Local Rankings: Understanding and Improving Your Map Pack Visibility

Local rankings are geographic. You don’t have one position — you have a different position at every point across your service area. A business might rank #2 near their location and #8 three miles away. Understanding this geographic variation is fundamental to local SEO strategy.

This module covers how to visualize rankings geographically, what metrics actually matter, and how to benchmark against competitors.

Why Local Rankings Are Geographic, Not Global

When someone searches “plumber” in Phoenix, their results depend on where they’re standing. The searcher two miles north of you sees different results than the searcher two miles south.

What drives this variation:

  • Proximity to the searcher (major factor)
  • Proximity to competitors (they have their own zones of dominance)
  • Signal strength in different areas (reviews mentioning locations, local links)

The practical implication: Tracking your ranking for “[keyword] [city]” gives you one data point. That point may not represent what 80% of potential customers see. A geogrid gives you the complete picture.

Geogrid Analysis: Seeing Your Rankings Across Your Service Area

A geogrid is a grid of geographic points laid over your service area. At each point, the tool checks: “What position does this business hold in the map pack here?”

The typical geogrid:

  • 25 points (5x5 grid) or 49 points (7x7 grid)
  • Centered on your business location
  • Spanning your realistic service area
  • Checked for your primary keywords

What you see:

  • Strong zones where you rank #1-3 consistently (green)
  • Competitive zones where you fluctuate #4-7 (yellow)
  • Weak zones where you rank #8+ or don’t appear (red)
  • Patterns that reveal what’s driving variation

Strategic value: You can’t improve what you don’t measure. A geogrid shows you exactly where you’re losing potential customers and suggests where to focus effort.

The geogrid prompt:

Run a geogrid scan for [Business Name] for [keyword] in [city].
Show me rankings across my service area.
Where am I strong? Where am I weak? What's driving the pattern?

The Three Metrics That Matter

Local SEO produces many numbers. Three metrics actually predict business outcomes.

ARP (Average Rank Position)

The arithmetic mean of your rank across all grid points.

Example: If a 25-point grid shows positions [1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,9,9,10,10,15,15,20,20,NR], your ARP is approximately 7.5.

Limitation: ARP treats all points equally. It doesn’t penalize invisibility appropriately. A business ranking NR (not ranked) at half the points could have a similar ARP to one that appears everywhere.

Use for: Quick summary, month-over-month comparison.

ATRP (Average True Rank Position)

Like ARP, but penalizes non-ranking more heavily. Points where you don’t appear in top 20 are counted as position 21.

Why it matters: ATRP reveals dead zones. A business might have decent ARP but poor ATRP because they disappear entirely in certain areas.

Use for: Identifying coverage problems, comparing businesses with similar ARPs.

SoLV (Share of Local Voice)

The percentage of grid points where you rank in the top 3.

Example: If you rank #1-3 at 15 of 25 points, your SoLV is 60%.

Why it matters: Top 3 is where clicks happen. Position #4 might as well be position #10 for most queries. SoLV measures the percentage of your market that sees you prominently.

The revenue connection: SoLV correlates with call volume more directly than ARP. Improving SoLV from 40% to 60% often produces measurable lead increases.

Use for: Business outcome prediction, competitive benchmarking, ROI measurement.

Competitive Benchmarking

Your rankings don’t exist in isolation. Understanding who you’re competing against — and what signals they have — shapes strategy.

Competitive analysis prompt:

Pull the local pack for [keyword] in [city].
Who's in the top 3? What signals do they have?
What's my gap vs. each competitor?

What to analyze:

  • Review count and rating vs. competitors
  • GBP completeness vs. competitors
  • Category overlap and differences
  • Citation presence in top directories
  • Website authority (Domain Rating)

The gap analysis: If the top 3 all have 150+ reviews and you have 45, that’s the primary gap. If they have secondary categories you don’t, that’s a quick win. Competitive analysis prioritizes where to focus.

Local Keyword Strategy

Not all keywords work the same way in local search.

Geo-modified keywords: “[service] [city]” — explicit local intent. Most common local SEO target.

Implicit local keywords: “[service] near me” or just “[service]” — Google infers local intent from searcher location.

Service-specific vs. broad: “emergency plumber Phoenix” vs. “plumber Phoenix” — different competition levels, different intent.

The keyword research prompt:

Do local keyword research for [Business Name] in [city].
What keywords should we target? What's the competition level?
What's achievable in 90 days vs. 6-12 months?

Mapping keywords to GBP: Each keyword you target should map to a category or service on your GBP. If you want to rank for “water heater repair Phoenix,” you need that service listed.

Using LocalSEOSkills for Rankings

geogrid-analysis skill:

Run a geogrid for [Business Name] for [keyword] in [city].
Calculate ARP, ATRP, and SoLV.
Show me the map and explain the pattern.

local-competitor-analysis skill:

Analyze competitors in the [keyword] [city] local pack.
Who's winning? Why? What's my path to top 3?

local-keyword-research skill:

Research local keywords for [business type] in [city].
Prioritize by volume, competition, and achievability.

Pages in This Module

Next: Module 6 — AI and Emerging Search

With ranking fundamentals understood, Module 6 covers AI and Emerging Search — AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and the optimization signals driving visibility on AI platforms.