Based on the 2016 Local SEO Ranking Factors I think it’s safe to say that links are by far the most important ranking factor, and competitive difference maker in Local SEO. But I wanted to take it one step further, I wanted to figure out what the most important number in all of Local SEO was, and here it is:
3.5
3.5 is the average Majestic AC rank for 10,703 business that are showing up in the Local Pack. Obviously, this isn’t going to be true of every single pack, but when looking at a large sampling of businesses over 100 major metros and various verticals, it’s a pretty good starting benchmark.
Unfortunately, Majestic deprecated AC Rank so you can only get in via their API. Thankfully by using the same set of data and taking the average Majestic Citation Rank, we can get the 2nd most important number in Local SEO:
21
So how does localseoguide.com do against the 2016 Local SEO Ranking Factor national average?
I guess you can say we are ahead of the pack
3 Response Comments
Interesting Dan.
In your study, did you find certain industries had wider variations from the avg than others?
I’m asking because the first local pack I looked at had CF scores of 8,1 and 8. I understand the 21 was average and a larger sample size – maybe I got unlucky. The question is not so much about the number, rather industries.
…am I looking too hard to see that 21 is half of 42, the answer to everything? Ok, too obscure, cary on…
typo – make that carry on…
Hey Margaret,
A couple of caveats:
1) We looked in the US specifically
2) We looked at metros 1-50 and 100-150
So we were looking at competitive markets, and with competitive verticals.
So if you were looking in Australia that would immediately throw the whole thing off.