So, I set out to discover if this strategy could impact local rankings and, more importantly, if other local businesses could replicate it. Bad News: Distance Is An Important Ranking FactorMost restaurants will not rank as the best restaurants near me unless they are physically located near the search user’s location. With hundreds of thousands of monthly searches for terms like best restaurants, best breakfast, best food, etc., near me, it’s hard not to want to optimize for those phrases. The better news is there are ways to help local businesses boost relevancy and prominence using popular keyword phrases. While distance remains an immutable factor, there are other creative strategies that local businesses can employ to optimize for near me and other local search terms.