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24 Must-Know Local SEO Statistics

Backlinko Team

Written by Backlinko Team

Local SEO Stats – Blog post image

Local SEO has become an important element of digital marketing strategy helping businesses enhance online visibility and connect with local customers.

How popular are local searches? What are the top local SEO ranking factors?

Keep reading as we will cover answers to these questions with up-to-date local SEO statistics below.

  1. 4 in 5 consumers conduct searches with local intent on search engines (Google)
  2. 76% of consumers who search for “near me” visit a business within a day (Google)
    76% of consumers who search for “near me” visit a business within a day
  3. 88% of individuals who use a smartphone for a local search visit related store within a week (Google)
  4. Local mobile searches with a variant of “can I buy” or “to buy” have increased by 500% over the past 2 years (Google)
  5. 46% of Google searches have local intent (Search Engine Roundtable)
    46% of Google searches have local intent
  6. Around 2 in 10 local searches on a smartphone led to a purchase within a day (Google)
  7. According to surveyed marketers, the most impactful ranking factors on Google’s local pack include the primary Google Business Profile category, keywords in the Google Business Profile title, the proximity of address to the point of search (Whitespark)
    Local Pack Ranking Factor Score
    Primary Google Business Profile category 193
    Keywords in Google Business Profile title 181
    Proximity of address to the point of search 176
    Physical address in the city of search 170
    Removal of spam listings through spam fighting 143
    High numerical Google ratings 138
    Additional Google Business Profile categories 134
    Quantity of native Google reviews 128
    Verified Google Business Profile 117
    Proximity of address to centroid 114
    Keywords in Google Business Profile landing title 114
    Completeness of Google Business Profile 112
  8. The most significant local organic ranking factors according to local marketers are a dedicated page for each service, internal linking across the entire website, and quality/authority of inbound links to the domain (Whitespark)
    Local Pack Ranking Factor Score
    Dedicated page for each service 163
    Internal linking across the entire website 149
    Quality/authority of inbound links to domain 148
    Geographic keyword relevance of domain content 146
    Keywords in Google Business Profile landing page title 140
    Quality of inbound links to the domain from locally relevant domains 137
    Topical keyword relevance across the entire website 135
    Volume of quality content on service pages 134
    Volume of quality content on the entire website 132
    Keywords in the anchor text of inbound links to the domain 128
    Diversity of inbound links to the domain 127
    Mobile-friendly/responsive website 125
  9. Google may use 149 ranking factors for local searches (Whitespark)
  10. The top five most trusted platforms consumers use to find information about local businesses are Google (66%), Google Maps (45%), business website (36%), Facebook (32%), and Yelp (32%) (Brightlocal)
  11. 92% of local SEO and marketing professionals claim to have experimented with ChatGPT.
    92% of local SEO and marketing professionals claim to have experimented with ChatGPT
    Other commonly used AI tools by local SEO marketers include Bard (41%), BingGPT (28%), Jasper (28%), Copy.ai (22%) (eMarketer)
  12. Worldwide searches on Google Maps for “shopping near me” have increased by more than 100% year over year (Google)
  13. Among Apple users, 58.6% prefer to use Google Maps vs. 26.3% for Apple Maps when searching for local businesses (Brightlocal)
  14. 42% of people who conduct a local search click on results inside of the Google Maps Pack (Backlinko)
  15. 60% of mobile users have reached out to a business directly using the search results (Google)
    60% of mobile users have reached out to a business directly using the search results
  16. 75% of consumers say they “always” or “regularly” read online reviews when researching local businesses (Brightlocal)
  17. The top five local SEO metrics marketers see as important are rankings in the Google Local Pack / Local Finder (52%), new leads/enquiries (42%), Google organic rankings (41%) (Brightlocal)
  18. According to marketers, the most valuable local SEO services are Google Business Profile management (76%), content creation (53%), and citation building/cleanup (43%) (Brightlocal)
  19. According to clients (local businesses), the top 3 local SEO services that are considered valuable are Google Business Profile management (52%), content creation (39%), and website design (34%) (Brightlocal)
  20. 40% of consumers claim to have searched for a local business to see its opening hours at least a few times per month (Brightlocal)
    40% of consumers claim to have searched for a local business to see its opening hours at least a few times per month
  21. 39% of consumers claim to search for local business information at least once a month to check if it’s dog-friendly, child-friendly, or accessible (Brightlocal)
  22. 88% of consumers use Google Maps, while the remaining 12% use Apple Maps (Brightlocal)
  23. Customers are 2.7x more likely to view a business as reputable if it has a complete Google Business Profile (Google)
  24. Businesses that have a complete Google Business Profile are 50% more likely to be considered by customers for potential purchases (Google)

Conclusion

That’s it for my list of local SEO statistics.

I hope you found the stats informative and helpful in proving the importance of local SEO in your 2024 strategy. Feel free to check this page later as we regularly update it with recent stats.