Best strategy to go from not ranking into the top 3 in local area?

[twatson]

Lets say a GBP listing ranks in the top 3 in certain parts of a city but is nowhere to be found (past position 20) in other parts. Its primary category matches the category of the top listings and already has services listed. Is it possible for a business to be located somewhere in a city and rank in the top 3 in an area that is lets say....10 miles away? I always see case studies with a GBP that has position 1 ranking on the map all over the city.

 

[Professor M]

It is not impossible, but the strongest Local Algorithm factor is proximity. The case studies you see, many of them are just outliers and it will depend on City, competition, keyword, optimization.

 

[ibweb]

@twatson It's definitely possible to rank in the local pack 10+ miles away. But the further away your physical location is away from the searcher, the more you're fighting against the inherent proximity bias.
That said, the actual distance you can rank within the local pack heavily also depends on the competition density on GBP/local finder for the target keyword(s). For example, one our clients is ranking in the local pack in a completely different city ~50 miles away, but it's for keywords that have a lower competition density. For the keywords with higher competition density, they won't be able to rank that far out.