For a lot of local searches, three businesses on a map sit above every website. Here is what decides who gets those spots, and what you can actually change.
To get into the Google map pack you need three things working together: a Google Business Profile that matches the search, a steady flow of genuine reviews, and enough signs around the web that you are a real, busy local business. How close you are to the person searching matters too, and that one you cannot change.
The map pack is the map with three businesses that shows up above the normal results for searches like 'electrician near me', or a trade plus a town. For a lot of trades and clinics, it is where the phone calls come from.
What Google says decides it
Google is fairly open about this. Its own help pages say local results come down to three things: relevance, distance and prominence.
- Relevance. How well your profile matches what somebody searched for. Mostly your categories, your services and your description.
- Distance. How far you are from the person searching, or from the place they typed in.
- Prominence. How well known and well thought of you are. Your reviews, how many and how good, plus mentions of you elsewhere online and the strength of your website.
Two of those you can work on. One you cannot. That is worth knowing before you spend money chasing it.
Distance is the one you cannot fix
If you are based on one side of a city, you will usually show in the map more for people near you than for people across town. That is not a penalty. It is Google trying to show people somebody close.
What you should not do is invent an address to look closer. Virtual offices and fake addresses get profiles suspended, and getting a suspended profile back is a slow, painful job.
If you travel to your customers, set your profile up as a service area business and list the areas you cover. You will still show best near your base, but you are in the running further out.
Relevance: be exactly what they searched for
Your primary category does a lot of the heavy lifting here, and most profiles have it wrong or too broad. We have written a whole post on the profile mistakes we see, so we will not repeat it. The short version: pick the most specific category that fits, list every service, and keep your business name, address and phone identical everywhere.
Prominence: reviews are the lever you control most
Of everything that goes into prominence, reviews are the one you can move fastest. Not by buying them. By asking every customer at the end of every job, with a link that takes them straight to the review box.
Look at the three businesses in the map for your main search. Their review counts are the bar you are being measured against. You do not need to beat the top one overnight. You need to be in the same range, and adding to it every month.
The rest of prominence is the slower stuff. Proper pages on your website for what you do and where you do it. Accurate listings in the directories your customers actually use. Real local mentions, like a supplier's page, a club you sponsor or a piece in the local news. Our local SEO post goes through those in the order we would do them.
Check whether you are actually in it
The map you see on your own phone is built around where you are standing. To know whether your customers see you, you need a search from their town, not yours.
Check your main searches once, write down who is in the map for each, and check again in a month. That tells you whether the work is landing.
Questions people ask
How long does it take to get into the map pack?
It depends how far off you are and how busy your area is. Fixing a broken profile can help fairly quickly. Building up reviews and local mentions is months, not weeks. Anybody promising you a date is guessing.
Does my website matter for the map?
Yes. It is not the main thing, but a site with clear pages for your services and your area helps Google trust that you are what your profile says you are.
Can I pay to be in the map pack?
You can pay for ads that show alongside the map, but the three free spots cannot be bought. They are earned.
