Ranking in Organic Search is the #1 Local Ranking Factor

Do I have your attention now? Sweet!

I’m happy to announce that we just updated our Local SEO Ranking Factors! This year we really expanded the data set of the study. We looked at the 150 largest metro’s in the US and doubled the number of keywords we were looking at. This means the data set from this year is significantly bigger than last year. We also added a large number of factors this year. While last year we used Majestic to look at link data, this year we were also able to get link data from AHREFs and Moz. We also got deeper on reviews.

While organic search ranking was the highest correlating factor with local pack success, that doesn’t mean that it’s the #1 ranking factor. Google’s search algo just doesn’t work like that. Now that being said, we see a few things in this year’s data:

1) Your owned resources are critical to local SEO success

2) Traditional local factors continue to correlate less with positive pack performance

3) Reviews are incredibly important in terms of a ranking signal

Want to get all the deets? Then you are gonna have to click through to here. Of course, anyone that wasn’t done with last years data, that can still be found here.