Local Authority Score

What the Local Authority Score measures

Your Local Authority Score is a single 0–100 that captures how much local search trust your business has earned — rolled up from the signals that actually drive local rankings, not borrowed from a global domain metric. It exists because no single number tells the story: you can have great reviews and invisible citations, or a complete profile and no ranking presence. The score combines them so you get one honest read on where you stand, and the breakdown beneath it tells you why.

What goes into your Local Authority Score

Four components, weighted toward what moves local rank — which is why reviews and citations carry more here than backlinks would in a national SEO score:

• Review strength — count, rating, and velocity together. A steady stream of recent 4.8-star reviews outweighs a pile of old ones.
• Citation consistency — how accurately your NAP appears across major directories. Consistency, not raw count, is what builds trust.
• Profile completeness — how fully your Google Business Profile is filled out: services, categories, hours, photos, posts.
• Ranking presence — your share of the local pack across your core keywords.

What your Local Authority Score means

• 0–40 — Weak local presence. One or more foundational components is failing. You're likely invisible in the local pack for competitive terms. This is a fix-the-basics situation.
• 41–70 — Competitive but uneven. You're a real contender with at least one component holding you back. Most established local businesses sit here, and the breakdown tells you the one lever to pull.
• 71–100 — Local authority. Strong across the board. The work shifts to defending position and widening the gap on rivals.

The number is the headline; the component breakdown is the actual product. A 62 built on strong reviews but weak citations needs a completely different plan than a 62 with great citations and no reviews.

What's in your Local Authority Score report

Your overall score, the component-by-component breakdown with detail on what's driving each one, and where you sit relative to the typical range in your category. You leave knowing your number and the components dragging it down so you know what to fix first.

Why Local Authority Scores move over time

Authority is earned and lost continuously. New reviews lift it; a competitor's review surge can drop your relative ranking presence; a directory change can ding consistency. Track it monthly so the score becomes a trend line, not a one-off — and so you can tie a jump or dip back to the specific work that caused it.

How to raise your Local Authority Score

Always start with the lowest component, because that's where points come cheapest. In the sample above, citations (scoring 48) is the obvious first move — a citation cleanup could add more points than chasing rankings ever would. Each component routes to a specific tool: citations and profile completeness to the GBP Health Check, search-ranking gaps to the Competitor Gap Analyzer. For agencies, the API returns the score and components per location so you can rank a whole portfolio by who needs attention first.

Frequently asked questions