How to rank higher on Google Maps

The short answer

Google ranks local results on three things: relevance, distance and popularity. You can't move your business closer to every customer, so the work goes into the other two. In order:

1. Find out where you rank today, from more than one spot. One search from your desk tells you almost nothing.
2. Get your primary category right. Google says the categories you select affect your local ranking.
3. Complete every part of the profile that applies. Hours, services, description, attributes, photos and a verified address or service area.
4. Close the review gap with the businesses above you. Ask every customer, every week, and never pay for reviews.
5. Make your website and other listings agree with your profile. Same name, address and phone everywhere, and a page that says what you do and where.

And skip the shortcuts. Keywords in your business name, fake addresses and extra profiles can work for a while, then cost you the whole profile.

What decides who ranks on Google Maps?

Google's help page on local ranking, Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity. The section that explains the third one is headed "Prominence", so you'll see both words. It also says plainly: "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google."

Google doesn't publish how much each factor weighs, and it keeps the details of the algorithm confidential. Surveys of local SEO practitioners try to rank the factors, but they record what experts believe, not what Google measures. Read them as opinions.

Two things follow from Google's own description. First, distance is often the biggest reason two people see different results, and it's the one you control least. Second, relevance and prominence are mostly about information: what your profile and your website say, and what the rest of the web says about you.

Step 1: How do you check where you rank?

Before you change anything, measure. Your rank depends on where the searcher is, so you need several readings, not one.

Find the searches that matter

If your profile is verified, Google shows you the search terms people used to find it. Google's help page Understand your Business Profile performance describes it: go to your Business Profile, click Performance, and look at Searches. Google updates that list at the start of each month, and it can take up to 5 days to appear. Pick the two or three searches that bring paying customers, like "emergency plumber" rather than your own name.

Search from several points

A geo-grid (or rank grid) is the tool version of this: a grid of points around your business, a search for your keyword at each point, and your position recorded at each one. The result is a map that shows where you're in the top three and where you vanish.

You can do a rough version by hand in half an hour:

1. Write down five to nine spots: your street, then a mile or two out in each direction, and the neighborhoods your customers come from.
2. Ask friends or staff who live there to search your keyword in the Google Maps app and send a screenshot, or search from there yourself when you pass by.
3. Record your position at each spot (write "not found" if you aren't in the first 20), plus the three businesses that rank first.
4. Repeat once a month with the same spots and the same keyword, so you compare like with like.

Example (fictional): a dental practice ranks first on its own block and in the next two streets, but doesn't appear a mile east, where a competitor with three times the reviews sits. That gap is information you can act on. One search from the front desk would have shown only the good news.

Step 2: Is your primary category right?

Categories are the relevance signal you control most directly. Google's help page on managing your business category says: "The categories you select affect your local ranking on Google." It asks for the most specific category that describes your business, with the example "instead of 'Salon,' choose 'Nail salon.'"

Look at the three businesses that outrank you for your main search. If they all use a more specific primary category than you, that alone can explain a lot. Add additional categories only for things your business really is, not for every service: Google's guidelines for representing your business say to use as few categories as possible to describe your core business, and not to use categories as keywords.

One warning from the same help page: if you add or edit a category, Google may ask you to verify the business again. Change it when it's wrong, not to test what happens. Our guide to Google Business Profile categories covers how to pick them and how to see your competitors' categories.

Step 3: Is every part of your profile filled in?

Google says that "businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results", and that verifying tells Google you're authorized to represent the business, "so it's more likely to show up in search results". Both lines are from its local ranking help page. Go through this list on your profile:

• The profile is verified. If it isn't, start with our guide to Google Business Profile verification.
• The name is your real-world name. Exactly as on your sign, with nothing added.
• The address or service area is accurate. A storefront shows its address; a business that travels to customers hides it and sets a service area.
• Hours are right, including special hours. Google names hours, including special hours, among the details to provide.
• Services and the description say what you do. In plain words a customer would use. Google's guidelines don't allow links, prices or promotions in the description.
• Attributes are set. Google gives parking and Wi-Fi as examples.
• There are real photos. Of the place, the team and the work. Google lists adding photos and videos among its tips, to show customers what you offer.

Our guide on how to edit your Google Business Profile shows where each of these lives, and which edits Google reviews before they go live.

Step 4: How many reviews do you need to rank?

Google doesn't give a number. What it does say, on its local ranking page, is that prominence is based partly on how many reviews you have, and that "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking."

So the useful target is relative: the businesses that rank above you for your main search. Note their review count and rating. If, for example, the top three have 120 to 200 reviews and you have 15, you know the size of the gap, and you know it won't close in a week. A steady habit of asking every customer beats a one-off campaign, and it keeps your newest reviews recent.

Our guide on how to get more Google reviews has the scripts and the rules. The free review link and QR code generator gives you the link to send, and the Google review calculator shows how many 5-star reviews it takes to move your rating.

Replies are a separate question. Google lists replying among its tips because it shows you value feedback and helps you stand out, but it doesn't name replies as a ranking factor. Reply for the customers who read your reviews.

Step 5: Do your website and other listings back up your profile?

Your profile isn't the only thing Google reads. Its help page on how Google sources business information says profiles are compiled from several sources, including crawled web content such as your official website and licensed data from third parties. Its guidelines add that Google can detect category information "from your website and from mentions about your business throughout the web." And prominence counts how many websites link to your business.

In practice, that means three jobs:

• Give each main service a clear page on your website. Say what you do and where you do it, with the same name, address and phone as your profile. Link your profile to the page that fits it best.
• Add LocalBusiness structured data. Google's LocalBusiness structured data documentation says you can use it to tell Google about business hours, departments and more. Our free local business schema generator writes the code for you.
• Keep your other listings consistent. Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp, Facebook and your industry's directories should show the same details as your Google profile. Our guide to free business listing sites covers which ones matter.

Real links help too: a local newspaper story, a sponsorship page, a supplier or trade association that lists you. Google doesn't say how much each link is worth, so earn the ones that make sense for a real business, and don't buy them.

What doesn't work, or gets you suspended?

Some tactics come up in every forum thread about ranking. Google's guidelines rule them out:

• Keywords in the business name. Google says your name should reflect your real-world name, and that unnecessary information in it "could result in the suspension of your Business Profile". Its examples: "TD Bank", not "TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank"; "Midas", not "Midas Auto Service Experts".
• Addresses you don't operate from. A virtual office or a rented mailing address isn't eligible for a profile, and neither is a co-working desk without signage and staff.
• Extra profiles for the same business. Google says there should be one profile per business, and not more than one per location. Duplicates split your reviews and can sink both listings; see our guide to duplicate Google Business Profiles.
• A service area drawn across the whole state. Google says a service area shouldn't extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where you're based. A bigger area doesn't move you closer to anyone.
• Bought or rewarded reviews. They break Google's rules; our guide to fake Google reviews covers what Google does about them.

If your profile has disappeared rather than dropped, the cause is usually something else: verification, a suspension or a duplicate. Our guide on why a business isn't showing on Google helps you tell which.

How do you keep your ranking once you move up?

Ranking is a moving target. Competitors collect reviews, new businesses open, and Google builds profiles partly from what users contribute, so details can change without you. A short monthly routine keeps you ahead of most of that:

1. Check your rank at the same spots, for the same two or three searches.
2. Compare your review count, rating and categories with the three businesses above you.
3. Check your profile for changes you didn't make, and fix them.
4. Fix one gap, the biggest one first, then check again next month.

Mekomi's ranking diagnosis does this for you: it checks your rank on a grid across your area every week, compares your profile with the businesses that outrank you, and turns the gaps into a short list of fixes. Mekomi's ranking diagnosis covers businesses in Israel for now; review replies, posts and photos work for any business on Google.