How likely it is to rank both locally and organically

[echo1]

I think the question summarizes it pretty well. Did anybody experienced this, to rank for one or multiple keywords in both local and organic search results?

[WilliamCarr]

It's certainly possible, but not the norm.

Check out this post from earlier today: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/is-your-website-being-replaced-with-google-plus-local-listings

[echo1]

Great resource William, thanks!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Echo,

Double and even triple first page rankings were common for dominant businesses prior to the Venice update about a year ago. Now, it is extremely uncommon for any local business to have more than one page one ranking. If they have a local ranking, they probably won't also have an organic one for the same keyword and vice versa. There are some exceptions to this, but they are very few and far between.

[echo1]

What makes Google choose when to show a local listing vs an organic one?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Echo,

I don't have an exact answer for this, as I imagine there would be a variety of factors involved. However, over the past year, we've had tons of questions from local business owners here in Q&A wondering why their organic ranking had 'disappeared'. Pretty much every time, it was because they had claimed a Google Place/Google+ Local listing, resulting in the previous organic rank being subsumed into the new local one. So, their rankings hadn't really been lost; they had been converted into a new local listing, the rankings of which depend, in part, on organic signals.

And, of course, Google only shows a set number of first page local results for each query (be that 3 or 7 or what have you) and so other businesses will fall outside that limited number and may only have an organic rank on the page.