How to rank higher on Google Maps

• Relevance: how well your profile matches what someone searched for. Your categories, services and description do most of the work here.
• Distance: how far your business is from the person searching, or from the place they typed in.
• Prominence: how well known your business is. Reviews, links, articles and your wider presence online all feed into it.

Google explains this in its own help article, How Google determines local ranking. Everything below maps back to one of those three.

1. Your primary category. This is the single biggest relevance signal. Pick the category that describes what you do most, like “Plumber” rather than “Contractor”.
2. Secondary categories and services. Add the other things you really offer. Each service you list is another chance to match a search.
3. A clear description. Say what you do, who for and where, in plain words. No keyword lists.
4. Accurate details. Name, address or service area, phone, website and hours should match everywhere they appear online.
5. Reviews. A steady flow of genuine reviews, with replies, builds prominence. See how to get more Google reviews.
6. Photos and updates. Real photos of your work and team help customers choose you, and show the profile is looked after.
7. Your website. A page for each main service, with the areas you serve, helps Google connect your profile to those searches.

Where the customer is standing, how many competitors are nearby and how Google weighs each factor on a given day. That’s why nobody honest can guarantee a #1 spot.

What you can do is widen the area where you rank well. A stronger profile tends to hold its position further from your front door.

• Don’t add keywords or suburbs to your business name. Google’s guidelines don’t allow it, and it can get your profile suspended.
• Don’t buy reviews, offer rewards for reviews or only ask happy customers. It breaks Google’s policies, and fake reviews can breach Australian Consumer Law.
• Don’t use a virtual office or someone else’s address to appear in another suburb.

Checking Google from your own desk only shows one spot. Use a map-based check that looks at the same search from many points around your business, then compare it week to week.

Run a free Google Maps rank check to see your position at 25 spots across your area.