Why Your Business Is Not Showing In The Local Pack

Google decides the local pack on three things

Google has said this publicly and it has not changed in years. Local ranking comes down to relevance, distance and prominence. Everything you can do falls under one of those three.

Relevance: does your listing match what was searched

If somebody searches for a denturist and your profile never uses the word denturist, Google has to guess. Relevance is mostly decided by your primary category, your secondary categories, your business description, and the services you have listed out individually.

This is the cheapest of the three to fix and the most commonly ignored. An empty description field is an empty relevance signal.

Distance: how close you are to the searcher

This is the one you cannot change, and it is why chasing a ranking for the whole city is usually a waste. You will rank strongly near your own address and weaken as the searcher moves away. What you can do is make sure your address is correct and consistent everywhere, so Google places you where you actually are.

A useful consequence: if you have two locations, they compete on distance in different parts of town. If you have one, focus your effort on the neighbourhoods within a realistic drive.

Prominence: how well known Google thinks you are

Prominence is built from reviews, from links to your website, from mentions of your business across other sites, and from how complete and active your profile is. This is where most of the gap sits for small Canadian businesses.

Reviews matter in three ways at once: how many you have, how recent they are, and whether you reply. A business adding four reviews a month reads as busier than one sitting on a higher total that has not moved since last year.

What to do first, in order

1. Claim and verify the listing if you have not.
2. Write the description and list every service separately with its own short description.
3. Get your address and phone number identical everywhere they appear online.
4. Start asking every customer for a review, every time.
5. Reply to every review you have, then every new one within a few days.
6. Add photos regularly rather than in one batch.

How long it takes

Profile changes are often picked up within days. Review volume and consistency take longer, usually six to twelve weeks before the movement is obvious. Anybody promising you the local pack in a fortnight is guessing.