Author: Ryan Walsh

Google Maps SEO is often called “Google Business” and “Google Local results.”

Some people refer to them as the “map results” or the “3-pack”.

And that leads us on rather nicely to our first point, back in the day, that’s like around 10 years ago, Google was a lot more generous with how many businesses they displayed in their Google Business results.

It used to be that roughly 7 businesses that were displayed in Google’s Business results once upon a time; these results were therefore called the “7-pack” of results.

Fast-forward to 2026, well, things have changed.

Now, it’s much harder to get a business displayed in Google’s Map results, because, well, they’re only displaying, on average, 3 businesses.

But do not fear once again, as batman is here to advise you on how your business can increases its probability and therefore likelihood of being shown within Google’s Business results.

 

Table of contents:

• Tell me more. What are Google Maps?
• Why does ranking in Google’s maps matter?
• How do you set up your Google Business profile so it gets off to a flying start?
• How to build trust through business reviews?
• How to better optimise your website so you appear higher in the map results and the organic results?

 

Introduction

Let’s fast-forward a bit.

Let’s say you have your Google Business profile all set up correctly. You have it verified, that’s all been completed.

However, now you’re wondering, well, why you never appear in the Google Business results.

Why does this happen?

You’re travelling to the four corners of your city, and you’re running searches relevant to your business, such as “local emergency plumbers”.

But nothing, you never appear, you never show up, this makes you, well rather angry.

But don’t get angry, we have a perfect solution for you. We are the SEO masters, so grab a brew and take some tips from us, and before you know it, you will appear for keywords relevant to your business.

Tell me more- what are Google Maps?

Google Maps is a rather brilliant way for your business to gain more customers. The reason is that SEO companies, of all shapes and sizes, focus on the business’s organic visibility writing endless content and building links. More than ever, marketing consultants are also being asked by their clients to spend time improving LLMs or GEO visibility.

However, you could be missing a trick if you don’t optimise your business for Google’s Map results.

That’s because some businesses spend thousands, and some even hundreds of thousands of pounds per year on their Google AdWords spend.

However, take a bit of a scroll down the page, only slightly, and you will see the Google Map results, and guess what?

To rank there, well, that’s free; it won’t cost you a penny.

However, there is one fly in the ointment: only 3 results are available now. So, it can be blooming hard work to get any business to appear there, you have to get the optimisation spot on, that’s exactly where we come in.

 

What are the main factors which Google Business considers when placing companies in the 3-pack?

Great question, let’s have a look at the main factors which Google uses to determine which businesses should be displayed in the Google Business results.

 

Relevance

This basically boils down to: does your business offer what the customer is searching for?

This is why it’s so important when you’re setting up your business on Google Business to get the business category right.

 

Distance

This is equally important: Google tries to route customers who are close to your business, to your business.

There’s no point after all in sending customers from hundreds of miles away if they just want a short back and sides hair cut!

However, let’s say you’re in the rather fantastic city of Cardiff, well, in the city centre, there could be, for example, a mass of businesses that offer the services you offer, such as a barbershop.

Therefore, it comes down to where the shopper is, how far away they are, and other factors such as business reviews.

 

Prominence

Now, this is the aspect that many businesses don’t grasp: to get your business into the 3-pack, you need to improve its “prominence.” To do this, think about business reviews, gaining quality business citations, and how well-established your business is.

Keep an eye on your Google Business profile from time to time for malicious activity

Okay, so a bit of a side note: it’s well worth taking the time now and then to check whether someone’s changed your business’s Google

Business account details to act in their businesses advantage.

Envious competitors, angry customers, or even an ex-wife! Could have suggested edits to your business’s Google profile, which could cause a bit of sabotage to take place towards your business.

For example, if they suggest the opening hours are only open for half a day or closed on certain days, your Google Business profile won’t be shown as often or at all because, well, you’re not open as much as the competitors.

Therefore, keep an eye on your Google Business profile from time to time to see if anyone has made any suggested edits! Such as marking your business as permanently closed!

 

What are the benefits of ranking on Google Maps?

Well, the benefits are truly massive, huge, not to be understated.

We get it: as a director of a business in Wales, you’re probably having the phone ring several times a day from various companies trying to push additional marketing and advertising down your neck.

Do you want printed cups?

Do you want the stands printed?

Do you want pens with your logo added?

It all gets, well, a bit boring.

However, if you run a local business, you can’t ignore the power of Google Business results.
Because, well, quite simply, some of your direct competitors might be harvesting a huge amount of sales via Google Business themselves.

Take, for example, a commercial electrical contractor: imagine in the capital city how many leads and additional phone calls they’re going to get every single year if they’re ranked right at the top of Google’s Business results, next to a very high star rating. They might even be outsourcing work there that’s too busy.

Take the time to get the foundation right and set up your Google Business account correctly.

 

Claim and verify your listing.

First things first, make sure your Google Business profile is verified. This is important because it can also prevent people from easily making edits to your Google Business account- such as marking it as closed! Plus, you don’t want a competitor to own it, change the phone number, and gain your leads!

 

Tell me how to claim my Google Business listing

Search for your Google Business profile

Then click “claim this business”

If your profile doesn’t magically appear in front of you, then click “add your business to Google Business”

Click “verify ownership”

Then choose one of the methods; snail mail is often a method that’s offered by Google, but it’s slow. There’s also often a method to verify your listing by phone or e-mail; this is preferred, too, since who wants to wait for the postman these days?

 

Get your primary business category right.

This is so important; however, you might be surprised by how many businesses don’t get this part right.

This is super important to get right as well. Basically, Google uses it as the main way to decide which customers to send your way.

Therefore, let’s say you run a rather brilliant construction company; however, the Google Business profile might say that you’re a general builder. Therefore, of course, the two business categories overlap. However, if you’re a large construction company with 100 staff, you’re not going to want to be in the general domestic builder category, as you might not want to build domestic property extensions. You might be looking for higher-value work.

So get the business category right by selecting the primary business category which best describes the services you offer.

 

Here’s how to select your primary category:

• Log in to your Google Business profile
• Click edit profile
• Then select the business category that best suits your business services or products.

Set the address correctly (NAP is important)

Okay, this may sound like super simple advice again.

However, sit down with an expert set of SEO boffins at your local marketing agency, and they will tell you that part of the process of gaining local SEO success comes down to something called “NAP consistency”.

Now, this is not new; it wasn’t introduced in 2026. It’s actually decades old.

However, here’s a top point that we would like to share with you. That is, make sure that the NAP information, that’s your most up-to-date company address, name and phone number, is on your Google Business account.

 

Then check, check, and check again that all of the businesses’ NAP information matches.

– Business citations should match
– Google Business NAP information should match
– Unstructured business citations should match
– Then, also on-page NAP information should match

 

Here’s what you should do

Set the physical business address in your GBP
Verify your map pin
And also, while you’re at it, verify your business location

 

What else is important to get right on our Google Business profile?

Opening hours

It’s important to get the opening hours spot on.

If, say, Peter has to drive to a retail park, to find the store management are locking up for the afternoon and going home, yet the Google

Business profile says you’re still open for another few hours, Peters not going be happy bunny.
H may even leave a negative business review.

Don’t upset Peter; make sure your Google Business hours are correct.

 

Make sure you add as much detail as possible.

This means filling out:

• Your business’s name
• NAP address
• Phone number
• Website URL
• A detailed and bespoke business address
• Opening times
• Service areas

 

A well-written business description

Your business description can’t be a half-hearted affair.You can’t just copy and paste from your about us page, grab a coffee, knock the lights off for the day, and say, “I’m done”.No, you need to craft a custom and bespoke business description in your Google Business account. Take the time to do it right, adding relevant keywords. Be unique, so don’t copy it from somewhere else; duplicated text says to Google, “Well, I can’t really be bothered.”When Google detects this, it goes elsewhere, selects a business with less duplication and a better optimised Google profile.

 

Upload high-quality photos.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a picture of your fantastic coffee beans you’ve started selling, or a picture perhaps of your dog grooming saloon where you pamper the dogs and make them feel a million dollars when they leave!

What is important is that, as regularly as clockwork, you are updating customers with a picture of your business—pictures of the rather fantastic services or products you’re selling.

You might be scratching your bonce, wondering, well, how does this help improve my Google Business account?

Well, that’s simple. If you regularly update your Google Business account with lots of lovely pictures of your products, for example, this means the account is more up to date.

If the Google Business account is more active and up to date, Google knows you’re actively running the business. You’re hungry if you like to increase those sales by keeping new and old customers informed about your company. For example even changing the opening hours in your

Google Business account, says to Google you want to update customers of a change to your business.

Now, a business down the road that hasn’t updated its restaurants Google Business profile for the last 10 years, well, they are less hungry in Google’s eyes for customers. They might not even be in business; they may have just left the Google Business account up and running.

Therefore, update your account from time to time; it tells Google you’re still in business, and the information is more relevant.

 

Gain reviews

Gaining business reviews is important for your business to stand out on Google Business.

This stands to reason when you think about it for a second: Google’s algorithm is naturally going to want to rank businesses where real customers have left the business a ton of positive feedback and reviews.

 

Gain reviews over a long time frame.

We refer to Google Business reviews as being “drip-fed”. The reason it’s better to gain reviews over a longer timeframe is super simple: if the floodgates were to open on your businesses reviews, and you were to get say 100 over the course of just one month trading, well, that looks a bit suspect.

The reason it looks a bit suspect to Google is simply that millions of businesses buy fake business reviews. Then normally these reviews get added in one big dollop. This means that Google will most likely treat these business reviews as fake or discount their importance.

So, to improve your business’s search engine optimisation, it’s always better to slowly accumulate positive reviews.

 

How recent

So, you want your customers to be delighted with the service or products you’re selling. You want them to be over the moon.

However, what you don’t want is to do is say obtain a lot of reviews, then nothing for the next few years after. Google may start to think, is the business still going?

So this is another good point: you want to gain reviews slowly and surely, and sustain that over the course of being in business.

So, don’t be concerned if a few months go by and no one has left a positive review.

However, if a few years have passed and no one has left any good reviews, then it’s time to worry and start gaining more business reviews.

Optimise your on-page SEO for local search, too.

What a lot of businesses, well, plus some agencies also forget, is that you have to do a bit of on-page SEO work as well. This supports both the organic and the Google Map results.

Therefore, NAP details are an absolute must, however, push the boat out and do add schema as well.

The reason is, you can bet your bottom dollar that your competitors will be actively using Schema markup on their websites as well.

 

Local Keywords

If Googlebot crawls and indexes the homepage, and let’s say the H1 tag is one of the first places the bot looks.

And, yet you’ve guessed it, if your on-page H1 tag says “AI SEO experts Cardiff”- well, Google will know that your business specialises in this service.

Good on-page SEO is therefore important to get right.

Your Google Business Profile and your company website are not totally disconnected; well, they’re not disconnected at all.

Googlebot will crawl and index your whole website, reading the schema mark-up, on-page SEO, and, of course, your NAP, so it can work out where you’re based and the areas your company serves.

 

Add schema markup; it’s really important.

Now, don’t worry, schema mark-up is not as hard as you might think to implement.

You don’t need a master’s degree from Cardiff University in coding to work out how to do this.

The reason is the top CMS, that’s “content management systems”, such as Drupal, and WordPress, well, they make it an absolute piece of cake to obtain a free plugin, then someone who doesn’t know the difference between PHP and JavaScript can slap schema on their website in a matter of minutes.

It’s that simple.

Where should I be slapping Schema markup?

Well, you can add schema to the following places:

Build some citations, then some more, and yep, some more

Business citations (NAP details) they get crawled and indexed by, yes, you guessed it, Googlebot.

What Googlebot wants to see is a large amount of quality business citations (NAP), all from relevant business directories. Then, for the NAP information to all be the same, we SEO companies refer to this as “NAP consistency”- and it’s pretty important.

Well, it’s actually very important, as it’s Google’s way of checking where the business is based.
So if you have 100 business citations, all stating the same thing, well, then everything marries up, and your local SEO gets a nice boost.

 

Backlinks and authority

So, let’s say you run a plumbing business in central Cardiff.

As you know, there will be 100 local businesses offering the same type of business services.

So, let’s say all the NAP details, these competitors have implemented that correctly.

Then the next thing Googlebot checks is, let’s say, on-page SEO, if that’s all done right, all nice and white hat, as they say.

So, what’s the next way of deciphering whether that’s an important business in Cardiff, or is it a business no one has heard of in that area?

Well the way Google works out whether your business is a local super star or not is through, yep, you guessed it: backlinks. They’re super important. If you have a ton of them, a nice amount of quality links, well, this improves a few things.

It gives your local SEO a massive boost and improves the authority component of Google EEAT.

So, you literally have a double whammy in that your organic search engine optimisation can be improved as well.

So, backlinks, well, they’re important for everything from optimising your website for Google AI Overviews to organic SEO and your organic side of things as well. However, don’t get this aspect wrong, as many businesses have disappeared from Google because they’ve built backlinks the wrong way! Always be white hat.

 

Come to the best in the business.

If you operate a business in the rather glorious city of Cardiff, you might be Googling to find a local agency that knows its stuff.

Well, that will be us.

Plus, if your currently with one of the main agencies, we will do our upmost to beat their quote by 33%.

We can improve your local SEO, and we are one of the best in the whole city at this process.
So, therefore, if you’re looking to drum up more business, in this rather suppressed economy we are operating in right now, well, we are the business to call.

Come to the experts, come to us.