How to Rank Higher in Google Maps
The actions that genuinely help, in order of effect rather than order of ease. It starts with the factor you cannot change, because knowing that first stops you spending money on the thing nobody can sell you.
Start With What You Cannot Change
How close you are to the person searching is one of the three published factors. No action on this page alters it. Establishing that first tells you which searches are realistically winnable, which stops you spending a year trying to win the ones that are not.
What that means for expectations. A realistic range.
You can compete strongly near your premises and you will struggle in towns where somebody closer exists. That is the shape of the opportunity rather than a failure of effort.
Why nobody can guarantee you a position. There is no single one.
Results differ for every searcher depending on where they are standing, so there is no position to hold. Anybody guaranteeing you a place in the top three has not explained where they are measuring from.
What Google says about buying it. You cannot.
Its guidance states there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. That is worth remembering next time somebody offers.
Where the reasoning sits. The previous page.
How Google decides which businesses appear works through all three factors. This page is what to do about the two that respond.
Get The Category Right
If you do one thing, do this. The primary category determines which searches your listing can appear for at all, so nothing further down this page compensates for having it wrong.
What to choose. What you are.
Not what you would like to rank for. The most specific category that genuinely describes your main trade, since specific beats broad wherever a precise option exists.
How to check yours quickly. Look at the field.
Search the terms that matter to you and look at what the listings appearing under them are categorised as. Ten minutes of that beats a week of theory.
What secondary categories are for. Genuine additional services.
Add the ones you really offer rather than everything adjacent. A long list of things you barely touch makes the listing harder to place rather than broader.
How to change it. Once, deliberately.
Category changes can prompt a fresh look at the listing, so make a considered change rather than experimenting weekly. Our optimisation guide covers the whole field in detail.
Complete Everything Else
Most listings that underperform are not badly optimised. They are half filled in. Finishing the fields is duller than any tactic you will be offered and it outperforms nearly all of them.
Services, in your own words. The most underused field.
List everything you genuinely do, in the language customers use, with the short descriptions filled in. Most competitors have two entries and nothing else.
Attributes. The ones nobody scrolls to.
These connect a listing to filtered searches where intent is highest. The available set depends on your category. Claim only what is true.
Hours that are correct. Including the awkward ones.
Bank holidays and seasonal closures. Wrong hours cost you a customer at a locked door, which is worse than any ranking question.
Photographs and a description. Worth doing, not ranking levers.
We are not going to claim these lift your position. They decide whether somebody chooses you once they can see you, which for a trade is worth plenty on its own.
Build Reviews Steadily
Reviews feed into how well known a business is understood to be, which Google's guidance describes as one of the three factors and states that review count and score are factored in. They also decide whether somebody picks you, which is the faster effect.
What steady means. A few a month, indefinitely.
Regular arrivals matter more than bursts, because a business whose newest review is eighteen months old reads as dormant whatever its total is.
How to get them. Ask, before you leave.
In person, at the point the work is finished, with a direct link so it is one tap. That is most of the method and most businesses simply never ask.
What is not allowed. Four things.
No buying, no incentives, no writing them yourself and no asking only the customers likely to be positive. Prohibited rather than discouraged.
What we will not quote you. A number.
There is no review count that unlocks anything. Our guide to reviews and rankings explains why the only useful comparison is against the businesses competing for your searches.
Keep Your Details Consistent Everywhere
Your name, address and phone number should appear the same way wherever your business is listed. Inconsistency makes a business harder to recognise as one entity, which works against the thing you are trying to build.
Where the inconsistencies live. History.
An old address on a directory from three years ago, a former mobile number on a trade listing, a trading name that changed slightly. All of it accumulates quietly.
What to do about it. Fix the ones that matter.
Your own website, your social profiles, trade bodies and any directory a customer would plausibly use. Start there rather than attempting the entire web.
What not to buy. Bulk directory submissions.
Hundreds of low quality entries do not help and inconsistent details across them actively hurt. A handful of accurate relevant listings is worth more than a submission package.
Why we mention it on a maps page. It is part of being known.
Consistency supports how well established the business appears, which is one of the two factors you can actually influence.
The Website Still Matters
A listing pointing at a thin website is weaker than one pointing at a substantial one. The site also does something the listing cannot do at all, which is reach the towns you travel to.
What it contributes here. Being known.
A site with real content about what you do and where gives the business more to be recognised by, which supports the factor that accumulates over time.
What it does that the listing cannot. Geography.
Ordinary results are not governed by how close you are in the way local listings are, so a page genuinely serving somebody in a particular town can rank for it without you being there.
What that requires. Real pages, not templates.
Content about working in that area rather than one page with the town name swapped out. Our location page material covers where that boundary sits.
How to split the effort. Listing first, then the site.
Complete the profile because it is free and works near you, then invest in the website, which is the asset you own and cannot be suspended. That conversation sits in our local SEO material.
What Does Not Work
This is the query where a business is closest to buying something, so it is worth naming what is being sold. Two of these are merely a waste of money. Three put the listing itself at risk.
Keywords in the business name. Against the guidelines.
The commonest breach we see and the easiest thing for a competitor to report. The suspension guide covers what follows.
Addresses you do not trade from. Same category of problem.
No virtual offices, no mailboxes, no relatives' houses and no listing per town you cover. This is the shortcut most often sold as a way round distance.
Bought or incentivised reviews. Detectable and prohibited.
Whatever the seller claims about the accounts being genuine. We will not arrange it for a client under any circumstances.
Guaranteed positions. Not a product that exists.
Nobody controls the outcome and Google says it cannot be paid for. A guarantee is a promise about somebody else's decision.
Posting schedules sold as ranking work. Overstated.
Worth doing if somebody will keep it up. It is not a substitute for the category and services work in blocks two and three. The full series sits on the Google Business Profile guide.
Nobody can
guarantee a
position. We
will not either.
There is no single set of local results, so there is no place to hold. What we can do is the work in the order on this page, tell you which searches are realistically yours and be straight with you when the answer is that your competitor is simply closer to the customer.
The work, in this order:
If somebody has quoted you for top three positions in six towns, ask them where they are measuring from.
Every guide.
One profile.
Getting set up, claiming and verifying, optimising the listing properly, suspensions and reinstatement, reviews, reading the performance data and appearing in the local pack and in Maps.
