25 tips to rank better in Google Maps

Discussing Google Maps

Today we’re going to talk about 25 tips to rank better in Google Maps.

Google Maps is the most valuable real estate on the Internet for home service companies.

It’s also FREE!!!!

Get control and optimize the hell out of it – every day!

1. Claim & Complete Your Listing

2. Fill out every section of your listing – leave nothing blank

3. Use your real business name – do NOT add city & service keywords to name – which risks getting suspended

4. Use your real business address – hide it if not open to the public – show address if open to public

5. Use the correct phone – same as on the website – also use a tracking phone #

6. Consistent business name, address, and phone (NAP) is important

7. Add a trackable link to your website so you can see all GMB traffic in Google Analytics – use a UTM from Google’s Campaign URL Builder

8. Add your service area cities

9. Do category research to add all of the categories that apply to your biz (see our YouTube video on GMB category research + free template)

10. Add a great business description with keywords and service area mentioned

11. Add all of your services and add products that apply to your services

12. Make sure you add your days and hours open and stay on top of holiday hours – keep it all updated

13. Add attributes – woman-managed, minority managed, veteran managed, plus other attributes such as wheelchair access, WIFI access, etc.

14. Embed the listing on your website, footer, or home and contact us pages. Find your listing in Google Maps, click share, click “embed a map”, and paste that code onto your site where you want it to show.

15. Q&A = ask FAQs to your listing and sewer them

To manage your listing daily.

16. Upload job & team photos daily – add your logo and a featured team image

17. Generate more customer reviews on Google – using automated reputation management software

18. Reply to all reviews – good and bad

19. Create GMB posts at least weekly – special offers, content, blurbs, promote services, events, promote completed jobs

20. Add local city keywords to your website home page – example = Plumber Chicago IL

Other external factors also play a role in how well your google maps listing will rank. They include:

21. Good website SEO

22. Consistent NAP in other directories – Get listed in other directories – Bing Places – sync with GMB – Yelp, and hundreds of others. We use Bright Local to monitor and order citations.

23. Review signals from your website and other directories – review diversity

24. Link signals – links from other websites to yours. Usually based on great blog articles that provide in-depth, helpful info. Local links help even more!

25. Social signals – claim branded listings on FB, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms with a link on the back to your website.

Bonus: Combat GMB app – keywords and city names in biz names = most common.

Also, bogus listings with a one-page lead gen website.

Report to: Business Redressal Complaint Form – use screenshots of the listing, their website or lack of one, detail why they are a spam listing.

Proximity-based – like a pizza place

Alright, I hope that helped some of you. Thanks for sharing your time and attention with us today.

Good luck out there, and create a great day!

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