Apologies if this is a stupid question.

As I understand it, you're business is ranked higher by distance to the town. For example; 'shoe shops in Brighton'. If you're therefor located in a village 3 miles away, no matter how good your SEO is, of how many times you have 'Brighton' throughout your website, you'll never move up higher (I'm talking about location search only).

And therefore the only only is to pay for google ads.

Have I got that right? Many thanks, Katie