Share of local voice: what it means and how to calculate it

The formula

Share of local voice = points where the business ranks 1 to 3 ÷ points scanned × 100

Each point is one Google Maps search, for one keyword, run from one spot on the grid. A point counts when the business is #1, #2 or #3 there. Points where it ranks #4 or lower, or doesn't appear at all, count in the total but not in the top 3. The result runs from 0, never in the top 3, to 100, in the top 3 everywhere on the grid.

The top 3 is what Local Falcon calls the Google 3-Pack. It puts the idea this way in Local Falcon KB32, What Is SoLV?: "SoLV® stands for Share of Local Voice. This shows how often a business ranks in the top three positions."

A worked 5×5 example

This is the same real scan as above: 5×5 points 500 m apart, 25 searches for "pizza". Columns run A to E from west to east and rows 1 to 5 from north to south. Top-3 ranks are in bold, and 20+ means the business wasn't in the top 20.

1. Count the points scanned: 5 × 5 = 25.
2. Count the top-3 points: C2 (#3), C3 (#1), D3 (#3). That is 3.
3. Divide and multiply by 100: 3 ÷ 25 = 0.12, and 0.12 × 100 = 12%.

The same business appeared somewhere in the top 20 at 23 of 25 points (92%), and its average rank was 10.2 with misses counted as 21. So it was visible almost everywhere but in the local pack at only 3 points. Share of local voice is the number that shows that gap.

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C340.7547° N, 73.9870° W

#1 on its own block

C140.7637° N, 73.9870° W

Not in the top 20, 1 km north

© OpenStreetMap

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The grid changes the number

Share of local voice depends on the grid as much as on the business. Take only the inner 3×3 points of the scan above, the 9 closest to the centre, and the business is in the top 3 at 3 of them: 3 ÷ 9 × 100 = 33.3%. Same business, same day, 33.3% instead of 12%, because the smaller grid left out the far points where it ranks lower.

So compare share of local voice only between scans with the same keyword, centre, grid size and spacing. A fall after you widen the grid is not a loss, and a rise after you shrink it is not a win.

Where the term comes from

Share of local voice is Local Falcon's term, and SoLV is its abbreviation. Local Falcon's knowledge base says "SoLV® is a registered trademark of Local Falcon LLC." The USPTO record for SOLV, serial 90372578 confirms it. SOLV is a live registration on the Principal Register, number 6,498,654, registered on 28 September 2021 and owned by Local Falcon, LLC, for local visibility and search engine optimisation reports. We found no USPTO record for the phrase "share of local voice" when we searched on 20 October 2026.

We use the phrase for the general measure. Local Falcon's SoLV is its own metric. Its knowledge base explains a score of 23.45 as showing up "23.45% of the total possible number of times" in a scan, but doesn't spell out every rule, such as how skipped points count, so its number for a grid may not match a count by hand to the decimal. Local Falcon answers also describe related metrics, such as SoLV Distance, which compares how far from the business it ranks in the top 3 with how far its competitors do.

How to approximate it from any grid scan

Any geo-grid tool that shows the rank at each point gives you enough to work it out.

1. Count the points the scan ran. Leave out points you turned off, such as points over water.
2. Count the points where the business ranks 1, 2 or 3. A point where it doesn't appear counts as not top 3.
3. Divide the second count by the first and multiply by 100.
4. Do the same for a competitor using the businesses listed at each point, so you can compare the two on the same grid.

On Gridrank every scan shows this number as In top 3, next to average rank and Found (coverage). Our guides call it top-3 share. Each scan's competitor list shows the same measure for the businesses that hold the top 3, as "top 3 at X% of points". Read how geo-grid rank tracking works for the other two numbers.

What share of local voice leaves out

• Rank 4 and rank 20 count the same. Both are outside the top 3. Average rank shows whether you are close to breaking in.
• Every point counts the same. A point in an empty field weighs as much as one on a busy street, so set the grid over the area your customers come from.
• It is one keyword. A business can hold the top 3 for "emergency plumber" and miss it for "plumber". Track the keywords that bring work separately.

Questions people ask