What you need to know about ranking on Google Maps?

First things first, Google Maps is a map service that beats all other online maps with hundreds of millions of users. And naturally, there is a way to use this enormous popularity to your advantage. While the most obvious benefit of Google Maps is that it makes you easier to find on the road, that's not the only benefit. Obviously, just getting a pin on Google Maps isn't groundbreaking for a huge corporation or local institution, but for a small business it can be a major factor in attracting new customers and conversions. Google of course knows where their users are, and unless we specifically ask them not to adjust our results, most of the commercial searches we run will be local, with a local three-sentence result in the Google Map window taking up most of our screen. .

Getting that top-notch ranking in the search results is a natural priority for any local business, and the only way to get there is to get listed on Google Maps.

Remember that ranking in Google Maps depends not only on visibility, but also on the positioning of your business. When used correctly (and strategically) Google Maps can play an important role in your digital marketing strategy.

How Google Maps Rating Works

According to facts from Google, the three main local ranking factors are:

Relevance - how well your company matches the user's request.

Distance - how close you are to the search user.

Fame - how well known and popular the business is.

The key thing to remember here is that the end goal of Google Maps is not to help business owners increase sales and conversions. It's all about helping users find what they need.

First, you need relevance to even show up for a search query. This is probably the easiest factor to explain. There are hundreds of thousands of businesses listed on Google Maps, but when I add "coffee new york" the algorithm knows exactly what I'm looking for.

At this point, your business name and, more importantly, its category and address will determine that you will appear in the Google Maps search results for the relevant query. As you fill out your business information, you can see the value of optimization by adding a keyword or two that goes beyond your official name. Tell me, what if your business is called Coffix, and you just add “Restaurant Coffix”? Keywords in your company name are very important. Our colleagues have done some pretty thorough research that has confirmed that for local Google rankings, your business name is the number one ranking factor. Optimized business names are also a very quick way to improve visibility. Another study found that it only takes a week to improve rankings with optimized business names. With that in mind, why don't you optimize your username for relevance? Because, again, Google Maps doesn't exist for webmasters and business owners. Instead, it exists for users, and optimizing your business name is far from user-centric.

Let's take a look at Google's guidelines and see what they have to say about this: "Including unnecessary information in your business name is prohibited and may result in your business being blocked." You could be reported by Google Maps users, or you could simply be kicked out by the algorithm itself. And while yes, there is a lot of spam on Google Maps, over time the situation is improving and junk listings are being removed. To sum it up: optimizing your business name can yield quick and abundant results, but it is also very likely, if done in unprofessional ways, that it will be penalized by Google, resulting in your business simply being removed from Google Maps.

We are always finding new ways to promote business on the Internet, AVSEO always looks to the future of SEO, and with firm confidence in the present of search engine optimization.