The Hidden Metric Behind Why Some Listings Win—and Others Never Show Up
When you're selling local SEO services, the biggest challenge isn’t lack of leads. It’s lack of clarity.
You can identify an unclaimed Google Business Profile in seconds—but how do you know which ones are truly behind the curve? Which ones urgently need your help—and which ones can afford to wait?
That gap in visibility, trust, and reach is often invisible on the surface. But it’s costing your prospects leads—and it’s costing you conversions.
That’s why we built Authority Gap Scoring.
It’s a proprietary model that gives you a real, data-backed benchmark of how far ahead—or behind—each unclaimed listing is, based on its local competitors. For the first time, you can go beyond the “it’s unclaimed” pitch and speak directly to why that matters in terms of actual lost exposure.
The Problem with Pitching in a Vacuum
Selling local SEO is all about timing and relevance. The hard truth? Not every unclaimed profile is a high-opportunity lead. Some already get visibility through citations. Others are entirely invisible in local results.
Yet without a clear scoring mechanism, you’re treating all leads the same—and that’s slowing your close rate.
Authority Gap Scoring changes the game.
It injects local benchmarking intelligence into every single lead. Now, you can instantly see:
- Which businesses have almost no online presence and are trailing badly- Which are mid-tier performers, close to breaking into visibility
- Which already show signs of strength—but are unclaimed and perfect for proactive optimization
It’s not a guess. It’s a data-backed signal that helps you speak with precision, pitch with context, and close with confidence.
What Are We Actually Scoring?
We score each unclaimed listing based on high-trust signals that directly impact local visibility—using metrics even Google pays attention to.
Three core inputs drive the Authority Gap Score:
1. Citation Coverage
We analyze how well the business appears across key platforms like Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places, and industry directories. Lack of citations signals poor authority and inconsistent presence.
2. Map Pack Inclusion
We scan the top 30 local search results for the business’s category and location to identify if the listing appears at all. This is a quick litmus test for competitiveness in their own suburb.
3. NAP Consistency
Name, address, and phone data is compared across all known citations. Mismatches trigger trust loss and drop-off in Google’s local algorithm. Consistency here is often the difference between visibility and obscurity.
These metrics reflect the very infrastructure that local SEO is built on—and when they’re weak, the business is invisible where it matters most.
Benchmarking the Right Way: Locally, Not Broadly
We don’t compare a salon in suburban Phoenix to a clinic in downtown Chicago. That kind of averaging leads to misleading signals.
Instead, each Authority Gap Score is benchmarked against the top 5 performers in the same category and suburb.
That means when a lead scores 42 out of 100, you’re not seeing a raw number—you’re seeing a true gap in competitive visibility in their immediate service area.
It gives you the ammo to say:
“Right now, your business is 58% behind the local average in trust signals—and that's why you're not showing up in the Map Pack.”
Suddenly, the abstract concept of "missing listings" becomes concrete, urgent, and actionable.
How the Score Is Delivered and Used
The Authority Gap Score comes formatted directly inside your lead list—ready for instant use.
Each listing includes:
- A numeric score (0–100) showing how the business stacks up in its suburb and category- A color-coded urgency tag:
- Yellow: Mid-tier with opportunity
- Green: Competitive, high potential
This lets you segment at a glance:
- Sort by score to prioritize high-upside, low-effort wins- Filter out weak leads that would drain time
- Focus on red-tag listings when you need urgency in your pitch
- Target green-tag listings when you’re ready to offer proactive campaigns
It’s sales intelligence, not just lead data.
Real Impact: Proof from the Field
This isn’t theoretical. Our agency partners have used Authority Gap Scoring to sharpen their cold outreach and improve reply rates across the board.
This is what one client reported:
“After using the Gap Score as our primary filter, reply rates jumped by 23%. The language in our cold emails hit harder because it felt specific—even when we used templates.”
— Raj K., Director of Outreach, Local SEO Firm (New Jersey)
Another reported that Authority Gap Scoring cut their SDR time by 20%—just by reducing back-and-forth qualification. Their reps now go into each call already knowing how “behind” a lead is.
No gimmicks. It’s the insight that bridges cold data and real-world urgency.
See the Difference: Sample Output
This ia a real (anonymized) sample from a past batch:
Salon XYZ
- Authority Gap Score: 38/100
- Tag: RED – Lagging
- Signal Summary: 2 citations detected vs. suburb average of 14. Not found in top 30 for “hair salon + [suburb].”
- NAP Status: Inconsistent phone number across listings
That kind of breakdown lets your SDRs walk into every call with a real story to tell.
Why Local SEOs Love It
This feature was built from the ground up based on feedback from real agency teams trying to win more business in increasingly competitive local verticals.
They asked for:
- More insight without more work- Faster lead filtering without missing gems
- A way to tie listing data to sales urgency
Authority Gap Scoring delivers all of it—in a dead-simple format that’s ready on Day One.
If you're running a cold outbound campaign, launching in a new vertical, or building custom pitches for local prospects, this is the difference between "just another unclaimed lead" and "a business that’s bleeding opportunity."
Included in Your Lead List—No Extra Charge
Authority Gap Scoring is automatically included in:
⇒ Prospector Plan (100 leads/week)⇒ Scale Plan (500 leads/week)
It’s formatted right into your sheet, updated weekly, and requires zero extra lift to deploy.
If you already have your own list, pair it with our Niche Trigger Analysis or Hyperlocal Expansion add-ons, and you’ll be holding the most sales-ready local SEO prospecting data available anywhere.
Authority Gap Scoring Pricing
| Plan | Prospector | Agency | Scale | Authority Gap Scoring (Standalone) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price/Month | $299 | $499 | $899 | $149 (one-time) |
| Leads/Week | 100 | 300 | 500 | Up to 50 listings scored |
| Scoring Method | Basic Visibility Index | Full Signal Analysis | AI-Enhanced Gap Scoring | Full Signal + Competitor Overlay |
| Competitor Scope | Top 3 in suburb | Top 5-7 in suburb | Top 10+ incl. micro-niches | Custom benchmark range |
| Delivery Format | Score only | Score + Insights | Score + Strategic Framing | Score, Visuals + Action Notes |
| Support | Priority | Dedicated Account Manager |
Turn Passive Leads Into Active Conversations
You already have access to high-volume unclaimed leads. But to close at scale, you need more than volume—you need visibility into who actually needs you now.
Authority Gap Scoring gives you that clarity—so you can lead with context, pitch with proof, and close more clients who are ready to buy.
Want to start using Authority Gap Scoring in your prospecting this week?
Let your leads speak for themselves. Let the numbers tell the story.
And let your pitch finally land the way it should.