Ranking higher on Google offers a range of major benefits for your company, but aiming for something more specific can also be valuable.
Google Maps has become a popular tool and a great marketing opportunity. A higher rank on Google Maps can push your business listing up, ensuring more customers see it. This may not skyrocket your business growth, but it’s still invaluable.
Google Maps business listings are easy to create, and having one is better than ignoring the platform.
Knowing how to rank higher can take your listing from good to amazing with a few small tweaks.
Here is how ranking higher on Google Maps helps, how to rework your business listings to increase ranking, and other methods to market your business through Google Maps.
Understanding the importance of a higher rank on Google Maps can open up new opportunities for your business.
Why Should You Rank Higher on Google Maps?
Google Maps is a crucial tool for almost 70% of internet users who rely on it for navigation. A prominent listing on Google Maps can significantly boost your business’s visibility, reaching a substantial portion of search traffic. When users search for directions, Google Maps provides them with various local business options, making it essential for local businesses to be listed.
Moreover, Google Maps is directly integrated into Google search results. If someone searches for “restaurants near me,” relevant local businesses with Google Maps listings will appear. This integration highlights the importance of having a strong presence on Google Maps.
But what makes Google Maps so impactful compared to direct advertising on other Google platforms or other search engines?
To truly grasp the benefits, we need to examine how businesses can effectively utilize this platform to their advantage.
Usage
Google Maps owes nearly 85% of its success to “discovery” searches, where listings show up because of keywords potential customers use. This makes Google Maps a highly effective advertising tool when used correctly.
Many SEO and digital marketing techniques for the main search engine also apply to Google Maps, with some adjustments for its specific functionality. Listings on Google Maps can also appear in regular Google search results, providing double exposure.
Therefore, a single Google Maps business listing can be a powerful tool for promotion, one that local businesses should always utilize.
To make the most of this potential, understanding the broader aspects of local marketing becomes essential.
Local Marketing
Google Maps offers a unique advantage for businesses with physical locations. A local business can have a listing that directs users to their building. At the same time, a larger company or chain can point customers to their nearest location.
These local listings are valuable as they appear in both Google Maps and regular Google search results. They can become a core part of your sales funnel and a great source of lead-generation opportunities.
This ease of access provided by local listings not only boosts visibility but also simplifies the customer journey, paving the way for more efficient interactions with potential clients.
Ease of Access
Google Maps is very user-friendly and quick to set up. If you already have a Google Maps business listing, minimal effort is needed to optimize your presence. This ensures your business is readily accessible to customers. Since Google Maps is integrated into Google, it reaches a vast audience, even those not specifically using the Maps platform.
Enhancing your listings and visibility can significantly boost customer engagement, maximizing this potential.
Improving Your Google Maps Business Listings And Ranking
To rank higher on Google Maps, you need to know which techniques and tricks can improve your position. Rankings are determined by data and algorithms, which you can leverage for better marketing success.
So, how can you enhance your Google Maps rankings, especially if you’re not familiar with the ranking factors for each listing? Understanding these elements can help you achieve better visibility and attract more customers.
Building a strong local presence is key. By effectively reaching out to nearby businesses and potential customers, you can further enhance your strategy.
Marketing to Local Business Audiences
If your business focuses on a specific area, prioritizing Google local search results is essential. Whether you’re a national business owner creating local landing pages for different markets or a local business owner targeting your town, there are many ways to optimize your local marketing efforts.
Google aims to display the best match for a customer’s search, often highlighting businesses near their location. This makes local search results a powerful tool for marketing. To rank higher in Google Maps, enhance your SEO, create local landing pages, and add photos of your business.
While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all schema, adding relevant local keywords can significantly boost your ranking. One effective strategy to enhance visibility involves leveraging a specific feature available through Google.
Create a Google Maps Business Listing
If you don’t have a Google Maps business listing yet, it’s essential to create one. There are no downsides to listing your business, especially if you’re a local business relying on in-store activity. First, check if your business already has a listing; if it does, you can claim it by providing proof of ownership. If it doesn’t exist, you can create one from scratch.
Anyone can create a listing, but only the business owner can claim it. Claiming involves sending proof of ownership to Google, which grants you full control over the listing. Unclaimed listings are typically just markers with addresses, but claimed ones could be far more detailed. Remember, you’ll need a Google My Business account to claim it.
Now that your business is listed, it’s time to focus on something equally important: optimizing it for search engines.
Practicing SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is a powerful way to improve your Google Maps rankings. With SEO, you can boost your website’s rank on Google and other platforms, including Google Maps. Google map listing SEO can be challenging, but it’s one of the best methods for achieving excellent advertising results and a stronger online presence.
Enhancing your website’s SEO is beneficial, but it’s equally important to optimize your Google My Business listing. By using the right keywords and adding effective marketing phrases to your listing, you can make a significant impact.
You want your Google My Business listing to drive sales and enhance brand awareness. Even if someone doesn’t click on your listing, it should leave a lasting impression that leads to future conversions.
To further enhance your listing’s effectiveness, consider adding more details to your Google Maps entry. This approach ensures your listing stands out and attracts more potential customers.
Adding More Google Maps Listing Details
Add more information to rank higher on Google Maps. More details can attract more customers and improve your listing’s ranking. Like the regular Google platform, Google Maps ranks listings based on completeness, consistency, and other factors. Adding detailed information can boost your ranking.
Regularly updating your Google My Business listing is crucial. Many small businesses overlook fully updating their profiles. Keeping your information clear and consistent is simple but often neglected. A listing without useful details won’t rank well.
Essential details like business description, contact info, and hours are critical. These are the first things consumers check, and making a good first impression is vital. Google Maps might be how many consumers first discover your business. A clear description can clarify what your business offers and make a subtle sales pitch. Describe your business accurately, list product types, and include a call to action. Check how competitors describe themselves and use popular keywords.
For even better results, other aspects of your profile can significantly enhance your listing and attract potential customers.
Adding Optimized and High-Quality Images
Adding clear, high-quality images can make a big difference for local businesses, especially in local SEO. By choosing the right images, your business listing can significantly improve. Relevant and high-quality images are crucial for building an attractive Google Maps profile. It’s not always easy to use them correctly, but it pays off.
Upload images that represent your business and the products or services you offer. For example, a restaurant might share photos of its dishes, while a supermarket might post images of its aisles.
These images not only enhance your SEO within Google’s algorithm but also appeal to potential customers. Replacing the default Google map image with custom photos gives customers a quick preview of what your business offers.
This approach turns your business listing into a powerful marketing tool rather than just a background detail in a Google search. Your Google Maps listing can appear in regular searches, showcasing an image that best represents your business.
Just as images can elevate your business profile, there are other tweaks you can make to further enhance your online presence.
Changing Your URL
Changing your Google My Business URL can be a simple yet effective adjustment that yields substantial benefits. For example, replacing an auto-generated string of numbers with your business name or a key service you offer can improve your SEO. This change is easy to implement and doesn’t interfere with your existing efforts. Ensure your URL aligns with your branding for optimal SEO results.
This straightforward tweak can boost your online presence, but there’s more to consider when enhancing your digital strategy. To truly excel, it’s important to focus on reaching the right audience.
Focusing On The Right Target Audience
If you’re unsure how to rank higher on Google Maps with your current audience, consider targeting a different one. A Google Maps listing is flexible, and your Google My Business profile might benefit from reaching out to another group.
For example, local SEO and local search results can be effective. Still, you might need to adjust where that local SEO is aimed. Local search results aren’t limited to your town; you can expand to nearby towns and cities.
Higher Google Maps rankings can sometimes be achieved by shifting your focus. Even changing your current local keywords and SEO strategy can help target relevant audiences more receptive to your advertising.
Most business owners don’t fully understand their target audience. To improve your Google Maps rankings, you might need to make significant changes or experiment in new ways. This process can also reveal how to leverage positive feedback from customers.
Using Good Reviews
Any business can set up a Google My Business page. Still, customer reviews are unique because you can’t create them yourself. Positive reviews greatly influence both local SEO and your Google Maps ranking. Encouraging more good reviews can improve your position on Google Maps and increase the visibility of your business to potential customers.
Higher rankings on Google Maps mean more customers are likely to see your business and visit your site or contact you. Many customers choose businesses based on reviews, so good reviews can drive unexpected traffic to your site.
It’s crucial to ask for reviews at the right moment, ideally right after a positive experience like delivery or purchase. The more positive reviews you gather, the higher your Google My Business listing will rank.
But what about when the feedback isn’t so positive?
Dealing with Bad Reviews
Not all reviews are positive, and handling negative reviews is crucial. Reviews significantly impact local search rankings and your business’s online reputation, so addressing them promptly is essential to avoid harm.
If you receive a negative review, reach out to the reviewer and offer a solution. This could be a refund, a replacement, or another form of compensation. This approach showcases your customer service skills and can turn a negative review into a positive one if the compensation is satisfactory.
In some industries, a review highlighting your excellent problem resolution can be more valuable than a regular positive review, demonstrating your response to challenging situations.
However, there are times when negative reviews can’t be resolved. Removing them is unethical, so leave them up and don’t stress too much. No business is perfect, and a few negative reviews can enhance the credibility of your review profile. An all-positive review profile, especially for a new company, can seem suspicious.
Ensuring your business information is accurate and engaging can also help in managing your online reputation effectively.
Making The Most of Your Google My Business Profile
Even if you understand the basics of ranking higher on Google Maps, knowing how to apply these strategies is crucial. A well-optimized Google My Business profile can significantly enhance your visibility. Still, there are ways to make it even more effective.
Build Backlinks
Backlinks may seem minor, but they can enhance the utility of your Google My Business profile. Creating Google posts on your account is often overlooked but is a powerful technique. For instance, you can use these posts to create backlinks to your main website.
If the post is relevant to your site, backlinking from your Google My Business account to your website can boost your SEO. However, it’s important to do it correctly because many Google URLs are nofollow to prevent misuse.
Linking back to your website frequently can’t hurt. If your business page boosts your SEO, great. If not, you still have another link that might attract new visitors.
Stay Consistent with Your Business Website
Consistency between your Google My Business profile and your website is crucial. While you shouldn’t copy content word-for-word, maintaining a consistent brand image helps with SEO and avoids confusing consumers. Many businesses neglect their Google My Business page, leaving outdated logos or incorrect business names, causing confusion that often goes unresolved.
Ensuring your Google My Business account accurately represents your business, from the name to business hours, is essential. Incorrect information can lead to unhappy customers and negative reviews.
Engage with Consumers
Avoid staying detached from your customers. While Google Maps isn’t a social media platform, you can still engage with your audience. Google notices your interactions, whether responding to reviews or mentioning local events. Adding local keywords, like partnerships with charities, can make a significant difference.
Engagement is vital, especially for local businesses with a limited customer base. Appearing in local search results is great, but you need to stand out. Some users search for businesses to learn more, and you want to make a good first impression. Regularly responding to reviews and answering questions can encourage potential customers to reach out.
By focusing on these strategies, you can maximize your Google My Business profile’s potential. Additionally, there are several other techniques you can explore to further improve your ranking and visibility on Google Maps.
Other Ways to Improve Rank on Google Maps
When you are looking at your rank on Google Maps, you might feel like there are only a few specific strategies that work. However, there are a lot of smaller details that many people overlook that can help you rank higher on Google Maps – and others that are just nice to include.
While not all of these lesser-known options will directly help you rank higher in Google Maps overall, it is still a good idea to look for constant sources of improvement on your Google business profile. The more positive changes you can make, the more ways you can draw new customers in.
Local Information for Local Search Results
Never hesitate to add more details for local search results, such as a local phone number for a particular branch of your business. This makes contact easier and means that people using mobile devices can call your business directly if they choose to.
Using a local phone number removes the requirement to constantly redirect people to other branches or offices. Even if you only have one office, you might have multiple phones for different departments, so using a phone number that suits the profile is a great way to reduce overall hassle.
Improving your Google local ranking results is as simple as focusing on the local elements of your business listing. Google Maps search results appearances are very specific, so you will appear in local search results as long as somebody in your local area searches for you.
Accuracy
You should be consistent and accurate with all of your details. Whether it is your overall business category or your website URL, you want to keep all information correct whenever possible.
Your Google Maps search results listing relies on your business data, primarily those that you add yourself. You need to add photos, website link details, and possibly even a clarified business name – all Google Maps ads are the Google reviews and the Google Map.
Auto-generated results, or listings created by people ahead of time, may not be completely accurate. Check the business name, correct it if necessary, and ensure that the business category is correct – having the wrong primary category might cause SEO problems until you change to the correct business category option.
Planning
Do not rush headfirst into fooling around with details that you are not prepared to think over. Search engines are very sensitive to changes, and it only takes one mistake to push you out of local search results.
Even changing your business’s primary category, adding detail to your business name, or tweaking your website link can have a minor impact on whether you rank higher on Google Maps than expected.
Take your time and think over every change you make. Even if you are desperate to rank higher in Google Maps and Google local search results, you need to be sure that everything you do will contribute positively to that goal.
Even if you are just using your plan as a general guideline, it is going to help you figure out how you want to proceed with future changes to your listings. Having some kind of plan is always better than trying to market your business with no defined end goal.
Goals
Always set goals for yourself and your company when possible. Without a clear goal, it becomes much harder to keep yourself on track, and it can be far too easy to slip into using every marketing method you can think of.
By having a clear goal, you can focus your attention and energy on the things that matter most. This makes it much easier to limit your efforts to marketing methods that would make practical sense, keeping you on target and making sure you know what you want to achieve next.
Your business will always be improving and expanding, and that means that goals change. Even so, a short-term goal can be more important than you might think when it comes to marketing.
Should I Hire a Link Building Agency to Improve My Google Maps Ranking?
Hiring a link-building agency can boost your Google Maps ranking. Link building means getting high-quality backlinks from well-known websites to your site. This raises your website’s authority and tells Google that your business is trustworthy and important.
A skilled link-building agency knows how to find and secure these links using hard and time-consuming methods for a business owner to do alone. They also keep up with the latest SEO trends and rules, making sure your strategy works and follows Google’s guidelines.
By hiring a link-building agency, you can gain more online visibility, better search engine rankings, and more traffic and customers to your business.
As we consider how to maximize these benefits, it’s important to look at why partnering with Searcharoo can be a game-changer for enhancing your Google Maps ranking.
Why Choose Searcharoo as Your Trusted Partner for Google Maps Ranking Enhancement?
Choosing Searcharoo as your partner for boosting your Google Maps ranking brings many benefits. Searcharoo has a strong history of helping businesses improve online visibility through targeted SEO and link-building techniques.
Our team knows local SEO and the key factors affecting Google Maps rankings. We provide personalized strategies that suit your business, ensuring your Google My Business profile is optimized. We prioritize transparency and communication, keeping you updated on our progress and results.
Our approach covers keyword optimization and reputation management, helping your business rank higher and attract more local customers. With Searcharoo, you gain an edge in local SEO, setting the stage for our final thoughts on achieving lasting success in this area.
Concluding Insights
All the advice here is great for marketing your business through Google Maps and Google My Business and tailoring your site to ensure those platforms can properly support it. Of course, this is not the end of your marketing journey.
Whether you want to overhaul your business name and branding or just change how you market yourself, you will want to keep changing your marketing. No industry is completely stagnant, and you need to keep adjusting your marketing to match current industry trends.
Beyond that, building a recognizable business name brand is not easy. There are many ways to get your name out there, from putting yourself in local directories to optimizing your site and business map listing to appear for mobile device users.
What matters is that your business can grow. A good business listing provides countless opportunities to gain more customers, either by diving deeper into your current niche or spreading out to gather attention from new markets. How you choose to handle this depends on how you manage your company’s image and what your goals are.
