Quick answer
SEO improves how a website ranks for keywords, often nationally or across a whole topic, and the website is the main asset. Local SEO decides whether a business shows up in the Google Map Pack and on Google Maps for nearby searches, and the Google Business Profile is the main asset. Distance from the searcher barely matters for national SEO and is one of the biggest factors locally. For a business whose customers are local, local SEO is where the budget should go first; broader SEO supports it. A national online business is the reverse.
By the numbers
- Website vs Business Profile: the primary asset each one is built around. DHM INTERPRETATION
- Keyword rank vs Map Pack position across an area: what each one is measured on. DHM INTERPRETATION
- ~55% of Local Pack ranking is the searcher’s proximity, per Whitespark’s 2026 survey. National SEO has no equivalent. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH
- Relevance, distance, prominence are the three factors Google names for local results, with no way to pay for a better rank. GOOGLE DOCUMENTED
The difference in one table
| SEO | Local SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Target searches | National or topic-wide keywords | “Near me” and in-town intent |
| Main asset | The website | The Google Business Profile |
| Deciding factor | Content, links, technical health | Proximity, profile, reviews |
| Result surface | Organic links | Map Pack, Google Maps, local organic |
| How you measure it | Keyword rank, one check | Geo-grid across the service area |
| Best for | Selling nationally or online | Serving customers in a defined area |
| Overlap | On-page content and technical health help both; a local business needs both, weighted toward local | |
Same business, two lenses
An accountant who serves one metro. Tap between the two.
- Targets “best accounting software for contractors”.
- Competes with national blogs and software vendors.
- Wins traffic, most of it from outside the service area.
- Few of those readers can actually become clients.
- Targets “accountant for contractors [city]”.
- Competes with other local firms in the Map Pack.
- Wins searchers who are in the area and ready to hire.
- Decided by the profile, reviews and proximity, not blog volume.
Choose SEO-first when
- You sell nationally or online, with no meaningful dependence on where the customer is.
- Your buyers research a topic for weeks before choosing, and content is how you get on the list.
- Your market is won on authority and links, not on being the nearest option.
Choose local-SEO-first when
- Your customers are within driving distance and search before they call.
- The Map Pack shows for your main terms, and being in the top three would change your call volume.
- A competitor with a worse website still outranks you on Maps, which means the deciding factors are local, not on-page.
- You serve a wide radius and rank only near your own address.
For the plain definition, see what is local SEO. For the full method we run, see our local SEO services.
For most local businesses, the answer is both
- Start with local SEO. Profile, reviews, citations, service and service-area pages, geo-grid baseline.
- Layer in broader SEO as the local base holds: guides and answers that earn links and get cited by AI, which also lifts the local pages.
- Measure them differently. Local on a geo-grid, broader SEO on keyword rank and organic traffic.
- Do not let the split confuse the priority. If the phone is quiet and the customers are local, local SEO comes first.
Sources
- Google Business Profile Help, Improve your local ranking on Google: local results are based on relevance, distance and prominence, with no way to pay for a better rank.
- Google Search Central, SEO starter guide: general SEO focuses on making a site understandable and useful to searchers, centred on the website.
- Whitespark, Local Search Ranking Factors (2026 edition): proximity of the searcher is the highest-weighted Google Business Profile ranking factor, at roughly 55%.
- DataForSEO, SERP datasets (2026): local pack results vary by the coordinates attached to a query, which is why local visibility needs grid measurement rather than a single keyword check.
- Peer-reviewed: Aggarwal, P., et al. (2024). “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization.” Proceedings of the 30th ACM SIGKDD Conference (KDD ’24). Well-structured, specific, verifiable content is cited more often in generated answers, which is where broader SEO content and local pages reinforce each other.
Figures are quoted from the sources above and are directional.