Top 15 Google Local Organic Search Ranking Factors

Local organic search becomes more effective for promoting a company in the Google search network. This is evidenced by numerous innovations and improvements in Google My Business (Google My Business). 

For example, recently in the Web promo blog, they wrote that the GMB profile can now be updated directly in Google Search and Maps. To learn more about ranking factors in local organic search, Whitespark conducted a survey among experts and identified the top 15 of them. The results of the study were published in the publication Search Engine Land.

What factors influence ranking in Google local search: TOP-15

1. The quality and authority of inbound links to a domain. Identified as the most influential ranking factor in shaping SERPs.
2. The amount of quality content on the site. To increase it, it is necessary to attract experts, “grow” them on your own and regularly update existing materials. When creating content, following the EAT principle, which Web promo spoke about SEO trends for 2021.
3. Keywords in the anchor text of incoming links to a domain are a factor that many do not pay attention to. But even Google insists on not missing this nuance. Links with “Read this link” anchors rank poorly, and the context in which the anchor text is located is not read.  
4. Thematic relevance of the keyword to the site. If the description of the company in the GMB profile refers to “the sale of children’s toys”, then in the semantic core of the site this query should be among the main ones.
5. Domain content relevance is based on geography (city, region). The GMB profile must correctly specify the company’s physical address and customer service regions. This information should be duplicated on the relevant pages of the site, and can also be integrated into the form of keywords in the description of product cards, articles, and other types of content. For more about the rules for filling geographic data in Google My Business read the search engine blog.
6. Optimization for mobile devices, adaptive design. Mobile friendly has become a major item in the Google May 2020 Core Update. Without a high-quality mobile version of the site, publishers risk losing organic traffic and losing the lion’s share of the audience. PreviouslyWebpromo experts spoke about the most common mistakes of mobile versions of websites that reduce their conversion and, of course, worsen the ranking in the search. 
7. domain authority. This factor can be improved through several channels. Among them is an increase in the number of links to pages of a web resource from other unique and reliable sources, and an increase in organic traffic from search through content. The authority index is measured from 0 to 100. The “number” of 70 points is considered optimal. 
8. Keywords in the title of a GMB landing page. Despite the fact that Google itself publicly opposes this, publishers are still very successful in applying this technique in practice. It is difficult to unequivocally answer whether this is good or bad. If you do use keywords in the title, then make sure they are highly relevant to the domain content.
9. Variety of inbound links to a domain. As we wrote in the point about authority, the uniqueness of linking pages is very important. The more authoritative domains in your backlink list, the better.
10. The number of inbound links to the domain. With a large number of external links, the authority of the site increases significantly.
11. The number of incoming links to the domain from relevant industry sites. If the referring sites are similar in subject matter to yours, this will “strengthen” the quality of the link.
12. The amount of quality content on service pages. Service pages include such as “About us”, “Shipping”, and “Payment”. Their essence is to give a complete answer to the question of interest to the user. Therefore, it builds a strict approach to the formation of content on these pages, taking into account its relevance to the request.
13. Keywords in the domain name. This is a hint to search engines when issuing a site for a corresponding query. But in recent years, this factor has begun to lose relevance. It is unlikely that now you can see a site with a domain, for example, agenda-Kyiv, in the first positions in the search results for the query “rent Kyiv”.
14. The number of inbound links to the domain from relevant local sites. By allocating a share of the link mass to this backlink format, you can improve the position of the site in the local Google search results.
15. CTR of search results. This is the ratio of the number of clicks on a link to the number of impressions. For local organic search, this metric is not as important as it is for regular organic search. However, it is impossible not to pay attention to it. To improve the indicator, you should fill in all the fields of the GMB profile, following the recommendations of the help. They also need to be updated if necessary, and new content added from time to time.