Local SEO for Small Businesses: How to Get Into the Google Map Pack

ByFrank Deardurff

Search for “plumber near me” or “landscaper in [your town]” and look at what comes up first. It’s usually not a list of websites. It’s a map with three businesses pinned on it.

That’s the map pack, and for a local business it’s some of the most valuable real estate on the internet. The people searching there aren’t browsing. They need someone, and they need them soon.

Here’s how to give your business the best shot at showing up there.

How Google decides who shows up

Google looks at three main things for local results:

  • Relevance: does your business match what the person searched for?
  • Distance: how close are you to the person searching (or the area they named)?
  • Prominence: how well known and trusted is your business, based on reviews, links, mentions and your website?

You can’t move your shop closer to every customer. But you have a lot of control over relevance and prominence.

Step 1: Claim and complete your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile is the listing that shows up in the map pack and on Google Maps. If you do nothing else on this list, do this.

  • Claim and verify it. If someone else set it up years ago, request ownership.
  • Pick the right primary category. This is one of the biggest relevance signals. Be specific: “Landscape designer” beats “Contractor.”
  • Add secondary categories for the other services you offer.
  • Fill in everything: hours, phone, website, service areas, services, products and a description written for customers.
  • Add real photos. Your work, your team, your storefront, your trucks. Add new ones regularly.

Step 2: Make sure there’s only one of you

Duplicate listings are more common than you’d think. A business moves, changes its name, or someone creates a second listing by accident, and now Google isn’t sure which one is real. Reviews get split, and neither listing ranks as well as one strong listing would.

Search Google Maps for your business name, phone number and address. If you find duplicates, you can suggest an edit and mark the extra one as a duplicate, or contact Google Business Profile support to have them merged or removed.

Step 3: Keep your name, address and phone consistent

Your business name, address and phone number (often called NAP) should be exactly the same everywhere: your website, your Google profile, Facebook, Yelp, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, the Better Business Bureau, industry directories and your local chamber of commerce.

“Suite 200” on one site and “#200” on another isn’t a disaster, but a different phone number or an old address is. Inconsistent information makes Google less confident about which details are right.

Step 4: Get more reviews (and reply to them)

Reviews are a big part of prominence, and they’re often what makes someone choose you over the business pinned next to you.

  • Ask every happy customer. Most people are glad to leave a review. They just need to be asked.
  • Make it easy. Your Google profile has a “Ask for reviews” link you can text or email.
  • Reply to every review, good and bad. A calm, helpful reply to a bad review can win over the next person reading it.
  • Never buy reviews or offer something in exchange for a positive one. It breaks Google’s rules and can get reviews removed or your listing suspended.

Step 5: Make your website local

Your website backs up your Google profile, so make it obvious where you work.

  • Put your city or region in your page titles and headings where it fits naturally. “Kitchen Remodeling in Terre Haute” is clearer to Google than “Kitchen Remodeling.”
  • Show your name, address and phone in your footer and on your contact page.
  • Embed a Google map on your contact page.
  • Create a page for each main service. One page that lists everything you do is harder to rank than a dedicated page for each.
  • If you serve several towns, a page for each area can help, as long as each one has real, useful content. Copy-and-paste pages with the town name swapped out don’t help and can hurt.
  • Add LocalBusiness schema. SEO plugins like Rank Math can add this structured data for you, so Google can read your business details directly.

For a full page-by-page list, see the On-Page SEO Checklist.

Step 6: Stay active

A Google profile that hasn’t been touched in two years looks abandoned. A few times a month:

  • Post an update, offer or recent project to your profile
  • Add new photos
  • Answer questions in the Q&A section
  • Reply to new reviews

Step 7: Get mentioned around town

Links and mentions from other local websites build prominence. Some easy ones:

  • Your local chamber of commerce and business associations
  • Sponsoring a local team, event or charity
  • Suppliers and partners who list the businesses they work with
  • Local news, blogs and community sites

What to expect

Local SEO isn’t overnight, but it’s not a mystery either. Most businesses that complete their profile, clean up duplicates, fix inconsistent listings and start collecting reviews see improvement within a few months.

Need help sorting out your listings or getting your site in shape for local search? Get in touch.

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