How to rank among the first on Google Maps without paying for ads

What ranking among the first on the map means

When someone searches for a service with a neighborhood or city, like "vet Midtown", Google shows a block with the map and three businesses right below it, before the websites. Ranking among the first means showing up in that block of three, or near the top of the list in the Google Maps app.

Here's what changes everything. That order is different for each person. Google builds the list based on where the person searching is at that moment. Someone on your block sees one order, and someone across town sees another. So before anything else, decide who you want to show up for and from where.

This work has a name, local SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization, the set of adjustments that helps a business show up better on Google without paying. Local SEO is the part that handles the map and searches with a neighborhood or city, and its main piece is your Google Business Profile, which used to be called Google My Business. If you serve clients in one area, that's where I start.

The three factors Google uses

Google publishes this on its own help page, Tips to improve your local ranking on Google. Local results are based mainly on three factors, relevance, distance and prominence. The same page says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

Of the three, distance is the one you control least. The other two are where the work pays off. Between two profiles at the same distance from the person searching, the one that better matches the search and is better known shows up first.

Relevance, making your profile match the search

Google only shows you for a search when it understands that you do that thing. And it understands through what's written on your profile, field by field.

• A specific primary category. It's the field that tells Google the most about what you are. An English school listed as Language school shows up for people looking for English classes. Listed only as School, it competes with K through 12 schools
• Secondary categories for the other services you actually sell, without piling on categories that have nothing to do with your business
• Services added one by one, using the words people type into search. Someone looking for "dog grooming" needs to find those words on your profile
• A description that says what you do, for whom and in what area, written for a person to read, without repeating the same word ten times
• Attributes, like parking, accessibility and online appointments, which Google lists as part of complete information
• Accurate hours, including special holiday hours, which Google asks for on the same help page

One piece of relevance lives outside your profile, your website. When your profile links to a website with one page for each service, with the name of the service and the neighborhood written out, Google has more text to confirm that you do that thing. What that page needs is in What a professional website needs.

Distance, what you can and can't change

Distance is measured between your address and the place the person is searching from. If they don't share their location, Google uses what it already knows about them, as the help page explains. No change to your profile affects that. What you control is the information about where you are.

• Your exact address, the same one on your storefront and your invoices, with the pin in the right spot on the map
• Your service area, if you go to your clients' homes or work online. Google's Guidelines for representing your business on Google ask businesses that serve customers at their location to hide their own address
• No made-up addresses. A virtual office, a PO box or a relative's address closer to downtown goes against the same guidelines

To reach people farther away, the path is your website. The map favors whoever is close, and a website shows up for searches from any neighborhood when it has a page written for that service or that area. That's why your profile and your website work together.

Prominence, being known on Google and beyond

Prominence is how well known your business is. On Google's help page, this includes your review count, your rating and links from other websites pointing to you. Replying to reviews counts too, and Google writes that helpful replies can make your business stand out.

Reviews that keep coming in

People who open your profile check the dates of the latest reviews. A profile with lots of reviews, all from three years ago, looks like a place that closed. What works is turning the request into a routine, right after each appointment, with the direct link that opens the star screen. The ready-to-send message and how to get the link are in the guide on how to show up on Google.

A reply to every review

Reply to the good ones by mentioning the service the person booked, like "so glad the guitar lessons helped". For a bad one, acknowledge it, explain in one sentence and invite the person to talk somewhere else.

Your name the same everywhere

When your name, phone number and address show up the same way on your profile, your website, Instagram, directories in your field and partner websites, Google can be sure all of it is the same business. A link from another website to yours, like one from a trade association, a supplier or a local news story, is what the help page calls links from other websites.

New photos every so often

Real photos and videos of your space, your team and your work are on Google's list of tips. Swap them every so often and delete any photo that no longer shows what the place looks like today.

How to find out where you rank

Searching for your own business on your phone is misleading. Google shows different results to each person, and you're searching from inside your own location, which is where you show up the most.

1. 1Pick three searches someone would make to find you, always with the service, like "english classes", "english school near me" and "english course" with your neighborhood
2. 2Open a private window and run the three searches from different spots, at your door, a few blocks away and in the next neighborhood
3. 3Ask two people in other parts of town to run the same searches and send you a screenshot
4. 4Write down the position of each search at each spot in a simple table
5. 5Repeat on the same day every month, from the same spots

There are paid tools that do this on a grid map, searching from dozens of points at once. For a neighborhood business, a table kept by hand already shows whether you're moving up.

Your Business Profile dashboard fills in the rest. It shows which searches your profile appeared for and how many people tapped call, directions or website. If searches for your service name grow from one month to the next, your profile is gaining ground.

What doesn't work, and sometimes takes a profile down

• Paying to move up on the map. Google says on its help page that there's no way to pay for a better local ranking. Ads are labeled as sponsored and disappear when the budget runs out
• Extra words in your profile name, like "Lumi School Cheap English Downtown". Google's guidelines say that adding unnecessary information to the name can get your profile suspended
• A second profile at an address where you don't serve anyone, to try to show up in another neighborhood. That goes against the same address guidelines
• Buying reviews or trading them for discounts. It breaks Google's rules, and Google removes those reviews and can suspend the profile
• Changing your name, category and address every week. Big changes go through review, and your profile can disappear in the meantime
• Creating the profile and forgetting about it. Wrong hours and old photos make people who open your profile suspicious

Can you do all this for free?

Yes. Your Business Profile is free, and none of the three factors has a price on Google. The cost is time, yours or that of whoever you hire, to fill everything in, ask for reviews every week and reply to each one.

Ads come in when you need people right now, while your profile is still climbing. They're labeled as sponsored, on the map too, and they don't change your position in the list without ads. Which of the two to use first, and when it makes sense to combine them, is in Google Business Profile or Google Ads.

Where to start

If your profile already exists and is verified, this is the order I follow when I take on a profile to fix.

1. 1Measure where you rank today, using the table above, before changing anything
2. 2Look at the category, services and reviews of the top three for your main search
3. 3Get your primary and secondary categories right
4. 4Add each service using the words people type, and rewrite the description
5. 5Check your address or service area, hours and attributes
6. 6Replace old photos with real, current ones
7. 7Connect your profile to your website and your WhatsApp
8. 8Start asking for a review after each appointment, and reply to all of them
9. 9Measure again after a month, from the same spots

If your profile doesn't even show up for your name, the problem comes before ranking. The eight most common reasons and the test to find yours are in Why my business isn't showing up on Google. And the guide covering your profile, reviews and website together is How to show up on Google.