Three Places in the Map Results Instead of Seven

Seven became three

Search for a dentist, a plumber or a florist in your town, and the map above the ordinary results lists three businesses.

Until last August it usually listed seven. Google cut the number for most local searches, on phones and computers alike, and moved the rest behind a link to more places.

For the three, little changed. For the businesses that used to sit fourth to seventh, the change took them off the first screen and into a list most searchers never open.

Their listings look exactly as they did, which is why some owners still have not noticed.

What decides the three

Google names three things behind its local results: relevance, distance and prominence. It does not say how they are weighed against each other.

• Relevance: how well the listing matches what was searched.
• Distance: how far the business is from the searcher or the place named.
• Prominence: how well known the business is, online and off.
• Reviews: their number and rating count towards prominence.
• The website: what it says, and who links to it.

The fifth is the one owners tend to forget. The map results draw on what Google knows about a business from across the web, and the website behind the listing is the piece the business controls most directly.

Distance is the part you cannot move

Where the searcher stands counts for a lot. Someone searching from the other side of town will often see different businesses from someone searching next door.

A listing cannot be moved closer to anyone. Adding addresses where the business does not actually operate breaks Google's guidelines for listings, and can get the real one suspended.

Businesses that travel to their customers can hide the address and set a service area instead. The listing is still anchored to where the business is based.

What can change is relevance and prominence, which decide who wins among businesses at similar distances.

Relevance starts with the category

The primary category on a Google My Business listing is the plainest statement of what the business is. Many were picked in a hurry when the listing was created, and some are too broad.

Choose the most specific category that is true, and add secondary ones for other main services. Then check the name: it should be the business's real name, as on the sign, without added keywords.

Hours, address and phone number should match the website exactly, down to the suite number. Inconsistent details make it harder for Google to be sure the listing and the site describe the same place.

Prominence is mostly earned

Reviews are the visible part. Their number and average rating show beside each of the three, and both feed Google's view of how well known the business is.

Ask satisfied customers in person or in a follow-up email, with a direct link that opens the review form. Never write them yourself, pay for them or have staff post them.

The rest is reputation across the web: local directories, community organisations, suppliers and local news that mention or link to the business. It builds slowly, and it cannot be bought in a hurry.

A worked example

A pediatric dental practice in a medical office building in a growing suburb treats children from their first teeth to their teens.

Before August, a search for a children's dentist in the suburb usually showed it fifth or sixth on the map. Afterwards it was off the first screen, behind three family practices nearer the town centre, each with many reviews.

Its listing used the general dentist category. The website was a single page that mentioned children twice, with the suite number missing from the address.

The practice switched its primary category to pediatric dentist, which Google offers, and had the site rebuilt with pages for a first visit, for anxious children, for parents of babies and for the suburb itself.

The front desk began handing parents a card asking for a review, with a short web address printed on it.

Now the listing and the site both say plainly what the practice is and whom it treats, which is what a search for a children's dentist is matched against. From the next town over, distance still decides.

Why the website matters more now

With only three choices on the screen, many people open the websites before they call. The listing earns the visit; the site has to earn the call.

Google reads the website to understand the listing too: what the business does, where and for whom. A one-page site gives it little to go on, and a page for each main service and area gives it plenty.

And the ordinary results under the map are a second way onto the first screen. A clear page about the service and the town can appear there even when the listing misses the three.

The longer list behind more places

The link under the three opens a longer list beside a bigger map. The people who open it are usually comparing carefully.

That is where photographs and complete details earn their keep. Pictures of the entrance, the sign and the inside help someone find the place and picture the visit.

Hours matter there too. A listing with no hours, or with last month's holiday hours still showing, gives the careful comparer a reason to pick the next one.

The counter-case

Some businesses cannot reach the three for some searches, however good the listing. A shop at the far end of town rarely wins searches made downtown, and a specialist surrounded by large competitors may wait a long time.

For them the effort still counts in the searches they can win: those made nearby, those naming the speciality, and the ordinary results below the map.

And businesses that live almost entirely on referrals depend less on the map. Get the category, the details and the website right, and let the reviews build.

Your place on the map

1. Search for your service from your own street.
2. Check your primary category is the most specific one.
3. Match your name, address and phone to the website.
4. Give each main service its own page.
5. Ask recent customers for a review.
6. Add photos of the entrance and inside.
7. Search again from across town.

Step four is the one that ties the listing to the website. A page for each service gives Google something to match a search against, and gives the person comparing three businesses a reason to choose yours.

Whether a place in the three turns into a call depends on what happens next, as covered in the enquiries your business lost last year.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.