Share of local voice (SoLV) is the percentage of points on a rank grid where a business ranks in the top 3 on Google Maps. Scan a 7×7 grid, count the points that read 1, 2 or 3, and divide by 49. In the top 3 at 19 of 49 points, the share of local voice is 39%.
How share of local voice is calculated
The formula is one line. Share of local voice = points where the business ranks 1 to 3 ÷ all points on the grid, as a percentage. A point where it ranks 4 counts for nothing. So does a point where it is missing from the top 20.
You can check the grid above by hand. Go row by row from the top and count the points that read 3 or lower. The top row has none. The second row has 3, the third has 4, the fourth has 5, the fifth has 4, the sixth has 3 and the bottom row has none. That is 19 of 49 points, or 39%.
The same grid gives the other numbers a scan reports. The business was found at 48 of 49 points. Its average rank across those 48 points is 5.3, and 5.6 once the missing corner is counted as 21. The two averages have a guide of their own. Share of local voice sits beside them and answers a narrower question: how often you are in the part of the list people read.
Why the top 3 and not the top 10
Three is not an arbitrary line. When someone searches on Google Search, the map box on the results page shows three listings. A business in fourth place sits behind a link the searcher has to tap. In the Google Maps app the list is longer, but the screen is small, and the places that get the taps are the ones showing before anyone scrolls. In both cases the top 3 is where the eye goes.
Google says its local results are ranked on relevance, distance and prominence. Distance is what makes the top 3 move from street to street, and why one search from the shop says nothing about the next neighbourhood. The grid exists to count those streets. The map box and the Google Maps list can rank the same business differently, so a share of local voice from one is not the same as from the other. Say which one you measured.
What a good share of local voice looks like
There is no good number without the grid next to it. The same business, the same keyword and the same day give a different share of local voice at every grid radius, because the points further out are the points where the business ranks worse. A tight grid flatters. A wide grid punishes.
| Grid | Area covered | Share of local voice |
|---|---|---|
| 7×7, 250 m spacing | About 1.5 km across | 84% |
| 7×7, 500 m spacing | About 3 km across | 39% |
| 7×7, 1.5 km spacing | About 9 km across | 12% |
The numbers in the table are an example, not a benchmark. The point is the shape: one business, one keyword, three honest numbers from 84% to 12%. None of them is wrong. Each one answers “how often am I in the top 3” for a different set of streets.
So quote the grid with the number, every time. “A share of local voice of 39%” tells a client nothing. “39% on a 7×7 grid at 500 m spacing, 3 km across” tells them exactly what was measured. If you are not sure how wide to go, the grid size guide matches the radius to where customers come from.
Where share of local voice misleads
- It can be 100% and still mean little. A business can hold 100% on a 1 km grid and 10% on a 5 km grid. Both are true. The small grid says the business owns its own block. It says nothing about the town.
- It does not know whether the keyword is searched. 90% for a phrase nobody types is 90% of nothing. Share of local voice measures position, never demand. Pick keywords customers use before you count anything.
- It hides everything below rank 3. Two businesses can both score 40%. One reads 4 and 5 at the other points and is a few reviews from the top. The other reads 18, 19 and 20+ and is nowhere near. The share of local voice is the same; the situation is not. The average rank and the found count tell those two apart, which is why a report shows them together.
- It moves in steps. On a 49-point grid, one point is 2 percentage points. A business sitting on the edge of rank 3 at six points can swing 12 points between two scans with nothing changed on the profile, as those points read 3 one week and 4 the next.
How to compare share of local voice over time
The number travels well from month to month, on one condition: the grid must not move. Same centre, same size, same spacing, same keyword, same engine. Change any of those and you have a new measurement, and the old one cannot be set beside it. A rise of 10 points on a grid that also grew by 1 km is no change at all, or a large one. There is no way to know which.
That is a job for the tracker rather than for memory. RankShark Track fixes the grid per tracker and keeps 25 months of scans, so two scans of the same grid can be put side by side with the share of local voice from each, and the trend drawn across the months between. Every competitor in the top 20 is drawn on the same grid, so when your share falls you can see whose rose.
Read it over several scans, never two. Google Maps results move a little every day, and a point on the edge of rank 3 is exactly the kind that moves. A weekly scan smooths most of that out. A single jump from 39% to 43% is a reading. The same 43% three weeks running is a result.
If you have never seen your own number, the free audit scans 49 points around a business and reports the share of local voice with the grid it came from. Run it, write the grid down next to the number, and scan the same grid again in a month.