How to rank higher on Google Maps

Google’s help centre defines each factor in a sentence.

• Relevance: how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for.
• Distance: how far each business is from the person searching.
• Prominence: how well known the business is, which Google ties to things such as links to its website and its number of reviews.

Distance is fixed. A business ten miles from the searcher is at a disadvantage against one a mile away, and no setting alters that. The address on the profile has to be the real one. A false address breaks Google’s guidelines and risks the profile, as why a Google Business Profile is not showing up explains.

Relevance is the match between the profile and the search, and most of it is in your hands.

• Choose the most specific primary category that fits.
• List every service by the name customers use.
• Fill in the description, the hours and the attributes.
• Keep the information correct, complete and current, which is Google’s own first tip.

Our guide to optimising a Google Business Profile works through each field.

Prominence is reputation as Google can measure it.

• Reviews: ask every customer, and reply to each one. Google advises replying.
• Photographs and videos: Google lists adding them among its tips.
• Links: other local websites linking to yours, such as suppliers, trade bodies and local press.
• The website itself: a site that ranks in ordinary search lends weight to the profile attached to it.

Google’s first tip is to verify the business. An unverified profile is not shown, so nothing else on this list counts until that is done.

The profile is half of local search. The page it links to is the other half: a page for each service and each area served, with the same name, address and phone number as the profile. Our local SEO checklist covers both halves together.