've written more in our guide to schema.
• Links to the rest of your site: a local page shouldn't sit in isolation. It should connect naturally to your services, your work and the rest of the related content on the site. See also our guide to internal linking.

Which brings us to something that often gets misread: the address of the page, the URL.

A URL like /oinopoieio-kavala is useful because it describes the subject of the page clearly. It is not some hidden SEO trick, though.

A keyword inside a URL is not, on its own, enough to push a page higher in the results. The page's content should match what its URL describes.

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6) Business details: consistency where it counts

NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone.

The basic idea isn't complicated: your business details should be correct wherever someone comes across them.

That applies to the site, the Google Business Profile, social profiles and the listings that matter.

What you don't need is to lose time over trivial formatting differences. "St." instead of "Street" is not the real problem.

The real problem is an old phone number, an address that no longer applies, or different versions of the name that genuinely could confuse a customer.

The simplest rule is this one: if a person would be confused by it, fix it.

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7) Listings and local presence

Directories and various platforms can help, but there's no reason to chase listings purely to increase the count.

Think first about whether a platform has a real connection to your business.

It's worth it when:

• it's used by people looking for businesses like yours,
• it relates to your industry or your area,
• it can send you real visitors,
• and you can keep your details correct on it.

A listing with a professional body or a local association, or a mention on a credible industry site or in a local publication, can do far more for you than a run of random directories nobody uses.

The goal isn't to have your name everywhere. It's to have it in the right places.

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8) What someone wants from a local search

When someone searches locally, they usually want a quick, practical answer.

They might be searching on their phone while they're already out, wanting to call, or deciding where to go in the next few minutes.

So the basic information shouldn't be hidden.

A visitor should be able to find quickly:

• what you do,
• where you are, or which areas you serve,
• when you're open,
• how to get in touch,
• and, if there's a physical place, how to get there.

This isn't some special SEO trick. It's simply good user experience.

If someone has to hunt for your phone number, your address or your hours, they always have the option of going back to the results and opening the next result.

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9) What isn't enough on its own

Some practices are often associated with Local SEO, but on their own they aren't enough.

• A Google Business Profile without a proper site: it can make you visible on Maps, but it doesn't replace a website that explains what you offer well.
• Plenty of low-quality listings: the number on its own doesn't mean much.
• A keyword inside the URL: a clear address helps someone understand what the page is about, but it doesn't rescue irrelevant or thin content.
• Dozens of near-identical pages for different cities: a useful page for an area you genuinely serve makes complete sense. The problem starts when many near-identical pages get created and only the city name changes.
• Artificial reviews: they don't replace real customer experience, and they can create problems for the profile.
• A "local" page that says nothing local: if you can swap the city name and the rest of the copy stays exactly the same, the page probably doesn't have enough content that genuinely relates to that particular area to justify a page of its own.