Location is one of the important factors of a website, and this is because search engines have changed how they used to index pages, especially Google.

For example, Google checks the location of blogs or websites using criteria like;

• Location written in the blogs
• Server Location
• Addresses that are written on the website or the blogs, etc

Having said that, search engines try and localize the content these days because of which articles tend to rank as per their locations.

You can check this out by searching certain keywords on Google and then on Duck Duck Go. Google usually filters out content based on the location of the user that is searching. This ensures that relevant search results are displayed to the users who are searching the web.

Although this is helpful for the searchers, this technique usually limits the exposure that people can get if the internet is more open and displays all the results worldwide.

All SEO experts know that local organic searches vary from non-local searches, but that doesn't mean that location is irrelevant to non-local searches. Simply put, location always has at least some effect on what the search results are displaying. 

So, if you are targeting something locally, you can create a business listing on Google, and if you are targeting some international market, then you should add more locations to the website or article.

Having said that you can also ensure that you use a more widely used keyword, that way your chances of going up in SERP will increase as you will not be specifically targeted locally.

This actually shows that location actually affects the search rankings or SEO for any website. But it can be your tool to rank as well, just learn how to use your location for your advantage.