The local pack, and what your reviews do inside it
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Local pack, in one sentence
The local pack is the block of business listings and a map that Google shows above the ordinary results for a search with local intent.
It appears when the searcher plainly wants somewhere nearby, whether or not they typed a place name. Each entry shows a business name, a star rating, a review count and a couple of details, which means your review numbers are doing the persuading before anybody has clicked anything.
Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity, then gives each factor a heading of its own and calls the third one prominence. Relevance is how well a profile matches what was searched for, distance is how far the business is from the person searching, and prominence is how well known the business is.
Reviews sit inside prominence. Google's guidance states plainly that more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking. It publishes no weight, no threshold and no formula, and neither can anybody else.
Reading a local pack the way a customer does
Nobody compares businesses on relevance, distance and prominence. They compare the two lines of text each entry actually shows. Here are three entries returned for one search.
- Listing A
- 4.9 stars, 12 reviews, 0.3 miles
- Listing B
- 4.5 stars, 318 reviews, 1.1 miles
- Listing C
- 4.6 stars, 74 reviews, 0.8 miles
Listing A has the best average and the weakest evidence, which is twelve people. Listing B has the most evidence and sits furthest away. A great many readers pick B, because 318 reviews at 4.5 is a stronger claim than 12 at 4.9 and one extra mile is nothing. The number beside your stars is doing more work than the stars are.
That is also the arithmetic case for volume over perfection. Getting from 12 reviews to 74 is a few months of asking. Lifting 318 reviews from 4.5 to 4.9 needs roughly 1,270 consecutive five star reviews with nothing else in between, which is not a plan.
Why it is the competition that counts
For a business with a shopfront the local pack is where most of the search traffic that turns into money actually arrives. The ordinary blue links underneath it are a different competition, largely against national sites with far more of everything.
You cannot buy your way in and you cannot mark up your way in. Of the three inputs Google names, only two are yours to move: fill the profile out properly so relevance has something to match, and give prominence something to work with by collecting reviews steadily and replying to them.
Distance is the one that catches people out. A business three towns over will not appear for somebody standing in your high street no matter what it does, and you will not appear in theirs. This is why national benchmarks for local ranking are close to useless.
The misconception: keywords in your business name will get you in
It does work in the short term, which is exactly why the advice keeps circulating.
The name field is meant to hold the name the business actually trades under. Packing it with a service and a town is a policy violation that competitors can and do report, and the correction removes the advantage overnight along with any trust you had built.
The durable version of the same idea is dull: a complete profile, the right categories, real photographs, and a steady stream of reviews that mention what you actually do because the customers writing them actually did it.
Local pack questions
What owners ask after noticing they are visible on one street and invisible on the next.
How many businesses are in a local pack?
A small handful, and Google changes the layout regularly. Plan on being outside it as often as inside it, which is what the rest of your profile and your website are for.
How do I rank in the local pack?
Google names relevance, distance and popularity as the main inputs and heads the third factor prominence, then says more reviews and positive ratings can help. Nobody outside Google can give you a weighting, and a consultant quoting one is quoting a guess.
Does replying to reviews help local ranking?
Google's guidance says responding shows you value your customers, and that positive reviews and helpful replies can help you stand out. It stops short of naming replies as a ranking input, and so should anybody selling you something.
Why does a competitor outrank me on one street and not another?
Distance is measured from the person searching rather than from the town center, so the pack changes as people move around. Two searches half a mile apart legitimately return different businesses.
Do reviews on other platforms affect the local pack?
Google publishes nothing that would let anybody answer that honestly. What is certain is that a customer comparing you often looks at more than one platform before choosing, so a thin profile elsewhere costs you regardless of ranking.
What feeds the map result, term by term
Feed the prominence side
More reviews, answered properly
GetSetReply puts the same public review link in front of every customer who opens your funnel, gathers every reply into one inbox, and drafts your response for you to post.