Search "electrician" on Google Maps from your kitchen and you will see a handful of pins and a short list. Make the same search from a suburb across town and the list changes. Customers call whoever is on their screen, so the question that matters is not whether you show up once, but where across your city you show up at all.
Here is what we check about your Maps visibility, how Google decides who appears, and the few things that widen your reach.
In this article
- 1. Why Maps results change from suburb to suburb
- 2. The two things we check about your Maps visibility
- 3. Four gaps that keep businesses off the map
- 4. What to sort today, this week and this month
Why the map changes from suburb to suburb
Google is open about how it picks local results. It looks at three things: how well a business matches the search, how close it is to the person searching, and how well known it is. Distance is the one you cannot change, which is why the same search gives different answers in Riccarton and in Papanui.
The other two are yours to work on. Relevance comes mostly from your Google listing, your categories above all. Prominence comes from reviews, photos and how much the rest of the web knows about you.
If you work from home or from the van, you can hide your address on your listing and set the areas you serve instead. That keeps your house off the map, but it does not move where Google measures you from. A sparky based in Rolleston still has to earn every search in Halswell and Hornby on relevance and reputation.
Key point
Searching from your own premises flatters you. You are closest to yourself there. The customers you are missing are the ones two or three suburbs away, and that is where a weak listing drops out first.
What we check
We run the searches customers in your trade actually make, from the suburbs around you, and record who appears. Two things come out of it.
- Your reach across the city. How many of the surrounding suburbs you turn up in, compared with the businesses you compete with.
- Your standing at home. How high you sit when someone searches from your own suburb, the search a customer a street away makes.
Your Maps Strength report shows the searches we ran, a map of the suburbs where you appear and where you do not, and a suburb-by-suburb table. Most owners have never seen this, because nobody can stand in every suburb at once.
The customers you are missing are the ones two or three suburbs away.
Four gaps that keep businesses off the map
1. A primary category that misses the search
Your primary category decides which searches you are eligible for in the first place. A business filed as "Contractor" is never entered into the list for "builder", however good it is. Match your primary category to the plainest name for your main work. Our guide to your Google listing covers categories in more detail.
2. Reviews that have stopped
Reviews are the lever Google names most plainly for local results. A business whose last review was six months ago gives Google and customers less reason to put it forward. Reach fades from the edges first, so the outer suburbs go before your own. Your Google reviews sets out a weekly routine.
3. A map pin in the wrong place
If your pin sits on the wrong street or the middle of the block, you are being measured from the wrong spot, and customers using directions land somewhere else. Open your listing on your phone, tap directions, and check it lands on your door.
4. A listing that looks inactive
A thin listing with old photos and no recent activity gives Google little to go on. Fresh photos of recent work, a full description and correct hours all help it read as a live, trading business. Business details that differ between your website, your Facebook page and the directories do the opposite.
Tip
Do a drive-by search. Next time you are on a job across town, open Google Maps and search for your main service. Note whether you appear and where. It takes 30 seconds and tells you more than searching from home.
What to sort first
10 minutes today
- Check your map pin sits on your door
- Check your primary category is the plainest name for your main work
30 minutes this week
- Search your main service from two suburbs away and note who appears
- Ask your two most recent happy customers for a Google review
- Add photos of three recent jobs to your listing
Ongoing this month
- Keep the review ask running after every job
- Make your name, address and phone match exactly on your website, Facebook and directory listings
Where Marketbase comes in
We have already run the Maps searches for your trade across your city, for every business in it. Find your business by name and your free report shows where you appear, what is working and what could move.
Seven days' free access opens the how for every finding, in the order that moves you fastest, with your position tracked every month. Sort it yourself, or we'll do it for you.