Relevance
How well your profile matches what was searched. Your primary and secondary categories matter most, followed by your business description, services, and what your website and reviews say about the work. A complete profile with the right categories is the biggest relevance fix.
Distance
How far your business is from the searcher, or from the place named in the search. You can’t change where you are, and you can’t fake it: adding a town name to your business name or using a virtual office address breaks Google’s guidelines. What you can do is make it clear, on your site and in your service area settings, which towns you serve, and earn reviews from customers there.
Prominence
How well known your business is, online and off. Google lists reviews (number and rating), links and articles about you, and your website’s standing in regular search among the signals. Businesses that are well known in the real world, like landmarks and long-running local names, tend to rank well because the web reflects it.
- More recent reviews, steadily, from real customers.
- A website that ranks well in regular results for your main service.
- Mentions and links from local sources: the chamber, local news, sponsors, partners.
- Consistent details everywhere you’re listed.
What doesn’t help
- Keywords in your business name. It may work briefly, then gets reported and suspended.
- Fake reviews. They get filtered, and the FTC can fine businesses for them.
- Posting every day on your profile, if nothing else changes. Posts help customers; they’re not a ranking trick.
Written by Nikita Huttenlocher, founder and lead engineer at Huttenlocher Technologies, a web design and software company in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.