Improving your local rankings

What affects local rankings?

Google ranks local businesses based on three main factors:

1. Relevance: How well you match the search
2. Distance: How close you are to the searcher
3. Prominence: How well-known and reputable you are

You can't change distance, but you can improve relevance and prominence.

Quick wins

Optimize your Google Business Profile

Completeness matters:

• Fill out every section
• Add all services you offer
• Include products if applicable
• Upload photos regularly

Categories are crucial:

• Primary category = most important
• Add all relevant secondary categories
• Don't add irrelevant categories

Get more reviews

Reviews directly impact rankings:

• More reviews = stronger signal
• Higher ratings help (but quantity matters more)
• Recent reviews weighted more heavily
• Keywords in reviews provide relevance signals

Using Diviner One: Your keyword rotation feature helps customers naturally mention relevant services in their reviews.

Medium-term strategies

Build local citations

Ensure your business is listed consistently on:

• Yelp
• Yellow Pages
• Industry directories
• Local chamber of commerce
• Apple Maps

Consistency is key: Same name, address, phone (NAP) everywhere.

Create local content

Add location-specific content to your website:

• Service area pages
• Local case studies
• Community involvement posts
• Local event coverage

Get quality backlinks

Links from local sources help:

• Local news sites
• Community organizations
• Business associations
• Partner businesses

Addressing problem areas

Weak in a specific direction?

If your grid shows poor rankings in one area:

1. Check for strong competitors there
2. Consider service area-specific content
3. Seek reviews from customers in that area
4. Look for citation opportunities in that neighborhood

Overall low visibility?

If rankings are weak everywhere:

1. Audit your GBP for issues
2. Check for NAP inconsistencies
3. Increase review collection efforts
4. Verify no Google penalties
5. Compare your profile completeness to top competitors

Tracking improvement

After making changes:

1. Run a grid check to establish baseline
2. Implement improvements
3. Wait 2-4 weeks (changes take time)
4. Run another check
5. Compare results

Patience required: Local ranking changes happen gradually. Don't expect overnight results.

What to prioritize

Focus your efforts based on grid data: