How to Get Better Visibility on the Maps

I’m sorry to start this way, but I have bad news for you. You ready?

It’s pretty likely your prospective customers don’t know who you are.

I know, I know. Ouch. 

That’s true even if you’ve done billboards… invested in vehicle wraps… have the spiffiest uniforms in the ‘hood… take out ads in the hometown newspaper. I know you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true.

Now, I’m not necessarily saying those marketing efforts are a waste of money (although they might be if you’re approaching them all willy-nilly). I’m just saying you can’t rely on brand-recognition alone to bring you leads.

And I can say that with absolute confidence because 46% of searches on Google are “local searches.” Those are searches that end with phrases like “near me.” 

So, for example, nearly half of the people who need your services are typing “plumber near me” or “electrician near me.” And they’re typing that because they don’t know any plumbers or electricians by name.

And now for the good news…

Without a whole lot of effort or money, you can be one of the shops that shows up in the local search results, otherwise known as the Map Pack. That’s a big deal, because people tend to click on those listings more than the ads above them.

In this post, you’ll learn how to show up more often and in a better spot in the Map Pack.

Relevance + Prominence + Distance

Your overall organic rank on the search engine results page (SERP) is determined by an ungodly number of factors. Your map rank, on the other hand, is determined by just eight, the most important of which are “signals” from your Google My Business (GMB) listing.

For local search, the three signals from GMB that matter the most are:

1. Relevance
2. Prominence
3. Distance

So let’s unpack each of these, and I’ll give you some quick to-dos that’ll improve your map rank in no time.

Relevance

Relevance refers to how closely your GMB listing matches a person’s search terms. 

Although you obviously can’t control what someone types into Google, you can, based on what you know about your current customers, make really good assumptions. Then, you just have to make sure your GMB listing is optimized for those searches.

In particular, make sure you’re squared away when it comes to:

1. Business category. Choose the category (or categories) that best represent your business, such as HVAC Contractor or Electrician. And don’t just stop with the high-level category; also select relevant sub-categories. As Google explains, this should tell people what your business is not what your business does. You’ll get to that in the next step.
2. Services. Based on the categories you choose, you’ll see lists of related service options—and you can type in your own, too.  It’s worth your time to be extraordinarily thorough here. If a prospective customer searches for “water heater repair near me” your listing will be more relevant if you’ve listed those words in your services section.
   
   A word of caution: Don’t go overboard. Google doesn’t like it when businesses stuff keywords into their GMB profiles. So, for example, avoid using “water heater repair” and “water heater service” and “water heater parts” and “water heater contractor.” Mkay? One “water heater” is good.
   
   

Prominence

The prominence signal is related to how well-known your business is.

Obviously, Google can’t see your billboards, trucks, spiffy uniforms, and hometown newspaper ads. So I’m talking about your digital notoriety here.

The search engine will crawl the whole web to determine how up to snuff you are, but for local searches it’ll mostly have a peek at your GMB profile. 

Here’s how to optimize GMB for prominence signals:

1. Get more reviews and rankings. Reviews are critically important—critically important—to your maps rank. If you’ve not already made it a standard practice to ask current customers for reviews, start immediately. It’s not even that hard: Send a thank you email after every service call and include your custom review link. Pro tip: It's not the total number of reviews that matter, but recency and frequency.  Watch this video to learn more.
2. Post to your GMB profile. GMB posts expire after a week, so it might seem like a waste of effort to post. It’s not. By creating home services content on GMB—especially photos—you’re showing Google that you’re alive and well and customers should contact you.
3. Leverage direct messaging. I know you want your phone to ring more—but more and more people report they’d rather message than call a business. Fortunately, GMB has built-in messaging functionality. And it’s free.
   
   If you’re a Google Local Services customer and subscribe to Housecall Pro or ServiceTitan, you can also access GMB’s Bookings feature.
   
   

It bears repeating that Google will look for “signals” from your business all over the web, so don’t think you can just spiffy up your GMB profile and call it a day. For example, your website also matters.

Distance

Distance is easy: It’s how proximate your shop is to the person who’s searching for help.

It may seem like you don’t have much control over this signal, but you actually do. You can’t help it if someone outside your service area is looking for a home services contractor, but you can make sure people inside your service area find your listing. 

Here’s how:

1. Make sure your GMB profile’s “NAP”—business name, address and phone number—are all accurate. List those details the same way everywhere. Exactly the same way. If you use Drive in some places and Dr. and others, that does you no good. (Google is a computer, remember.)
2. List your local phone number, even if you have a toll-free line. That gives local customers peace of mind that you’re actually local, and it prevents Google from worrying that you might be a bot.
3. Make sure your service area is correct. You can include up to 20 service areas in your GMB profile, based on cities, zip codes and more. 

Remember, distance is just one signal for your map rank. If another shop is closer to the prospective customer, you can still outrank them if your prominence and relevance signals are strong. 

Let’s do this together.

Your best chance of getting noticed online is showing up in the Map Pack, and your best chance of landing there is with an optimized GMB profile. Sure, there's lots of things you can do yourself to help improve your ranking, but if you look at Google's actual guidance, there's maybe lots of things that's trickier for you to do on your own. Want some help with that—or any other digital marketing for your home services business? I’m here for you! Schedule a free consultation today.