After reading this article, you will know:
What the Area Difficulty Index is
How to enable the Area Difficulty Index in Localo
How to interpret difficulty levels on the visibility grid
1 - What Is the Area Difficulty Index?
💡 The Area Difficulty Index helps you understand how difficult it may be to improve your business visibility in a specific location on Google Maps and in local search results.
This metric analyzes the competitive landscape for your selected keywords within a particular area.
The index evaluates two key factors:
Competitor density – the number of businesses competing for the same keywords in a specific location
Competitor strength – how strong and well-optimized those businesses are
By analyzing these factors, the Area Difficulty Index helps estimate how much effort and time may be required to improve your rankings in that area.
For example:
A downtown area with many well-optimized businesses will typically show a high difficulty level, meaning stronger competition.
A suburban or less competitive area may show a lower difficulty level, indicating a better opportunity to improve visibility more quickly.
2 - How to Enable the Area Difficulty Index in Localo
💡Area Difficulty Index can be switched on and off.
If the Area Difficulty Index isn't visible by default in your account, you can activate it manually:
Navigate to your Localo dashboard.
Locate the position map for your selected keyword and area.
Toggle on the Area Difficulty Index option using the icon on the right-hand side.
Once enabled, the difficulty levels will appear directly on the visibility grid, allowing you to quickly identify which parts of the area are easier or harder to rank in.
3 - How to Interpret the Area Difficulty Index
💡 Area Difficulty index takes proximity into consideration, combined with strength of optimization of your local competitors.
3.1. How to understand a Position Map
Localo categorizes area difficulty into three intuitive levels (background colors/shadows):
Easy (Green): Low competition, ideal for quick visibility improvements.
Results being delivered within 3 months.Medium (Yellow): Moderate competition, achievable with steady SEO efforts.
Results being delivered above 3 months.Hard (Red): High competition, requires consistent optimization and time to improve rankings. Next to impossible to see improvements within 3 months
3.2. Practical Example
Clicking on a grid point will reveal local competitors, their ranking strength, and visibility factors :
Use this to identify why a specific area is challenging and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Enhance visibility: Optimize your Google Business Profile descriptions by incorporating key phrases related to low-difficulty zones.
Utilize Google Posts and Offers to highlight these regions, specifically mentioning associated local keywords to draw attention from the target demographic.
3.3. Pro Tip: Combine with Competitor Activity Tracking
For a more comprehensive strategy, pair the Area Difficulty Index with Localo’s Competitor Activity Tracking. This allows you to monitor what your top competitors are doing in the same area, giving you an edge in adjusting your tactics.
4. How to use the Area Difficulty Index in practice
💡 Clicking on a point in the visibility grid reveals more details about the competitors in that location.
4.1. This allows you to analyze
Which businesses rank in that area
How strong their presence is
Why ranking there may be more difficult
4.2. You can use this information to adjust your strategy
For example by:
Focusing optimization efforts on areas with lower difficulty
Targeting specific neighborhoods or districts with less competition
Prioritizing keywords that perform better in easier areas
This helps you make more informed decisions about where to focus your local SEO efforts.
Related articles :
You can find more in our Knowledge Base.
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