Two plumbers work the same town. One has the better website and more years in the trade; the other shows up on the map every time someone nearby types "emergency plumber". The first owner usually concludes that Google is broken. It isn't: local search runs on a short, published set of rules, and the second plumber satisfies them.
Google's own Business Profile help says local results are based primarily on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. Once you know what each one measures, you can see which ones you can move and which one you can only accept.
Google decides a search is local before it ranks anything
Google first judges whether the searcher wants something nearby. Sometimes the query says so ("dentist in Norwich", "plumber near me"). Often it doesn't, and Google infers it from what is being searched: people typing "pizza" or "locksmith" almost always want one they can reach.
When the intent looks local, Google pulls in where the searcher is: the place named in the query, or otherwise what it knows about the device's location. That location shapes the whole page: a map with business listings appears (the map pack, covered in the next lesson), and the web results beneath it lean towards pages about that area.
Two consequences follow. You don't choose whether your terms get local treatment; Google does. And there is no single answer to "where do I rank for plumber", because it differs for a searcher on your street and one across town. Local ranking is a map, not a number.
Relevance: does your profile match what was searched
Google's definition is plain: relevance is how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for. Its advice is to enter every piece of business information, naming the address, phone number, category and attributes as what makes a business easier to match with the right searches.
The primary category does most of the work. A profile set to "Plumber" is a candidate for plumbing searches, and a weak one for "boiler installation" unless Google can connect that service to the business through a secondary category, a listed service, or a page on the site. Complete detail widens the set of searches you are even in the running for.
Relevance is the factor you can move fastest: the right categories, every service you offer, and a description in customers' words take an afternoon. Categories and services goes through it field by field.
Distance: how far you are from the searcher, or from the place they named
Google's help describes distance as how far each potential result is from the location term used in the search, and, if no term was used, from what Google knows about the searcher's location. It is why the plumber across the road wins a search you lose, and why your visibility fades as the searcher moves away.
You can't move your building, so most of this factor is fixed. What you can do is be precise about where you are and where you work: a verified address you actually operate from, and a service area (if you travel to customers) covering the places you really go. Faking an address closer to a city centre breaks Google's guidelines for representing your business and is the fastest route to a suspended listing, which a later lesson covers.
The other way around distance is to compete in the web results under the map, where a page about a town you serve can rank for searchers there even when the map favours businesses closer to them. The next lesson covers that split.
Prominence: how well known you are, online and off
Google's help defines prominence as how well known a business is, based on information from across the web: links, articles and directory listings. It also states two things that are easy to miss: review count and review score factor into local ranking, and your position in ordinary web results is itself a factor, so the SEO that makes your site rank also lifts your profile.
Google is trying to confirm you are a real, established business that people choose. Every consistent mention of your details, every review, every local link and every search your own pages rank for adds confidence. A strong offline reputation with no online trace looks, to Google, like a business nobody has heard of.
Prominence is the slowest factor to move and the one that compounds. A steady flow of reviews, listings with matching details, and a few links from local organisations take months, but they keep paying. The chapters on reviews, citations and local links cover each piece.
Which of the three you can move
Put the three side by side and a plan falls out. Relevance is yours to fix this week. Prominence is yours to build over the year. Distance is mostly given; your answer to it is an accurate profile plus a website that reaches searchers the map won't show you to.
One more line from the same Google help page is worth keeping: there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
What to take away
- Google judges whether a search is local first, then ranks Business Profiles on relevance, distance and prominence.
- Relevance comes from how completely your profile describes what you do, and it's the fastest factor to improve.
- Distance is set by where you are relative to the searcher; you manage it with accurate details and a website, not tricks.
- Prominence is your reputation across the web, built by reviews, consistent listings, local links and a site that ranks on its own.
Next
The map and the web results under it follow different rules; The map pack versus local organic results shows why you need a plan for both.