Thule Media | News | Google Expands On Local Ranking Factors

Google has updated it’s ‘Ranking in the local search results’ documentation and expanded it to include factors like links, articles and directories.

The updated Local Ranking document explains that you should aim to have as much data as possible about your local business in Google My Business and that you need to verify your business, post accurate hours, respond and manage your reviews and make sure to add photos.

In terms of rankings (within the maps listings), Google still outlines ‘Relevance’, ‘Distance’ and ‘Prominence’ but expands on each of them.

Here is the revised content:

Relevance

Relevance refers to how well a local listing matches what someone is searching for. Adding complete and detailed business information can help Google better understand your business and match your listing to relevant searches.

Distance

Just like it sounds: How far is each potential search result from the location term used in a search? If a user doesn’t specify a location in their search, Google will calculate distance based on what’s known about their location.

Prominence

Prominence refers to how well-known a business is. Some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local ranking. For example, famous museums, landmark hotels or well-known store brands that are familiar to many people are also likely to be prominent in local search results.

Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business from across the web (like links, articles and directories). Google review count and score are factored into local search ranking.

Is your Google My Business (Google Maps) listing up to date? Is your listing verified? Or is your Google Maps listing optimised? If you can answer no to any of these questions, simply contact Thule Media today. We can help you set up a local Google My Business maps presence (if you do not already have one), verify you Google maps listing and optimise your Google maps listing.