Google Maps Marketing: 10 Local Business Ranking Factors

Smart business are often well aware of the potential behind Google Maps marketing. Righteous businesses are usually on top of it.

In this Righteous Business Blog post, we're going to share 10 local business ranking factors that influence Google Maps marketing. These ranking factors will shed light on certain platforms (i.e. Google My Business) and strategies (i.e. implementing a review generation strategy) that can help advance your business' presence in Google Maps.

The Google Maps results are often a forgotten treasure, as most marketers think of the Google
local 3-pack search results (shown below) as "Google Maps marketing."

Google Maps Ranking Factors

Use these Google Maps ranking factors as your guide to Google Maps marketing. Captivate Local is reputable resource for various solutions surrounding search marketing on Google Maps. 

1. Owner-verified Google My Business (GMB) page - Have You verified your Google My Business page? In addition to having a GMB page that's 100% populated, ensure that your listing is verified. Next to a well-optimized website, your business's GMB page is the most powerful asset to Google Maps marketing. There's a nice blog post about this over at this blog.
2. Physical address compared to the city being searched - In most cases, to appear in the Google Maps search results, your business should be located in the same city as the people searching for what you have to offer.
3. Number of matching address and phone numbers - So how does determine real businesses with credible reputations? One way is by comparing all matching listings (address and phone numbers) on other sites. Also known as citations, this data is strong ranking factor for Google Maps marketing.
4. Quality and authority of matching addresses - In addition to having many citations, the more trusted and authoritative the listings (i.e. local Chamber of Commerce member profile, HealthGrades.com, Yelp.com, etc.,) the better.
   
5. Matching address and phone number on your website - In addition to citations from other listing throughout the web, Google will also compare the address and phone you use on your site and see if it matches your GMB listing. Missing a suite number of minor detail could hinder performance.
6. Relevancy of category associations with your business - When populating your GMB page, select the most appropriate categories very carefully. All of your categories should be relevant to your business.
7. Domain authority of your website - If you're website has earned a lot of backlinks (inbound links from other websites) over the course of it's life, then is should have some degree of domain authority. Also considered "rank juice," greater domain authority will influence both organic search rankings and Google Maps rankings. 
8. Proximity to Google’s city center marker - When you search the name of a city or town, you'll see that Google assigns a centermost point to the city. The closer your business is located to that, the better for Google Maps marketing.
9. Number of GMB Reviews - Customer reviews and ratings on your Google My Business listing can impact its ranking potential. While this is more influential to Google's local 3-pack listings, it's debateable as to whether or not customer ratings impacts the Google Maps search results.
10. Proximity to the Google user - While it may be beyond the control of a vast majority of local businesses, proximity to Google user is a strong ranking factor. This is especially the case for mobile search engine users.

The Many Faces of Google Maps Marketing 

The above Google Maps ranking factors impact both the search results in Google Maps search as well as the local 3-pack listings in traditional Google search. 

Google Maps has provided prime marketing real estate for all types of businesses. And because there are many different forms of Google Maps marketing (like ranking in the local 3-pack search results versus Google maps search results,) this form of marketing offers several opportunities in increase search exposure.