The SEO landscape appears to be changing incredibly quickly, with AI's overview becoming front and center for Google search. SEO has increasingly become a more and more competitive space, and the requirements in order to rank effectively for your business have become more specific and difficult.
However, the good news is that SEO has become more valuable than ever, because it is not only relevant when using Google search but also relevant in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, or any of the other LLMs that are sure to crop up over the next couple of years.
If you're not familiar with the concept of SEO as a whole, then I would recommend reading the official Google Starter Guide. That way you can get the specific information directly from the source that makes the rules. Of course, Google will never disclose exactly how all of their search crawlers work, and the metrics they track and add weight to have changed over the years.
This article is specifically about local SEO, meaning, in layman's terms, "how do I rank higher on Google when people are searching for a service or product that my business offers?"
The first thing I would ask myself as a business owner before even getting started is: do I have the time to do this successfully?
If the answer is no, then you need to find someone who can do it for you. Of course, we offer SEO services if you're interested here, but even if you do not choose to go with us (we will be heartbroken), it is better practice to hire someone knowledgeable in the space than to go at it alone, even AI assisted.
If you insist on learning it yourself, hire consultants on Fiverr or Upwork to teach you the basics. SEO is not something you can learn overnight; it is time consuming. Be ready for the commitment and give it the proper attention if you want results for your business.
How local SEO actually works
Now, with that out of the way, here is how local SEO actually works under the hood.
When someone searches for a service near them, Google is really weighing three things to decide who shows up: relevance, distance, and prominence. Relevance is how well your business matches what they typed. Distance is how close you are to the person searching, or to the area they named. Prominence is how well known and trusted your business looks to Google based on everything it can see about you online. Google has said this directly, so it is not a guess.
What that means for you in practice is this. Distance you mostly cannot control, you are where you are, but you can tell Google exactly which areas you serve. Relevance you control by being clear and specific about what you do and where, on your website and on your Google Business Profile. Prominence you build over time through reviews, mentions, and backlinks from credible sites. The businesses that win the local pack, those top three results on the map, are the ones sending Google the clearest and most consistent signals across all three.
So the actual work breaks down into two halves: your Google Business Profile, and your website. Claim and fully fill out your Google Business Profile, pick the right primary category, keep your hours and info accurate, and get steady, genuine reviews. Then, on the website side, here is where the keyword work comes in.
Finding and using the right keywords
You optimize your website for a specific group of keywords that associate with the area you are targeting. So, for example, we are a Vancouver based digital marketing agency, and we have optimized our site around keywords that include "Vancouver" and "digital marketing." Do not try to optimize your site for more than 25 keywords, and make sure you're tracking exactly what page is targeting what keyword, or else you won't know what is working and what is not.
In order to find these keywords, you need a tool like Semrush. Semrush is generally the SEO industry standard, and it integrates with Claude, which makes keyword research really easy. If you're a new site, don't go after keywords with a high KD% until you have improved your authority score. All of this data is available in Semrush.
You will also need a tool to make sure all the SEO basics are covered: meta title and description, heading structure, proper application of keyword density, alt image text, internal site links, and probably most important of all, backlinks.
That is a brief overview of how local SEO works and what you need to do to get started. I will note that every single one of these points can be an article in and of itself. But no SEO article, local or otherwise, can be complete without the mention of backlinks.
Why backlinks matter most
Backlinks are generally considered to be the most important ranking indicator that Google looks at. A backlink is a link to your site from another site. The higher the authority score of the site backlinking to your site, the more Google weighs it; the more high authority backlinks you have on your site, the higher your authority score and ultimately your ranking. Understand the ecosystem?
[Image placeholder: infographic explaining backlinks. Drop assets/images/blog/blog-how-does-local-seo-work-backlinks-infographic.png into the repo and replace the placeholder comment above when ready.]
Backlinks are acquired in a number of ways, but what you need to know is that you should never try to game the system with what is called "black hat" SEO backlinks. These are backlinks from spam sites with low authority, and Google will punish you severely for that. Instead, look to be mentioned in as many credible places as possible. Oftentimes placements cost money; sometimes you can agree to link to each other's site. There are also apps and software that can help you acquire safe and effective white hat SEO backlinks. One note: do not overdo it. Acquiring a flood of backlinks from low quality or irrelevant sites in a short period is exactly the kind of unnatural pattern that gets flagged in Google's system, so keep your link building steady and credible rather than rushed.
There are no shortcuts in local SEO. You must stay diligent and prove to Google that your site is valuable to its users. Make it readable to the crawlers, then pack it with genuinely useful information and offers, and you will be rewarded with a high ranking site.
This post is part of our SEO Services content series.