What the local pack is
The local pack is the three-business map listing that appears above the ten organic listings whenever a query has local intent. The pack is fed by Google Business Profile data rather than your website, which means it runs on a different algorithm to the standard ten-blue-link organic results that appear below it. Same SERP, different ranking system.
On a mobile phone, the local pack typically pushes the first organic result below the fold. Position one in the pack picks up the lion's share of clicks on commercial local-intent searches, particularly the kind of "service + suburb" queries that drive real enquiries.
For the broader local SEO context, see the Local SEO pillar. For the Profile work that feeds the pack, see Google Business Profile optimisation. For why local intent works the way it does in keyword research, see local keyword research.
The three ranking factors
Google has publicly confirmed three local pack ranking factors:
- Proximity. How close the business is to the searcher.
- Prominence. How well-known and corroborated the business is across the web.
- Relevance. How well the business matches what the searcher is looking for.
The weighting shifts by query type. A "service + suburb" search weights proximity heavily. A branded search ("Acme Plumbing Perth") weights relevance heavily because the searcher is looking for a specific business. A "best X near me" search weights prominence heavily because Google is making a quality judgement.
The pack runs on the combination, not any single factor. A business with perfect prominence and zero proximity will not rank for queries with strong local intent. A business with perfect proximity and zero prominence will struggle on broader queries where Google has to choose between many proximate options. The work is to score reasonably on all three.
Proximity: the loudest signal
Proximity is the distance between the business address (as registered on Google Business Profile) and the searcher's location when they ran the query. Closer wins, all else equal.
Three nuances worth knowing:
- The searcher's location is dynamic. Mobile searches use GPS. Desktop searches use IP-based location, which is less precise but still local. The "centroid" of a city-level search is whatever location Google associates with that city; for Perth that is roughly the CBD, but Google uses a more sophisticated polygon than a single point.
- Proximity is from the GBP address, not your website. If the Profile lists a Subiaco address, that is where proximity is measured from, regardless of where the website footer says you operate. Service-area businesses without a displayed address use the registered area-served polygon as a proxy, which is generally less precise than a fixed address.
- The proximity decay curve is sharp. A business 500 metres from the searcher typically outranks a business 3 kilometres away, all else equal. Beyond 5 kilometres in metro areas or 30 kilometres in regional areas, the proximity disadvantage becomes very difficult to overcome through prominence alone.
The tactical implication: if proximity is the loudest signal and your office is in one fixed location, the best you can do is build prominence high enough to compete in the proximate band. For wider coverage, you need either multiple locations (see multi-location strategy) or genuine suburb pages backed by service-area Profile settings (see service-area business SEO).
Prominence: how to build it
Prominence is Google's name for "how real and trusted is this business across the web". It compounds over months and is the lever most under your control.
Five direct prominence inputs:
- Reviews. Count, average rating, velocity (reviews per month) and recency. A Profile with 80 reviews at 4.7 stars, two new reviews per month and the most recent review last week scores higher than a Profile with 200 reviews at 4.9 stars where the most recent review was nine months ago.
- Citations. NAP-matched mentions across the major Australian directories, industry associations, and chamber-of-commerce member lists. See local citations for Australian businesses.
- Locally-relevant backlinks. Links from Perth or WA sources (news sites, suppliers, partners, industry associations) carry more weight than national or international links of the same nominal authority. See link building tactics for the broader playbook.
- Brand mentions. Unlinked mentions of the business name on news sites, blogs, podcasts and forums. Google's entity layer detects these and adds them to the prominence signal. See brand mentions as a ranking signal.
- Branded search volume. The number of users searching directly for the business name in Google. Visible in Search Console Performance. A growing branded-search trend correlates with rising prominence in the eyes of the algorithm.
Prominence does not move overnight. Plan for six to twelve months of consistent work to see the ranking effect compound. For the broader trust-signal context, see E-E-A-T explained.
Relevance: matching the query
Relevance is how well the business matches what the searcher typed. It is the most directly controllable factor and the one most businesses get wrong.
Four relevance inputs:
- Primary category. The single most important relevance field on Google Business Profile. A business with primary category "Plumber" ranks for plumber queries more readily than a business with primary category "Bathroom remodeller" trying to rank for plumbing.
- Services list. The detailed services field under the Profile. Each service item Google has confirmed is offered adds to the relevance match for long-tail queries.
- Website content match. The Profile is backed by the website. A website that genuinely talks about plumbing services in Fremantle reinforces the relevance signal for "plumber Fremantle". A thin or off-topic website weakens it.
- Review content match. Google reads the text of reviews. Reviews that mention "plumber" or "blocked drain" or "Fremantle" feed the relevance signal for queries containing those terms. This is why review velocity matters beyond the count: a steady drip of detailed reviews gradually builds a much wider relevance footprint than a one-off batch of generic five-star ratings.
For the on-page work that backs up the relevance signal, see title tags, header tags and URL structure. For the keyword research that informs which relevance terms to target, see local keyword research.
The Vicinity update and what it changed
In November 2021, Google rolled out a confirmed local search update that the SEO community labelled the Vicinity update. The change increased the weight of proximity in the local pack ranking algorithm. Businesses outside the immediate vicinity of the searcher lost map-pack visibility even on queries they previously ranked for.
Two practical consequences:
- A single office cannot dominate a wide metro area. Before Vicinity, a strong-prominence Perth CBD business could rank in the pack for "plumber Mandurah" or "plumber Joondalup". After Vicinity, that is much harder. The proximity penalty for being 40 kilometres from the searcher is now too large to overcome on prominence alone.
- Genuine local operators got a boost. A small business with an office in Mandurah now outranks Perth CBD businesses for Mandurah queries by default, before any other ranking work is done. The map pack rewards being where the customers actually are.
The strategic response: either move physical locations to where the customers are, open additional locations (see multi-location strategy), or commit to the suburb-page and service-area approach with the prominence work to back it up (see service-area business SEO).
Secondary signals worth knowing about
The three factors above are the publicly-confirmed pillars. A handful of secondary signals appear to influence the pack based on patterns we have observed across hundreds of WA client audits.
- Profile activity. Profiles that post regularly, add photos and respond to reviews tend to hold pack position better than dormant Profiles. Treat as an "active business" signal that correlates with stability.
- Click-through behaviour. Profiles that get higher click-through from the pack (calls, direction requests, website visits) appear to hold position. The CTR signal applies to the map pack as it does to organic results. See the CTR glossary entry.
- Photo cadence. Profiles that add new photos regularly score higher on the active-business signal. See Google Business Profile optimisation for the photo strategy.
- Mobile-first signals. The local pack is heavily mobile-weighted. A website that fails Core Web Vitals can drag the prominence signal down. See mobile-first indexing.
- Spam-filter penalties. Listings with fake reviews, keyword-stuffed names or category mismatches get demoted or suspended. Google's local spam filter is more accurate than it used to be.
Common mistakes
- Working on all three factors in parallel rather than trying to brute-force one of them.
- Accepting that proximity is the loudest signal and planning multi-location or service-area strategy when proximity is a structural disadvantage.
- Building prominence through reviews, citations, and locally-relevant links over six to twelve months.
- Picking a primary category that exactly matches the core service and reinforcing it with a services list and website content.
- Posting to Google Business Profile fortnightly to keep the active-business signal alive.
- Tracking pack rankings from a grid of points to see the proximity dependency, not from one office location.
- Trying to rank a single Perth CBD office across the whole metro after the Vicinity update.
- Stuffing keywords into the business name field to boost relevance. Google strips violations.
- Buying reviews to lift prominence. The review filter catches velocity spikes and the policy violation can permanently flag the listing.
- Treating prominence as a one-month sprint rather than a multi-quarter compounding programme.
- Ignoring the website because "the Profile does the ranking". The website backs up the Profile and weak content caps the relevance ceiling.
- Tracking rankings from a single point and missing the proximity-dependent variation across the service area.
Perth and WA context
Three Perth-specific things worth knowing about local pack ranking.
First, the Vicinity update hit Perth metro disproportionately. The geographic spread between Joondalup, the CBD, Fremantle, Cockburn, Mandurah and the eastern suburbs means a single CBD office now ranks weakly across a much smaller footprint than it used to. Perth metro businesses serving the full city need either a multi-location strategy or genuine suburb pages backed by the prominence work. See SEO Fremantle, SEO Joondalup, SEO Mandurah, SEO Cockburn, SEO Rockingham, SEO Midland, and the Services Perth overview.
Second, regional WA is the inverse case. The proximity weighting that disadvantages Perth metro businesses in outer suburbs strongly favours regional operators in their own region. A Bunbury, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Karratha, Port Hedland or Esperance business with a clean Profile and decent prominence often jumps into position one for regional queries within weeks of verification. See SEO Bunbury, SEO Busselton, SEO Kalgoorlie, SEO Karratha, SEO Port Hedland and SEO Esperance.
Third, category competition varies sharply by industry. Trades and home services are competitive in Perth metro (high prominence ceiling). Mining services and FIFO categories are competitive in the Pilbara and Goldfields (regional prominence ceiling). Legal and healthcare are uniformly competitive across both. See trades SEO, mining SEO, healthcare SEO, legal SEO and real estate SEO. For the Perth-specific local service we run, see Local SEO Perth.