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Most businesses chasing a Local Pack spot are optimizing the wrong things. They stuff their business name with keywords. They buy reviews in batches. They assume more citations automatically means better rankings. None of those tactics are why the top businesses are winning — and some of them are actively harmful.
The Google Maps ranking algorithm comes down to three core signals: relevance, proximity, and prominence. Google has said this publicly. What Google hasn't spelled out — and what nine years of auditing local listings has shown me — is exactly how each signal is weighted, what feeds into each one, and where most US businesses are leaving ranking points on the table.
This guide breaks all of it down. By the end, you'll know specifically what Google is measuring, which signals you can influence, and what to do first.
Flento's analysis of 2,000+ US business profiles shows that most businesses are missing 3–4 of the 12 major ranking signals covered here — often the same 3–4. That's the opportunity.
The Google Maps ranking algorithm evaluates every business listing on three dimensions: relevance, proximity, and prominence. Google has confirmed this framework in its own documentation — the question is what actually determines each score and how they interact.
Understanding the framework isn't enough. The businesses at the top of the Local Pack have optimized all three pillars simultaneously. Most businesses have done partial work on one or two and wonder why they're stuck at position 5 or 7.
Here's what each pillar actually means — and what feeds into it.
Relevance measures how well your Google Business Profile matches what the searcher is looking for. This is the signal you have the most control over — and the one most businesses get wrong.
Google reads your GBP like a structured document. It's looking for signals that confirm your business does exactly what the searcher needs, in exactly the category they're searching.
Business Category: The Most Underestimated Ranking Signal
Your primary business category is the single most important relevance signal on your GBP. It tells Google which searches you should appear in — and which you shouldn't.
I've audited hundreds of listings where the primary category is set to something slightly off. A dental practice set to "Health" instead of "Dentist." A plumber listed under "Home Services" instead of "Plumber." These aren't dramatic mistakes — but they're costing those businesses real visibility.
💡 Pro Tip: Use Google's exact category names, not approximations. Search for your business type in GBP and choose the most specific category available. A pediatric practice should choose "Pediatrician," not "Doctor" or "Medical Clinic." Specificity wins.
Action Step: Log into your GBP right now and confirm your primary category is the most specific match for what your business does. Then add 2–3 secondary categories to capture adjacent searches.
Business Description: Keywords Without Keyword Stuffing
Your GBP description (750 characters) is a relevance signal — but only when it's written clearly, not when it reads like a keyword list.
Google parses your description for entities: the services you offer, the locations you serve, and the business type you are. A well-written description works naturally. A keyword-stuffed one doesn't fool the algorithm — and it makes a terrible first impression when customers read it.
⚠️ Common Mistake: Writing a description that repeats your business category 4 times. One clear mention of your primary service + your location + 1–2 specific things that differentiate your business is all you need.
Action Step: Write your description as a 2–3 sentence summary of what you do, where you are, and who you serve. Include your primary keyword once, naturally. Read it aloud — if it sounds like a robot wrote it, rewrite it.
Services and Products: The Underused Relevance Boosters
Every service you add to your GBP is an additional relevance signal. A plumber who lists "emergency drain cleaning," "water heater installation," and "leak detection" separately will capture more specific queries than one whose profile just says "plumber."
The same logic applies to the Q&A section. Proactively add 5–8 questions that mirror how customers search for your services. Each answer you write is a passage Google can match to a query.
Proximity measures how close your business is to the searcher — or to the geographic center of the search query. You can't move your business, but you can make sure Google knows exactly where you are.
This is where I see a lot of frustration from business owners in suburban or non-central locations. After the 2021 Vicinity update, proximity became a dominant ranking factor again. A business 4 miles from downtown Phoenix will struggle to rank for "Phoenix [service]" searches in ways it wouldn't have in 2019.
Here's what you can control.
NAP Consistency: Your Location Credibility Signal
NAP consistency — the exact match of your Name, Address, and Phone number across every directory listing — is the foundation of local SEO. When Google sees your NAP on your GBP and then sees the same information across Yelp, Facebook, Apple Maps, and 50+ other directories, it becomes more confident your location data is accurate.
When it finds inconsistencies — "St" vs. "Street," an old address from before you moved, a different phone number on your website — it loses confidence. Lower confidence in your location data can suppress your proximity signal.
One restaurant client in Columbus, OH had 11 NAP errors across their citations. Two of those errors pointed to a different address entirely — their old location. Fixing those 11 errors and getting Google's confidence back to baseline was the only change we made in month one. Their Maps ranking improved 4 positions in 6 weeks.
🔥 Quick Win: Run the Flento NAP Lock — check your Name, Address, and Phone number against your top 20 directory listings and fix every discrepancy before you do anything else. It's the highest-ROI first step in any local SEO audit.
Action Step: Search your business name on Google, Yelp, Facebook, Apple Maps, and Bing Places. Make sure your NAP is identical across every listing. Then check your own website — the footer address should match exactly.
Local Phone Number: A Proximity Trust Signal
Using a local phone number with an area code that matches your business location reinforces your geographic signal. Toll-free 800 numbers are a weak proximity signal — Google can't tie them to a location.
I recommended toll-free numbers to clients early in my career because it looked "more professional." I was wrong. The ranking lift from switching to a local number isn't massive, but it's consistent — and it's a one-time fix.
Service Area Businesses: A Special Proximity Challenge
If you're a service area business (plumber, HVAC, landscaper) who doesn't display a physical address, proximity works differently. Google relies more heavily on your designated service area and your review locations to triangulate your geographic relevance.
For service area businesses: make sure your service area is set precisely in GBP. Don't expand it to the entire metro "just in case" — over-claiming kills your rankings in the areas that actually matter.
Prominence is the hardest pillar to build — and the most powerful. It measures how well-known and trusted your business is, both on Google and across the wider web.
Google evaluates prominence through four main sub-signals: reviews, backlinks, citations, and overall web presence.
Reviews: Velocity and Recency Beat Volume
Three years ago, I would have told you that review count was the dominant review signal. Today, I'd tell you that review velocity — how many reviews you're receiving per month — and recency matter more than your total number.
A business with 40 reviews published over the last 90 days will outperform a business with 400 reviews where the last review was posted 14 months ago. Google interprets recent review activity as a signal that your business is active, that customers are visiting, and that your listing is accurate.
📊 Flento Data: Businesses that maintain a review velocity of 5+ new reviews per month consistently outperform competitors with higher total counts but lower monthly velocity in the same market.
Recency isn't the only review factor. Google also weighs:
Action Step: Set a goal for review velocity, not review count. If you have fewer than 5 new reviews per month right now, that's the number to fix first. Use Flento's Google Review Management Software to automate review request timing and response tracking.
Backlinks: Off-Page Authority Still Matters
Backlinks from locally relevant websites signal to Google that your business is an established part of your community. A Houston auto repair shop linked from the Houston Chronicle, a local business association page, or the Greater Houston Partnership carries real prominence weight.
This doesn't mean you need a massive link-building campaign. For most local businesses, 5–10 high-quality local backlinks outperform 200 generic directory links.
💡 Pro Tip: The fastest local link wins: sponsor a local charity run, donate to a school fundraiser, or join your local chamber of commerce. Each of these typically produces a backlink from a locally authoritative, non-competing website. See our full local link building guide for 25 specific tactics.
Citations: Accuracy Over Quantity
A citation is any mention of your business name, address, and phone number across the web. The old advice was "build as many citations as possible." That's oversimplified.
What matters more than citation quantity is citation accuracy. An inaccurate citation — wrong address, old phone number, misspelled name — is worse than no citation at all. It directly undermines your proximity signal.
The Citation Stack method builds citations in priority tiers: Tier 1 (Google, Yelp, Facebook, Apple Maps, Bing Places), Tier 2 (industry-specific directories like Healthgrades for healthcare or Avvo for law), Tier 3 (local and regional directories). Fix accuracy in Tier 1 before building out Tier 2 and 3.
The three pillars — relevance, proximity, and prominence — don't carry equal weight for every search. The algorithm shifts the weighting based on the search context.
For "near me" and no-location queries: Proximity carries the heaviest weight. If someone searches "dentist near me" without a city or neighborhood, Google uses their device location and applies a tight proximity radius.
For "[service] in [city]" queries: Relevance and prominence share more of the weight. The searcher has declared intent for a specific location — so Google looks for the most relevant and credible business in that geography, not just the closest one.
For branded or navigational queries: These are low-relevance for rankings because the searcher already knows where they're going.
The practical implication: a well-optimized listing with strong prominence can rank for "[city] searches" even from a non-central location. Proximity alone doesn't win those searches — which is good news if your business isn't downtown.
⚠️ Common Mistake: Assuming that because you're the closest business, you should automatically rank first. Proximity is one of three signals, not the whole equation.
Based on Flento's analysis of 2,000+ US business profiles, here are the most commonly missed ranking signals — and the fastest wins available.
GBP Posts: Fewer than 30% of local businesses post to their GBP weekly. Consistent posting is an engagement signal that tells Google your listing is actively managed. A business that posts weekly will outrank an identical business that hasn't posted in 60 days, all else being equal.
Photo Upload Cadence: Active photo uploading — at least 4 new photos per month — signals an actively managed listing. Uploading geotagged photos on a weekly or biweekly cadence consistently produces measurable ranking lifts within 90 days.
Q&A Section Management: Most businesses leave the Q&A section empty. Proactively adding 5–8 answers to common customer questions not only fills a relevance gap — it also reduces the chances of someone else adding inaccurate questions and answers to your listing.
Review Responses: 60% of US businesses don't respond to all their reviews. Google treats responses as an engagement signal. Responding to every review — positive and negative — within 24 hours is a low-effort, high-impact tactic.
Website Signals: Your GBP doesn't rank in isolation. Google looks at your website for supporting signals: consistent NAP in the footer, embedded Google Map on your contact page, local schema markup, and pages that mention the services and locations from your GBP. A GBP pointing to a thin or unoptimized website gets less algorithmic support.
Starting in 2023, Google's AI Overviews began appearing above the Local Pack for some searches. This is changing the competitive landscape in ways that most local businesses haven't adapted to yet.
Flento's data shows that GBP listings are being cited in AI Overviews even when they're not in the top 3 organic results. Google appears to pull business information from GBP profiles for AI-generated answers about local services.
What's driving AI Overview citations for local businesses:
Optimizing for AI Overviews isn't separate from optimizing for Maps rankings — it's the same work, done more thoroughly.
Monitoring and optimizing all of these signals manually is genuinely hard to sustain. Flento's AI Local SEO Software tracks the signals that matter and flags the gaps before they cost you rankings.
Specifically:
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Q: What are the three main factors in the Google Maps ranking algorithm? A: Google ranks local businesses in Maps based on relevance (how well your profile matches the search), proximity (how close your business is to the searcher), and prominence (how credible and well-known your business appears across the web). All three work together — strong prominence can compensate for weaker proximity in city-wide searches.
Q: How long does it take to rank higher on Google Maps after optimizing? A: Most US businesses see measurable ranking improvements within 60–90 days of consistent optimization. Fixing NAP inconsistencies typically produces the fastest lift (2–6 weeks). Building review velocity takes longer but compounds over time. There are no overnight fixes — anyone promising first-page results in days is overselling.
Q: Does having more Google reviews always mean better Maps rankings? A: No — and this is one of the most common misconceptions in local SEO. Review recency and response rate are more important than total count. A business with 30 reviews published this quarter will often outrank a business with 300 reviews where the last one was posted 18 months ago.
Q: How does Google use proximity in Maps rankings? A: Proximity measures how close your business is to the searcher's location (for "near me" queries) or the geographic center of the stated location (for "[city]" queries). After the 2021 Vicinity update, proximity became a heavier factor again — particularly for searches without a specific city modifier. Businesses further from the city center can compensate with stronger relevance and prominence signals.
Q: What is the Local Pack and how do I get into it? A: The Local Pack is the set of 3 business listings that appears at the top of Google Maps results (and often in standard search results) for local queries. Getting into the Local Pack requires strong performance across all three ranking pillars — relevance, proximity, and prominence. There's no single fix; it's the combined output of your full GBP optimization strategy.
Q: Does my website affect my Google Maps ranking? A: Yes. Your website is a prominence signal. Google looks for NAP consistency in your footer, local schema markup, service-specific pages, and pages that reference the locations you serve. A strong, locally optimized website provides supporting authority to your GBP listing.
Q: How do US businesses in competitive markets like New York or Los Angeles rank on Google Maps? A: In hyper-competitive markets, the margin between position 1 and position 5 is very small — which means prominence signals (especially review velocity and backlinks) carry more weight. Businesses in NYC or LA need to outperform on every signal: complete profiles, consistent NAP, weekly posting, and a sustained review acquisition program. There's no shortcut in a dense market, but local link building and citation accuracy are often the biggest differentiators.
Q: Can I improve my Maps ranking if I'm not centrally located? A: Yes — but the strategy shifts. The Proximity-Plus Method focuses on compensating for a non-central location through maximum profile completeness, aggressive review velocity, and strong off-page prominence signals. Businesses that are 3–5 miles from a city center regularly appear in Local Pack results for city-wide searches when their relevance and prominence are significantly stronger than closer competitors.
Will understanding the Google Maps ranking algorithm guarantee you rank #1 in your market? No. Anyone who tells you otherwise is oversimplifying. The algorithm is sophisticated, the local pack is competitive, and there are signals — like proximity — you simply can't change.
But here's what's true: the majority of US businesses competing with you aren't doing most of what's covered in this guide. They have incomplete profiles, inconsistent NAP, low review velocity, and no weekly posting cadence. In local SEO, that gap is usually enough.
Pick one section from this guide. Fix that one thing today. Then come back next week and fix the next one.
Key takeaways:
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