Local SEO has more folklore per square meter than any other marketing discipline — "ranking tricks" that died in 2019, repeated as gospel by people selling them. So let’s talk about what the map pack actually responds to, based on what we see moving real profiles.
1. Categories are the highest-leverage field you control
Most profiles set one primary category at setup and never revisit it. Wrong: category choice is arguably the strongest direct relevance signal in local, and the available options change. Audit yearly — a more specific primary category ("Roofing contractor" vs "Contractor") can move you before anything else does.
2. Review velocity beats review count (until it doesn’t)
A profile with 300 reviews and none in four months loses ground to a competitor with 90 and a steady stream. Google is watching whether customers are still choosing you. The fix is operational, not technical: a review request after every job, timed within 24 hours, answered every time. Boring. Decisive.
3. Your website still anchors the map
Profiles with a well-structured site behind them — one page per service, the areas you serve named in real language, LocalBusiness schema matching the profile exactly — hold rankings in areas where pure-profile competitors fade. Contradictions between site and profile (different phone, different category language) quietly suppress. Align them.
4. What doesn’t work anymore
Keyword-stuffed business names (suspension bait), virtual offices in target cities (nuclear suspension bait), and "citation blasts" to 300 directories you’ve never heard of (harmless at best). The map rewards legitimate prominence. Build that, and protect it.
Where to start
In order: categories and services on your profile → a review engine your team can actually run → NAP consistency → service-area pages. We documented the whole system in our Local SEO Blueprint.
Reading is step one. Building is step two.
Tell us your goal — we’ll turn thinking like this into a system for your business.