How to rank higher on Google Maps.

What Google looks at

• Relevance: how well your Business Profile matches what someone searched for. Complete, detailed information helps Google match you.
• Distance: how far you are from the person searching, or from the place they typed.
• Prominence: how well known you are, offline and online. Google names the number of websites that link to you, and how many reviews and positive ratings you have.

Google also says there is no way to pay for a better local ranking. Ads appear above the map, labelled as ads, but they do not move you up it.

The checklist

1. Verify your profile. Google says verified businesses are more likely to show up. Until you are verified you are barely in the running.
2. Choose the most specific main category. "Roofing contractor", not "Contractor". It is the clearest signal of what you do.
3. Fill in everything. Opening hours and holiday hours, services, a plain description, your website, and the attributes Google offers for your type of business.
4. Set your service area honestly. If customers do not visit you, hide your address and list the towns you really cover.
5. Use your real business name. Adding keywords or towns to your name breaks Google's rules and can get the profile suspended.
6. Add real photos, and keep adding them. Your work, your van, your team, your premises. Google recommends photos and video to show what you offer.
7. Ask every happy customer for a review. Make it easy with a direct link (how to get more reviews). Never buy reviews or offer anything in return for them: Google removes fake engagement.
8. Reply to every review. Good and bad, politely and quickly. Google says helpful replies help your business stand out.
9. Make your website match. The same name, the same services and the same towns as your profile, fast on a phone, with a clear way to get in touch.
10. Get mentioned around town. Local directories, your trade body, suppliers, the chamber of commerce, local news. Links from other websites feed prominence.

What does not work

• Stuffing keywords into your business name or description.
• Fake, bought or swapped reviews.
• An address where you do not actually work, to look closer to a town.
• Pages for dozens of towns that say the same thing. Google treats near identical location pages as spam.

How long it takes

Google says changes can take anything from hours to months to show. Reviews and links build up over time, which is why the firms that start now are the ones on the map next year.

Want it done for you?

We set up and run Google profiles for local businesses: the full profile, real photos, a review request after every job, a reply to every review, and a monthly report in calls and enquiries. From £345 a month.

See Google plans

Sources: Google Business Profile Help, "Tips to improve your local ranking on Google" (support.google.com/business/answer/7091); Google Search Central, "SEO Starter Guide" and "Spam policies for Google web search". Checked 23 October 2026.