Measuring Share of Local Voice in the AI Era

Share of Local Voice in 2026: How to Measure What Actually Matters

Share of Local Voice, or SoLV, is one of the more complete local SEO measurements available, and it's becoming more relevant rather than less as AI search features complicate the old shorthand of "average rank."

As AI Overviews reduce the click-through significance of some local pack positions, SoLV's evolution from "share of local pack" toward something closer to "share of local presence" — including AI citation, not just organic map rank — is the direction this metric is heading.

The foundational concept

Share of Local Voice answers a specific question: for what percentage of the searches your target customers actually run in your target area does your business appear in a top-three position? The formula is straightforward — the number of geo-grid points where the business ranks top-3, divided by the total geo-grid points, times 100.

Building this requires a defined keyword set covering everything your target customers search, a defined geographic grid covering the area you want to capture, and a geo-grid rank scan run for each keyword across that grid, using a tool like Angryturtle's geo-grid rank tracking. A dental clinic tracking five keywords across a 7×7 grid produces 49 points per keyword, or 245 total data points across the set. If the business appears top-3 at 98 of those points, its SoLV for that keyword set is 40 percent.

Why SoLV beats a single average-rank number

An average rank of 3.2 sounds informative until you ask what's actually behind it. That number could describe a business that's #1 right around its own location and #12 a kilometre outside that radius. It could describe a business ranking a steady #3 across the entire grid with no variation at all. Or it could describe a business that's #1 in some pockets and completely unranked in others, averaging out to the same 3.2 despite being a wildly different situation on the ground. Average rank collapses all three into one indistinguishable number.

SoLV, calculated across the grid rather than averaged into a single figure, reveals which of those situations is actually true — a business holding strong SoLV within a tight radius around its own location but weaker SoLV further out is telling you exactly where the local pack fight is being lost, which an average rank simply can't say. Angryturtle's learning centre guide to geo-grid rank tracking covers how to set this up correctly.

Calculating SoLV against competitors

SoLV becomes more useful once it's run for competitors on the same keyword set and grid, not just for your own business. Running the same geo-grid scan for the top two or three competitors and calculating each one's SoLV shows market share across the local pack — and because more than one business can rank top-3 at the same grid point for different searchers, the combined SoLV across all competitors can exceed 100 percent, which is expected rather than an error in the math.

What competitive SoLV actually reveals: which competitor is the primary threat in which part of the grid, and whether there's a geographic pocket where none of the leading competitors are performing especially well — a genuine opportunity zone rather than a market that's already saturated.

Weighting by keyword intent

Not every keyword in the set carries equal commercial weight, and calculating one blended SoLV number across all of them can hide where the real gap is. High-intent keywords — "dentist near me," "[specialty] clinic [area]" — carry direct appointment intent and deserve the most optimisation attention. Research-intent keywords like "best dentist [city]" still convert reasonably well but sit a step earlier in the decision. Branded, navigational keywords — the clinic's own name — are usually already captured and add little diagnostic value to a SoLV analysis. Calculating SoLV separately by cluster, rather than blended, keeps the optimisation focus on where it actually matters commercially.

The emerging AI Overview version of SoLV

As AI Overviews appear more often for local queries, a parallel metric is emerging: share of AI voice — for what proportion of target queries does the business get cited inside the AI Overview itself, rather than just ranking in the traditional local pack below it? There's no standardised tool for this as of 2026, which means it currently has to be tracked manually — running each high-value target keyword on a regular cadence, checking whether an AI Overview appears, and recording whether the business is cited within it. Divide citations observed by the total number of queries where an AI Overview actually appeared, and track the trend month over month rather than reading any single month in isolation. Angryturtle's guide to AI Overviews and local business covers what tends to drive citation beyond just the SoLV-style measurement itself, and the share of AI voice tracking service covers a more structured version of this measurement.

Reporting SoLV across a multi-location enterprise

For enterprises, SoLV works best reported at three distinct levels rather than one blended number. Location-level SoLV — a single branch's performance across its own local grid — matters most to that location's manager. City-level SoLV — how all of a brand's locations in one city perform against city-level competitors, useful alongside Angryturtle's metro comparison guide — matters most to a regional manager weighing where to focus. Brand-level SoLV — the overall network figure across every location and keyword — matters most to executives tracking whether local market share is moving in the right direction overall. Angryturtle's enterprise local SEO reporting guide covers building all three levels into one coherent monthly report rather than three disconnected spreadsheets.

FAQ

Is SoLV the same thing as average local pack rank? No. Average rank is a single blended number across all searches; SoLV measures the percentage of grid points where the business achieves a top-3 position, which reveals geographic distribution that an average conceals.

Can competitor SoLV figures add up to more than 100 percent? Yes, and that's expected. Multiple businesses can each rank top-3 at the same grid point depending on the exact search location, so combined competitor SoLV routinely exceeds 100 percent.

Should every keyword count equally in a SoLV calculation? Not if the goal is prioritising optimisation effort. Weighting or segmenting by keyword intent — high-value transactional terms separately from branded or low-value ones — gives a more useful picture than one blended figure.

Angryturtle tracks SoLV for all managed clients in monthly reporting →