How the Google map pack actually works
The map pack is the block of three businesses with a map that Google shows for searches with local intent. Google ranks it on three factors: relevance (how well your profile and site match what was searched), distance (how close you are to the searcher or the place they named) and prominence (how well known and well reviewed you are, online and offline). You cannot move your building. You can move everything else.
Below is the checklist, in the order that matters, whether you run a clinic in London, a cleaning company in Dubai or a law firm in Austin. You can do all of it yourself. The early steps carry most of the weight.
Step 1: fix your Google Business Profile
- Primary category. The single most important field. Pick the most specific category that describes your main money-maker, not the broadest. “Emergency plumber” beats “Plumber” if that is what you sell.
- Secondary categories. Add every category that genuinely applies. Do not add categories for services you do not offer.
- Services and products. Fill them all in with a short description and, where you can, a price. Google uses these for relevance.
- Business description. 750 characters. Say what you do, for whom, where, and what makes you different, in plain words. No keyword lists.
- Hours, phone, website link. Exact and current. Point the website link at your location page, not always the home page, if you have more than one location.
- Photos. Real photos of the premises, the team, the work. Add a few every month. Profiles with recent photos get more clicks, and clicks feed prominence.
- Questions and answers. Seed the five questions you get asked most and answer them yourself. Customers and Google both read them.
- Posts. A short update every week or two. Offers, work done, news. It signals an active business.
Step 2: build a review system, not a review request
Reviews drive both ranking and conversion. The businesses in the top three almost always have more recent, more detailed reviews than the ones below them. Treat it as a process:
- Ask every customer, the same way, at the same moment. Right after the job is done or the result is delivered. A text or email with a direct link to the review form.
- Make it easy to be specific. “If you can, mention what we did and which area you are in.” Reviews that say “boiler repair in Leeds” are relevance signals.
- Reply to every review within a few days. Thank the good ones briefly. Answer the bad ones calmly and with facts. Prospects read the replies more than the reviews.
- Never gate. Sending happy customers to Google and unhappy ones to a private form breaks Google’s rules and gets profiles penalised.
Step 3: make your website carry its weight
The profile gets you seen. The website decides whether Google believes you and whether the visitor calls. Minimum standard:
- One page per location. Name, address, phone, hours, an embedded map, photos of that branch, the services offered there, the team, and reviews from customers of that branch.
- One page per core service. What it is, how you do it, what it costs or roughly costs, who it is for, and a way to book. Link each service page to the location pages and back.
- Consistent NAP. Name, address and phone written the same way on every page, the footer, the Business Profile and every directory.
- LocalBusiness schema. With your address, geo coordinates, opening hours, and a link to your Business Profile in sameAs.
- Speed and mobile. Most local searches are on a phone, often outside. If the page takes four seconds to load, they call the next result.
- A click-to-call number above the fold. On mobile the phone number is the conversion. Do not hide it behind a contact page.
Step 4: citations and directories, done once and done right
Citations, meaning mentions of your name, address and phone on other sites, used to be the main game. Now they are table stakes. Claim and complete the profiles that matter in your country (in the UK: Yell, Thomson Local, Trustpilot, Checkatrade for trades; in the US: Yelp, BBB, Apple Maps, Nextdoor; in the Gulf: Yellow Pages UAE, local chamber directories; everywhere: Apple Maps and Bing Places). Then stop. A hundred low-quality directories will not move you; one wrong phone number on a major one will hurt.
Step 5: earn local links and mentions
This is where prominence comes from, and where most competitors do nothing. Sponsor a local club, host an event, join the chamber, get written up in the local paper, partner with a nearby business and link to each other, offer a discount to a local employer. Each one gives you a link from a site Google associates with your area. Five of these will do more than any amount of directory work.
Step 6: track the right numbers
- Grid rank tracking. Tools such as Local Falcon or BrightLocal show your map ranking at points across your service area, not just from one location. That is the only honest view of the map pack.
- Business Profile performance. Calls, direction requests, website clicks, by month. This is the lead count.
- Call tracking. A tracking number on the profile (set as the primary, with your real number as secondary) tells you which calls came from Google.
- Review velocity. New reviews per month, and your average rating, versus the top three in your category.
A worked example
Composite example: details changed, numbers typical of what I see rather than one named client.
A physiotherapy clinic with two branches has one Business Profile with the wrong primary category (“Medical clinic” instead of “Physical therapist”), 14 reviews, no photos from the last year, and one website page listing both addresses. Week one: the category is corrected, both branches get their own profile and their own page on the site, and the front desk starts sending a review link after every session. Week six: each branch has 25+ new reviews mentioning “physio” and the neighbourhood, and both profiles show recent photos. By week ten, the original branch is in the top 3 of the map pack for “physiotherapist” plus its area, and the second branch, which was invisible before, appears for its own neighbourhood. Total spend: staff time and one afternoon of website work.
What this means for you
- Single-location service business: steps 1 to 3 are most of your result. Do them this month and watch calls in the Business Profile dashboard.
- Multi-location or franchise: one profile and one page per branch, each with its own reviews and photos. Central marketing cannot do this for you; the branch has to own its reviews.
- Service-area business (no shopfront): hide the address, set the service area honestly, and put the work into reviews and service pages that name the areas you cover.
If you have more than one location
Every location gets its own Business Profile, its own page on the site and its own review flow. Do not point them all at the home page. Do not copy the same page and change the city name; write about what is different at each branch. Google can tell.
Where to start
Step 1 and Step 2 today. They cost nothing and they move the needle within weeks. Step 3 over the next month. Steps 4 to 6 as an ongoing habit. If you get stuck on what your specific profile is missing, send me the link and I will tell you.