Google Maps website ranking is a vital component to any local SEO strategy. With more and more people searching for products and services online through voice search, businesses need to be ranked well on Google Maps if they want to get views, clicks, and ultimately paying clients. Getting your business in the Google Maps pack can be one of the most competitive parts of local SEO, but it is not impossible to achieve.
One of the first things you should do is make sure your Google My Business profile is filled out completely and accurately. This includes listing all your services and products as well as ensuring your NAP data is consistent across all platforms (website, GMB, etc).
Another way to boost your Google Maps SEO is to optimize your website for local keywords. This will help improve your organic rankings and, in turn, your Google Maps ranking. This can be done by optimizing on-page content, as well as by building links to your site from local directories and other websites that have a high authority.
It is important to note that the factors that go into a business’s Google Maps ranking are slightly different than those that influence its organic ranking. Google looks at both on-page and off-page factors to determine its map ranking, but the most important factors are relevance, distance, and prominence.
Relevance refers to how closely the business matches a user’s search query. It is also influenced by the popularity of the business, its reviews, and how recent those reviews are. Distance refers to how close the business is to the user’s current location. Prominence is the most difficult factor to pin down, but it is supposed to be based on the overall popularity of a business. This is influenced by its organic rankings, review counts on Google My Business and its website, backlinks from authoritative websites in the industry, and its social media presence.
Lastly, it is essential to have your business listed in as many relevant directories as possible. This can be accomplished by submitting listings to your city’s chamber of commerce, visiting local organizations and websites that host business listings, and claiming your listing on major platforms like Bing and Yelp. It is also a good idea to use schema markup on your website to make it easier for Google to understand the information you are presenting. Make sure the schema is correctly implemented, as errors can negatively impact your Maps ranking. You can check the validity of your structured data with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.