How to rank in the Google map pack, and what you can't control

The three inputs, and which one you own

Google describes local ranking as relevance, distance and prominence. Distance is measured from wherever the person searching is standing, so the same search shows different businesses on two sides of a town. You cannot fix that, and any service promising you a fixed position is describing something that does not exist.

Relevance and prominence are yours. Relevance is how clearly your profile and site say you do this specific job in this specific place. Prominence is how established you look: reviews, mentions elsewhere, and a site that behaves like a real business.

Why your ranking looks different to you than to a customer

Checking your own ranking from your own phone, logged in, standing in your own premises, tells you almost nothing. You are the closest possible searcher and Google knows your history.

If you want a real read, check from outside your immediate area, or better, ignore position entirely and watch the profile's performance panel: how many people called, asked for directions, or clicked through, and what they searched to find you.

• Position varies by street, device and search history.
• Calls and direction requests are the number that pays you.
• The searches listed in your profile's performance panel tell you what you are actually relevant for.

The work that moves relevance

Relevance is mostly text. The primary category, the services with real descriptions, the profile description, the service pages on your site, and the words in your reviews and replies all describe the same business to Google in the same terms — or they contradict each other.

The most common gap I find is a business that does six things and only names one of them anywhere. Write the other five down, on the profile and on the site, in the words customers use rather than the words your trade body uses.

Act as a local search specialist. Business: {what I do} in {city, state}. Here is my Google Business Profile primary category, secondary categories and listed services: {paste}. Here are the pages on my website: {paste page titles and URLs}. Identify: 1) services I offer that are named in one place but not the other, 2) pages I am missing for services I clearly offer, 3) anywhere the profile and the site describe the same service in conflicting terms. Do not suggest services I have not listed.

The work that moves prominence

Prominence builds slowly and it is mostly other people talking about you: reviews arriving steadily, your business named on local sites, suppliers, trade directories and anything you actually sponsor or take part in.

This is the part that cannot be shortcut, and it is where paid schemes do the most damage. Bought links and bought reviews are the two fastest ways to turn a slow climb into a suspension.

A realistic order of work

Profile first, because it is fastest and it changes what you are eligible for. Then service pages, because they give the profile something consistent to point at. Then the review routine, because it runs forever once it is a habit. Then mentions, slowly, from things you actually do.

• Week one: full profile pass — categories, services, description, photos, hours.
• Weeks two to four: one page per service, written for someone deciding.
• Ongoing: review ask attached to a fixed point in every job, replies within a couple of days.
• Ongoing: local mentions from real involvement, not purchased lists.