"Restaurants near me", "open now", "best optician 75011": 83% of these searches happen on mobile, and the difference between position 3 and position 8 in the local pack is roughly 70% of the clicks. The good news: the fixes are concrete.

The 9 fixes, in order of leverage

  1. Page speed under 2.5s on mobile (Largest Contentful Paint). Cheapest fix: compress images, lazy-load below-fold.
  2. NAP byte-identical across Google, your website, social profiles, every directory.
  3. LocalBusiness schema markup on the homepage and every location page.
  4. Mobile-first design: no desktop-pretending-to-be-mobile. Test with Google's mobile-friendly tool.
  5. Google Business Profile fully populated: every field, every category, fresh photos.
  6. Reviews velocity > 5/month, reply rate > 80%.
  7. Local backlinks: chamber of commerce, local newspaper, partners. Quality over quantity.
  8. A page per location with unique copy, unique photos, unique customer testimonials.
  9. Internal linking from your homepage to every location page.
83%
"near me" searches happening on mobile
~70%
click share captured by top 3 local pack positions
<2.5s
mobile LCP target to stay competitive in 2026

What is no longer a ranking factor

  • Keyword density: Google has been past this for a decade.
  • Exact-match anchors on local backlinks: over-optimised, will hurt you.
  • Stuffing the city name into your business name on Google. Instant filter.
  • Long-form blog content for local SEO. Use a different page type: your local SEO is in GBP and structured data.
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