Important Findings
- These are the top grouped factors affecting local pack rankings: 1) Google My Business (GMB), 2) Customer reviews, 3)= On-page optimization, 3)= Links
For local organic ranking results, the areas of most importance to pay most attention to are: 1) On-page optimization, 2) Links, 3) Behavior
Since 2018, GMB importance in local pack ranking factors has been growing with an increase from 25% to 33% in 2020
Reviews have overtaken links to become the second most important of local pack ranking factors
Top local pack ranking factors: 1) Primary GMB category, 2) GMB title Keywords, 3) Searcher proximity
The top 3 factors for local organic rankings according to experts are: 1) Inbound links quality, 2) Volume of quality content, 3) Anchor text keywords for inbound links
It takes focusing on various local SEO ranking factors in combination to be able to rank for local searches. Determining the areas you need to prioritize in terms of the resources and time you have to spend to maximize your chances of success to rank highly is not easy. This is because there are many signals that Google’s local algorithm relies on.
It continues to become more difficult to get your local appliance repair or ac repair business to highly rank on search engines. The competitiveness of local SEO has significantly increased with different ac repair and appliance repair businesses recognizing the importance of trying everything they can to rank for local searches. They optimize for the local searches both for localized organic rankings and the local pack.
Darren Shaw at the Whitespark’s Local Search Summit back in September 2020 revealed the initial findings based on his Local Search Ranking Factors survey. It was more than a decade ago when David Mihm first came up with the near-annual survey. The survey involves polling about 50 experts on local SEO to seek their opinions about the activities or factors that they think impact significantly on local ac repair and appliance repair business rankings. In 2018, Moz published the previous edition of the survey.
Table Of Contents
This article will cover some of the most essential localized organic and local pack ranking factors for 2020 as outlined in the Whitespark’s report. We will discuss the changes that have taken place over time and the expert recommendations on what needs to be focused on for 2021.
- Most important Local ranking factors in 2020
- Top local ranking factors over time
- 15 best individual ranking factors both for local organic search and local pack
1. Google My Business
2. Customer reviews
3. On-Page
4. Links
5. Behavior
6. Citations
7. Personalization - What’s Next?
Local Pack
1. GMB (33%)
2. Customer reviews (16%)
3.= On-page optimization (15%)
3.= Links (15%)
5. Behavioral (8%)
6. Local citations (7%)
7. Personalization (6%)
Local Organic
1. On-page optimization (32%)
2. Links (31%)
3. Behavioral (10%)
4. = Personalization (7%)
4.= GMB (7%)
6.= Local citations (6%)
6.= Customer reviews (6%)
The table above contains information about the ranking factors that the respondents of the Whitespark’s expert survey considered the most important for both local pack (Google Maps) and the local organic search results.
Check below to understand what is meant for each of those results
We will take a look on changes with trends over time then examine the details for each of the individual factors. This should not only inform you about factors impacting on rankings for 2020 but also where everything seems to be headed as well.
When considering working on improving the two different local ranking types, it helps to get a good idea of how both local pack and the localized organic factors would look if combined to get an average:
1. On-page (24%)
2. Links (23%)
3. GMB (20%)
4. Customer reviews (11%)
5. Behavioral (9%)
6.= Local citations (7%)
6.= Personalization (7%)
It is important to recognize that plans for your local SEO strategy demand different time investments for different factors. You don’t just go over the results and simply decide on spending X% of your time for X.
You will realize that link building will take a lot of your time while it’s also an ongoing task, different from reviews and citations where most of the work could be just automated or even outsourced to help free up your time to focus on other important factors.
Local Ranking Factors From 2013 To 2020
Significant changes have taken place with Google’s local algorithm over time. You must remain more attentive and vigilant to ensure you continue doing SEO the right way for your clients. When you are working with local appliance repair and HVAC businesses it is extremely important to understand changes in the local environment.
The local pack or local finder is usually affected by many factors and therefore any shifts should be closely monitored.
SEO Ranking Factors Affecting The Local Pack Or Local Finder Over Time
Since 2017, the importance of Google My Business as far as the local park rankings are concerned has significantly increased. It has proportionally continued to take more space overtime while other signals such as citations, links, and behavioral factors have been relatively dropping in importance.
Unlike previous surveys, the recent one did not focus on tracking the impact of social signals on local SEO rankings. It’s not so surprising to see social signals being dropped from the survey as they have always been considered as having a minor impact on local SEO rankings. But taking note of this is also important since it provided a chance for the experts to shift focus on other areas as far as their voting power is concerned.
In a broader sense, the order of importance for these different areas largely remains the same as previous years so you still have to take into account every discipline to include in your strategy.
Tracking Local Organic Ranking Factors Over Time
Signals related to on-page optimization and links easily win when it comes to localized organic run and factors. The on-page and links signals take more than 50% of the total ranking signal impact. Other factors are left with far less importance to influence localized organic rankings but still can’t be ignored as they could provide an opportunity to make the only difference needed to beat your competitors.
15 Of The Top Local Search Ranking Factors
Local Pack / Finder (Google Maps)
- Primary Google My Business category
- Keywords used in GMB business title
- Address proximity to the point of search
- Physical address in the city of search
- Additional categories for GMB
- Quality and authority of inbound links to the domain
- Keywords used in native Google reviews
- Numerically high Google ratings (e.g. 4-5)
- Spam fighting to make sure spam listings are removed
- GMB listing completeness
- GMB listing verification
- Quantity/Volume of native Google reviews (with text)
- GMB landing page title keywords
- Quality or authority of inbound links to the GMB landing page URL
- Product or Service topical keyword relevance for entire website
Local Organic
- Quality or authority of inbound links to domain
- Volume and quality of content on entire website
- Keywords used in anchor text of the inbound links to domain
- Product or service topical keyword relevance across the entire website
- Geographical (city or neighborhood) keyword relevance of the domain content
- Mobile-friendly and responsive website
- Website’s Domain Authority
- GMB landing page title keywords
- Inbound links diversity to domain
- Volume of inbound links for the domain
- Volume of inbound links for the domain from domains with industry relevance
- Quality content volume on service pages
- Keywords in domain
- Inbound links quantity to domain from locally-relevant domains
- Click-through rate on search results
Local Pack / Finder (Google Maps)
Local Organic
Primary Google My Business category
Quality or authority of inbound links to domain
Keywords used in GMB business title
Volume and quality of content on entire website
Address proximity to the point of search
Keywords used in anchor text of the inbound links to domain
Physical address in the city of search
Product or service topical keyword relevance across the entire website
Additional categories for GMB
Geographical (city or neighborhood) keyword relevance of the domain content
Quality and authority of inbound links to the domain
Mobile-friendly and responsive website
Keywords used in native Google reviews
Website’s Domain Authority
Numerically high Google ratings (e.g. 4-5)
GMB lanading page title keywords
Spam fighting to make sure spam listings are removed
Inbound links diversity to domain
GMB listing completeness
Volume of inbound links for the domain
GMB listing verification
Volume of inbound links for the domain from domains with industry relevance
Quantity/Volume of native Google reviews (with text)
Quality content volume on service pages
GMB landing page title keywords
Keywords in domain
Quality or authority of inbound links to the GMB landing page URL
Inbound links quantity to domain from locally-relevant domains
Product or Service topical keyword relevance for entire website
Click-through rate on search results
It is far more important to understand the specific factors that can make most of the difference instead of trying to work on improving everything.
A good starting point is to simply focus on factors shown in the above table to give you the help you need for optimizing local searches. But since you will have to choose from more than 100 specific factors, it is advisable to identify a broad set of tasks including necessary improvements for many grouped factors.
In each group the most important local SEO ranking factors are included.
Google My Business Signals
The individual factors for Google My Business typically include the primary category for the GMB keywords within the appliance repair or HVAC business title and the additional categories for the GMB. Since 2018 there has been a significant growth in terms of the impact of GMB related activities. Grouped as ranking factors GMB made a jump to 33% in 2020 from 25% in 2018.
2013
2014
2015
2017
2018
2020
Local Pack Or Local Finder
23%
20%
22%
19%
25%
33%
Localized Organic Results
10%
10%
8%
7%
9%
7%
Local Pack Or Local Finder
2013 23%
2014 20%
2015 22%
2017 19%
2018 25%
2020 33%
Localized Organic Results
2013 10%
2014 10%
2015 8%
2017 7%
2018 9%
2020 7%
The growth is a reflection of how Google My Business has been evolving as a tool. Google has been announcing GMB with new features and the experts have recognized how the tool is helping them make more impact for their clients.
Taking into account the individual top 15 local ranking factors earlier listed in our table it is no surprise that many are related to Google My Business. And the most relevant primary category is set keywords are included in the GMB business title GMB spam is fought best additional GMB categories selected all play a critical role in determining whether an appliance repair or HVAC business gets listed in local searches.
There’s obviously little you can do to optimize other than ensuring you have the most up-to-date and relevant category selected for your appliance repair or HVAC business and adding its name. Making sure your Google My Business listing is complete will continue to be even more important going forward.
Factors Related To Google My Business That Don't Impact Rankings
You may not necessarily need to make use of every GMB aspect especially if you’re just interested in boosting your rankings. From the Whitespark’s survey, some experts do agree that not all of the GMB factors will influence rankings:
- Keywords added to the GMB description
- Keywords added to the GMB services
- Keywords added in the GMB products
- GMB messaging enabling
- Keywords added in Google posts
- Appointment URL enabling
- Google posts frequency
- Google posts quantity
Google My Business obviously has more to offer than just rankings considering most of the above will only impact on conversions. But if you are only interested in boosting rankings you will have to focus on other things.
Name Spam On Google My Business
It is interesting to see spam fighting for the first time getting included potentially as a ranking factor in the survey. Traditionally ranking factors are only considered as what Google takes into account when ranking sites. But with spam fighting Google is not directly rewarding you, since your efforts pay off when spammy listings unfairly competing with you get removed from the results.
It is definitely sad that Google My Business name spamming unfortunately is still working. Why spam fighting has now become the 9th most important factor influencing local pack rankings shouldn’t be surprising considering the importance attached to keywords in the appliance repair or HVAC business name.
While spam fighting should be considered as a tactic that can be used to get rid of unfair competition in local pack rankings rather than improving your own, investing more time in it can see you succeed as many experts have noted.
From research findings, it has been seen that about 64% of agencies and up to 23% of local appliance repair or HVAC businesses are spending time fighting spam in GMB names. It means they get an edge from doing it, so it’s worth their time and efforts.
If interested in learning more about Google My Business, look at the following resources:
- What Is A Google My Business Listing?
- What Are Google My Business Posts & How It Can Help You Win More Customers
- A Quick Guide On Google My Business Insights For HVAC Businesses and Appliance Repair Companies
- Tips To Optimize Your Google My Business Description For Your HVAC or Appliance Repair Company
Reviews Related Signals
The individual factors of Google reviews typically include: the quantity of reviews containing text, higher numerical Google ratings, and keywords in the Google reviews.
It is worth noting that reviews have registered some importance in recent years, now claiming 16% of the 2020 ranking factors up from 12% in 2018. Consumers have definitely been attaching more importance to reviews and that is reflected in the increase. It has led to reviews becoming the second most important factor in terms of influencing local rankings after moving above links back in 2018.
2013
2014
2015
2017
2018
2020
Local Pack Or Local Finder
12%
12%
11%
13%
15%
16%
Localized Organic Results
6%
7%
6%
7%
6%
6%
Local Pack Or Local Finder
2013 12%
2014 12%
2015 11%
2017 13%
2018 15%
2020 16%
Localized Organic Results
2013 6%
2014 7%
2015 6%
2017 7%
2018 6%
2020 6%
The perception of reviews since a decade ago has seen a significant increase as noted among consumers through the annual Local Consumer Review Survey. That is why it is perfectly making sense for Google to recognize reviews as useful factors in rankings.
The importance of keywords in reviews, high google ratings and the quantity of reviews can be seen among the top 15 factors influencing local pack rankings.
It is no surprise that most experts confirmed that in 2020 they will be more focused on increasing the quantity of reviews. It is critical to continue getting a steady stream of reviews or at least at the same rate as competitors. While it may seem tricky getting reviews from customers, surprisingly more than 67% of customers when asked for the reviews actually do leave them. So it helps to just ask!
Since online reviews are increasingly becoming even more important to local rankings, it helps to set up processes that can be used for effective monitoring, increasing the quantity of reviews and showing them off. That can ultimately save a lot of time and help in ensuring that potential customers can see your appliance repair or HVAC business online in the best light possible. A good reputation management software can help in the process of monitoring reviews and ensuring important feedback cannot be missed while helping in growing the quantity of online reviews. Reviews are not only important for rankings but also are part of the most important factors that impact on conversions through GMB as experts advanced in the survey. Here are the top three of those factors which are all based on Google reviews:
- Numerically high Google ratings
- Positive sentiments within the text of reviews
- Volume of native Google reviews
The experts are also in agreement that getting a lot of negative review sentiments combined with low overall star ratings can definitely impact negatively on rankings.
It is also important to keep in mind that in addition to Google reviews, third-party review sites also do matter and have indeed also heavily impacted on local rankings, as well as influencing conversions since customers can trust them.
Here are some resources you can check to learn more about online reviews:
On-Page Signals
On-page factors typically will include the presence of NAP, keywords placed within the title, and the domain authority. These signals are critically important for a SEO, both local SEO and traditional SEO. The signals actually trump the rest by a decent margin as far as influence on local organic results is concerned. They also do incredibly well on the local pack rankings where they account for 15%.
2013
2014
2015
2017
2018
2020
Local Pack Or Local Finder
18%
15%
14%
14%
14%
15%
Localized Organic Results
27%
27%
26%
24%
26%
32%
Local Pack Or Local Finder
2013 18%
2014 15%
2015 14%
2017 14%
2018 14%
2020 15%
Localized Organic Results
2013 27%
2014 27%
2015 26%
2017 24%
2018 26%
2020 32%
Results
It makes a difference as far as local rankings are concerned, to add keywords to the titles of your landing pages as well as maintaining sitewide keyword relevance.
The optimization of local appliance repair or HVAC business websites on search engines continues to be an important practice which ensures organic and local performance is maximized. On-page SEO will always remain important so continuously improving with skills in this area makes sense.
When planning your keyword strategy, it is important to think about questions that your customers are likely to ask when looking for what you have to offer in terms of products or services. You definitely have to try to think as they do and avoid use of jargon or technical industry terminologies.
Make sure to add your city name in two different places within the content of your website pages, while also making use of relevant keywords within the site title as well as the tags/metadata description.
To compete on local search rankings, you also have to maintain a focus of creating great content about your city or the local area as it adds relevance to your website pages. Make an effort to tie the stories of your local area and community to your appliance repair or ac repair business. As a local air conditioning repair or appliance repair business, it’s not optional to regularly write content for your blog or website.
If you have multiple locations for your ac repair or appliance service business, you have to create separate localized web pages for each one of them. Each should include a name, an address, telephone number, office hours of operation, contact details and so on. That way, you will also be making it easier for your website visitors to find the specific locations they are interested in while also having an impact on local rankings for each of the locations of your appliance repair or air conditioner repair business.
Here are some resources you will find useful to learn more about on-page signals and optimization:
Link Signals
The major individual link factors will typically be including inbound anchor texts, the linking domain authority and the linking domain quantity.
Factors related to link signals are of great importance for local organic rankings. In 2020 localized organic ranking factors, links accounted for up to 31%. Considering the rise from 24% in 2013, it is becoming clear that quality links are essential for quality rankings to be achieved.
2013
2014
2015
2017
2018
2020
Local Pack Or Local Finder
12%
12%
15%
17%
17%
15%
Localized Organic Results
24%
25%
25%
29%
28%
31%
Local Pack Or Local Finder
2013 12%
2014 12%
2015 15%
2017 17%
2018 17%
2020 15%
Localized Organic Results
2013 24%
2014 25%
2015 25%
2017 29%
2018 28%
2020 31%
Whitespark’s survey recognizes that inbound links authority is the sixth most important of the ranking factors impacting on local park results. The quality of links that point to the URL of the landing page included in Google My Business listing is also important.
It is not an easy task to get backlinks for your site. But the authority of your site will be largely influenced by links in the eyes of search engines, so it is worth making the effort towards building quality links.
You must be extremely careful and avoid getting any bad links. Make sure to check every site you want to get links from to make sure it’s a link worthy partner. One of the best tools to help you achieve that is the MozBar Chrome extension. When you visit every site you can easily see its domain authority and page authority from MozBar. The higher the numbers for a site based on those metrics the better the quality of links you can get from it. You also need to take the spam score into account. A high spam score for a site indicates it’s a bad place on the internet to get any link from.
When considering local organic factors, you will realize that links in terms of quality still remain the most valuable factor that can impact on rankings. Another important aspect is the keywords you use for the anchor texts of links. The quantity and diversity of links from local sites or industry-specific sites are also included among the top 15 local organic factors.
During his initial results presentation, Darren Shaw in summary said – build links.
Behavioral Signals
Click through rate clicks to call on mobile and jobsite check-ins are the major individual behavioral factors.
Behavioral signals may seem to be static in a broad sense within the local pack importance having only slightly come down from 9% in 2018 to 8%. The same can be said with localized organic search where behavioral signals also slightly dropped from 11% to 10%. The signal group is 3rd most important for local organic.
2013
2014
2015
2017
2018
2020
Local Pack Or Local Finder
5%
7%
9%
10%
10%
8%
Localized Organic Results
5%
7%
10%
11%
12%
10%
Local Pack Or Local Finder
2013 5%
2014 7%
2015 9%
2017 10%
2018 10%
2020 8%
Localized Organic Results
2013 5%
2014 7%
2015 10%
2017 11%
2018 12%
2020 10%
Ranking signals will continue to become more complex as they heavily rely on information that users submit. It will become increasingly important to take into account behavioral signals which cannot be easily manipulated. Behavioral signals can now be considered as the bellwether against which we can determine the quality of an ac repair company or appliance repair business. That’s significantly different from classic signals like links, citations or on-site content that appliance repair or ac repair businesses and SEOs can easily influence.
You will hardly find anything you can do to manipulate user behavior. for example you won’t pay people to keep clicking listings for a whole day as it won’t make sense as an SEO strategy. You can instead use your valuable time to keep titles, meta descriptions, or GMB details as optimized as possible, to an extent where it’s possible to entice potential online searchers. And most importantly, spending time to get your website included in the top rankings in the first place.
For the 2020 local search ranking factors survey, Darren’s talk also emphasized on the importance of GMB conversion factors that he shared from experts and believed were most likely going to affect the behaviors of users.
It is important to keep in mind that SEO is not always about improving rankings but it’s a wider strategy that can be used with a focus on attracting for your HVAC company or appliance repair business the right customers. Considering the many decisions that have to be made right within the SERP, you will realize that you have many levers available to pull and guide users before they finally reach your site.
Citation Signals
Factors for individual citations will include IYP/aggregator, NAP consistency, and the citation quantity.
Local citations, business listings or directories have suffered the most significant drop from 2013 when that signal group was considered the second most important for local pack rankings. By 2020, it has dropped to settle as the 6th most important and that can be explained by the fact that Google is now looking more into the data they have within Google My Business more than they do from external business listing sources.
2013
2014
2015
2017
2018
2020
Local Pack Or Local Finder
18%
20%
17%
13%
11%
7%
Localized Organic Results
11%
11%
10%
8%
9%
6%
Local Pack Or Local Finder
2013 18%
2014 20%
2015 17%
2017 13%
2018 11%
2020 7%
Localized Organic Results
2013 11%
2014 11%
2015 10%
2017 8%
2018 9%
2020 6%
Some great examples of online directories include sites like Yelp, Foursquare, YP.com, and Citysearch. Most online directories usually make it easier and faster for business websites including appliance repair and ac repair websites to get backlinks. Local appliance repair or ac repair businesses have a great opportunity in getting listed on these sites that are considered to be of high quality and trustworthy in the eyes of Google. They provide an opportunity for any local business to get useful links they can start with, or at least be on the same level playing field as competitors. It is a huge advantage for a local appliance repair or air conditioner repair business’s listing if on a high quality online directory it shows up within the top search results.
Let’s take a look at the examples below. They show the SERP results after doing a search on Google for the keywords “ac repair in miami fl” and “appliance repair in miami fl” respectively.
From the above SERP results, you will notice how Google’s first page is clearly dominated by business directories, where your local appliance repair or ac repair service company can easily get listed.
Despite the fact that there has been a decrease in importance of citation signals (including NAP consistency and citation volume) in terms of influencing search rankings in competitive markets, they still remain useful in helping reach to customers at the right places while presenting them with accurate business information. It has been noted that about 80% of consumers are likely to lose trust in local businesses if they come across business contact details or names that are incorrect or inconsistent.
So it is important to avoid errors in your appliance repair or ac repair business listing, otherwise you end up losing potential customers even before they get an opportunity to call you or walk into your appliance repair or ac repair business shop. So even though citations may have lost a bit of their power in influencing local search rankings it is still extremely helpful to maintain accurate listings on the right directories for appliance repair or ac repair businesses. That way, you are likely to get right in front of the high-intend customers at the right time just when they are looking for businesses like yours.
Failure to get your appliance repair or HVAC business listed on sites like Facebook, Yelp, HomeAdvisor, Nextdoor, or are not investing in any of the local or industry specific sites that your potential customers are using more often, then you could be missing on a critically important source of leads.
Personalization Signals
Since 2018, personalization related local ranking factors continued to be steady after they had reached a peak in 2017. But it’s also worth noting that most of the local ranking factors are always working with each in proportion, so a drop in most cases would not mean that a factor is not important anymore. It could just mean that another factor has grown to overtake other factors, but they all remain important.
2013
2014
2015
2017
2018
2020
Local Pack Or Local Finder
7%
8%
8%
10%
6%
6%
Localized Organic Results
9%
9%
9%
9%
7%
7%
Local Pack Or Local Finder
2013 7%
2014 8%
2015 8%
2017 10%
2018 6%
2020 6%
Localized Organic Results
2013 9%
2014 9%
2015 9%
2017 9%
2018 7%
2020 7%
Personalization normally takes into account locations, devices, language, browsing history and so on. So when you do a search you are likely to see search results that include certain websites you have visited before than other people who have never visited the same sites. That is why a rank tracking software can be useful for performing a search that would be more ‘independent’ for your rankings since personalization cannot affect it. So the software gives you a view that’s more realistic as far as your site rankings are concerned.
However, personalization will actually not play a big role for either local organic or local pack rankings. There is also very little you can do in terms of optimizing for personalization. When an appliance repair or ac repair business serves locations where multiple languages are widely used, content can be created for those different languages to help in accessing searchers that may be using those languages. Such a scenario however doesn’t apply to most local appliance repair or ac repair businesses.
What’s Next?
Many factors will normally influence and determine how well an appliance repair or ac repair business is going to rank, so there isn’t any magic bullet to get any business going straight to the top of the local search results. It takes time, knowledge and consistent efforts on an ongoing basis to get local SEO done right. It is never about setting it and forgetting it. The Local Search Ranking Factors survey is highly recommended for useful guidance based on what the experts themselves are doing. You can definitely work on testing the different factors that are highly rated to influence local organic or local pack rankings and see what works well for your local appliance repair or HVAC business.
We hope the various expert recommendations on individual local search ranking factors covered in this article will prove to be helpful for your local appliance repair or ac repair business. You can use it as a starting point to help you determine how you want to use your time over the course of next year in 2021. Hopefully, you have gained the understanding of the most important local ranking signals you want to include in your local SEO strategy for 2021.
Get the help you need to get things done right and achieve results much faster. Our local SEO experts are ever ready to assist in providing top-notch HVAC marketing ideas and appliance repair marketing leads generation services. Take advantage of our exclusive offer for free evaluation and schedule your local SEO strategy session today.
