Local SEO vs. general SEO
General SEO is about ranking a website for a search term anywhere. Local SEO is about ranking for a search term near a specific place — 'plumber Naas', 'dentist near me'. For a business that serves a physical area, almost all valuable traffic is local intent.
Google surfaces local results through the map pack — the block of three local results with a map, shown above the normal website listings for local-intent searches. Getting into the map pack matters more than ranking your homepage on page one, because it's what most searchers see and click first.
What actually moves local ranking
Your Google Business Profile is the single biggest factor — roughly 32% of the ranking signal. Category accuracy, completeness, and activity (posts, photos, updates) all count.
Reviews are the next biggest factor, at around 20%, and the weighting has shifted toward recency. A business with 80 recent reviews will often outrank one with 200 old ones.
Citations — your business name, address and phone number appearing consistently across other directories and sites — are a smaller but real factor, and the most common place local SEO quietly breaks (see the related guide on citations).
The website itself matters too, but mainly as a supporting signal: fast, mobile-first, with service pages that match what people actually search for.
What doesn't matter as much as agencies claim
Keyword-stuffing a homepage rarely moves local rankings the way it used to. Google's local algorithm weighs proximity, relevance and prominence — no amount of text on one page overrides a wrong category or a citation mismatch.
A blog with generic national content ('5 tips for a healthy smile') does very little for local ranking. Local content that names the actual towns and areas you serve does more, page for page.
Questions
How long does local SEO take to show results?
Profile and citation fixes can show movement within weeks. Competitive terms in busy areas can take a few months of consistent review generation and content to shift meaningfully.
Do I need a big website for local SEO to work?
No. A small, fast, well-structured site with accurate service pages and a properly optimised Google Business Profile outperforms a large, slow site with a generic one, every time.
Is local SEO a one-off job or ongoing?
Ongoing. Reviews need to keep arriving, profiles need fresh photos and posts, and competitors are doing the same work. A profile optimised once and left alone slides back down over months.