Local SEO: how to show up on Google Maps when people search nearby

What is local SEO?

Local SEO is the set of work that gets a business into the results with a map when somebody searches for a service near their location. It is not the same game as ordinary SEO. A handful of businesses from one area compete, and something that does not exist in classic search carries weight: where the person searching is standing.

Those results have two shop windows. The block of three cards with a map near the top, and the full Google Maps listing when somebody opens the app. Both are ordered on the same criteria.

The difference from ordinary search is one of volume and intent. There are fewer competitors, and somebody searching this way is usually about to call or to go. A map position converts far better than an equivalent position in the ordinary blue results.

What does Google look at to order the map?

Google publishes the three factors in its own documentation, without weightings or formula. They are relevance, distance and prominence, and each is worth understanding because only two are in your hands.

Relevance is, in Google's words, how well a Business Profile matches what somebody is searching for. It improves with complete and detailed information. The right primary category, services listed, real opening hours and a description using the customer's words rather than the trade's.

The primary category is the single most decisive choice in the whole profile, and the one we most often find wrong. A centre offering physiotherapy and pilates cannot be both in the primary category. Pick the ground you want to compete on and leave the other as secondary.

Distance is how far each business is from the person searching. Google uses their known location. This cannot be worked on: a garage in one town will not outrank a nearer one for somebody searching from another, however good the profile.

Prominence is how well known the business is. It depends on things happening outside the profile: links pointing at the business, mentions and the number of reviews. This is where most positions are decided between businesses that are equally close.

Can you pay to rank first?

No, and Google says so explicitly: there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Worth knowing, because companies do call offering exactly that, often implying they work for Google.

What does exist is advertising on the map, labelled as such above the results. That is a different thing: it is marked as an ad and paid per click or per call. Mixing the two ideas is the source of half the confusion on this subject.

First: the Business Profile, done properly

The profile is the centrepiece, and there are requirements before starting. Google requires the business to have a physical location customers can visit, or to travel to where the customers are. A purely online business is not eligible.

For businesses that travel, such as plumbers, engineers or builders, there is a specific mode. You set a service area, limited to roughly two hours' drive from the base, and hide the address if you work from home.

The name is where most people gamble. Google prohibits marketing slogans, phone numbers, web addresses, legal terms and opening or location information in the business name. Its own example makes it clear. A coffee shop called Shelly's Coffee open around the clock enters «Shelly's Coffee», not «Shelly's Coffee Open 24 Hours».

I say it plainly because the practice is widespread. Adding the city or the service to the name works in the short term and breaks the rules. Google reserves the right to suspend access, and a suspension keeps a business off the map for weeks while the appeal runs.

Reviews, where prominence is won

Google states that more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking. It adds something people skip over: replying to reviews shows you value customer feedback, and that helps the business stand out.

What works is a system, not a campaign. Ask at the point of greatest satisfaction, usually right as the job ends, with a short direct link. Asked three days later by email, the response rate collapses.

Three things are worth avoiding however often they are offered. Buying reviews, asking in exchange for a discount, or filtering who gets asked based on how happy they seem. The first two are grounds for sanction, and the third produces an artificially high average that customers can smell.

The profile also takes photos, posts and questions, and almost nobody keeps them up. Photos of the premises, the team and finished work are what somebody looks at when choosing between two businesses with the same rating. Posts expire after seven days, so they need a routine: one a month with something real beats ten in a week and nothing for six months.

The website counts too, and gets forgotten

The profile does not stand alone. The website carries relevance and much of the prominence, and three things make the difference.

1. One page per service and per real working area, each with its own content. Duplicating the same page with a different city name does not count.
2. Contact details written identically everywhere: same name, same address and same phone on the website, the profile and any directory listing.
3. Local business structured data, which states explicitly what the text only implies. It is the same work covered in structured data.

A slow website costs you too. On mobile, where almost all local searching happens, the visitor leaves before it loads. That is what Core Web Vitals are about.

In what order is it worth doing?

Order matters because some things pay off in weeks and others in months. This is the sequence we follow, from most to least return per hour spent.

1. Complete the profile fully: category, services, hours, area, photos and questions.
2. Set up the review system and start replying to all of them, the bad ones included.
3. Build or rebuild the website's service pages, one per service.
4. Fix the contact details wherever they do not match.
5. Post on the profile regularly and watch the questions people leave.

The first two usually move things within four to six weeks. The rest work on a longer horizon, and they are what holds the position when the competitor next door starts trying too.

When local SEO will not save you

There are situations where this returns little, and it is worth saying before charging for it. When the business sits far from where its customers live, because distance does not negotiate. When the average rating is below four stars, because then the problem is the service rather than the profile. And when the sector is saturated on that particular street, where advertising may pay better while prominence is built.

In those cases the honest conversation is a different one. Widen the area, fix whatever is generating the bad reviews, or invest in campaigns while the underlying work matures.

Where to start

Search your most profitable service followed by your city, from a phone and signed out. Look at who fills the three map cards, how many reviews each has and what rating. That is your starting scoreboard and it tells you how far there is to go. If the three above you have two hundred reviews and you have twelve, you already know the first job, and it is not the website. If you want us to look at it with you, it sits inside SEO.

Frequently asked questions