David Mihm's Local (Google) Search Ranking Factors for 2012 has recently been published, and once again I'm linking to it as a standard industry resource....
Local Search Ranking Factors 2012 Published June 11, 2012 http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml [davidmihm.com]
The survey polls leading local SEOs for relative importance of local search ranking factors in the following main areas...
Place Page Criteria
Off-Place Page/Off-Site Criteria
Website Criteria
Review Criteria
Social/Mobile Criteria
Results were then tabulated via inverse scoring, where the #1 ranked factor received the most "points" for that question, and the lowest-ranked factor received the fewest points. Thus, the more factors deemed irrelevant by a particular respondent, the heavier the weight given to the factors that they did rank.
An impressive survey that's basic reading for anyone seriously interested in local search.
