The local pack occupies a prominent position in search engine result pages (SERP), and ranking in this pack can mean more clicks, more discovery, and ultimately, more revenue for local businesses. While Google does not reveal the exact formula that determines local map rankings, there are many factors known to influence it.
One of the most important is relevance, and it’s a factor that relates to how closely your business matches a user’s query. Then there’s proximity, which refers to how close you are to the searcher, and lastly, prominence, a factor that Google claims measures how well-known your business is. Prominence can be influenced by your website organic positions, GMB reviews and ratings, social media profiles, backlinks, and your brand’s overall online reputation.
Filling out your GMB profile to completion, ensuring that the basic business information is correct and updated, and having a solid backlink strategy are all important elements for a high Google Maps ranking. However, these are only a small part of the equation. According to Bright Local, a local SEO agency, other important factors include having professional photos of your location and business, responding to reviews (both good and bad) and promoting the listing with ads.
Using keywords that are relevant to your business is another important factor. If you are not targeting the right keywords, you can end up competing with businesses that are more suited to the searcher’s needs, and this can have a negative impact on your Maps ranking.
It’s also crucial to maintain consistency across all online platforms and directories. When a search reveals several listings for a single business, each with consistent and accurate information, it signals to Google that the business is active and engaged online.
Aside from this, it’s also critical to encourage customers to leave a review on your GMB listing and respond to those reviews. Whether they are positive or negative, it’s important to respond quickly and thoughtfully to build trust with prospective customers. This type of engagement can improve your Maps rank and even impact search results for non-Maps queries.
Finally, it’s worth taking the time to promote your Google My Business listing on your website and in your print and digital marketing. According to a study by Brandify, businesses that are promoted on Google My Business see a 45% increase in call-ins and 20% boost in website traffic.
A tool like Semrush’s Listing Management can help you get a more detailed look at how your business ranks in the local pack, so you can reliably track the impact of your optimization efforts. The tool lets you input your NAP and business name as well as a keyword, then displays your results on a map. You can also compare your results to those of your competitors. The best feature of this tool is that you can export the results to CSV for future reference.