What Is Local SEO? The Two Surfaces It Covers

Local SEO is the work that gets a business shown for searches with local intent, across two surfaces: the map pack drawn from a Google Business Profile, and the localized organic results below it. Google says local results rest mainly on relevance, distance and popularity.

What local SEO includes

Local SEO includes four pieces of work: a complete and accurate Google Business Profile, a steady flow of recent reviews, pages on your site that name the service and the place, and consistent listings elsewhere. Google's Business Profile help page, as of October 2026, says businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results.

• The map pack and Google Maps, ranked from your Business Profile
• The localized organic results below it, ranked from your website

The 47 local search experts Whitespark surveyed for its 2026 report, published November 2025, score every factor separately for the map pack and for local organic, because the two surfaces do not move together. Darren Shaw, who publishes the report, wrote that for 2026 "the biggest changes we're seeing are an increased importance of review signals and behavioural signals."

When local SEO matters, and what it is not

Local SEO matters when a searcher is close enough to buy and has not yet decided who from. The discipline is not the same as Business Profile optimization: the profile ranks you in the map pack, while the localized organic results below it are ranked from your website. Work on one surface does not carry to the other.