My Competitors Rank Higher In Google Maps 😡 WHY!?

today i'm going to share with you some of the most common reasons why your competitors might rank higher than you in google maps and what you can do about it so hold your breath because we're diving in now hi everyone i'm luke duran the founder of rankingacademy.co.uk i'm here to help you make the most of your business online so if you want to join the community just subscribe and click on the bell button so you don't miss a thing why are my competitors ranking higher than me in google maps this is one of the most frequent questions i get from prospective clients who feel they have been working hard during their business in google maps as high as possible for weeks only to see their competitors listings rank higher than theirs even though they didn't put anywhere near as much effort into it as you may already know local rankings are based on many factors and each situation will be unique to your business however some of these factors will influence your rankings way more than others understanding what they are and how you fare against your competitors for each of these factors will help you focus on what matters most and where you need to make some improvements to help you out i've created a google sheet you can download from the description below in which you can track these key factors against your competitors so you can visualize where you should concentrate your efforts if you want to rank above your competitors and google maps i'll be using real clients examples to support some of the points i will address in this video so hopefully it will make things easier for you to understand so without further ado let's start with factor number one proximity one of the most influential ranking factors in local seo is the proximity of a business to the point of search in layman's terms this means that if i'm at home and i search for the keyword coffee shop in google maps on my computer for example google will show me a list of coffee shops nearest to my house based on the ip address of my computer but if i was to conduct the same search two miles down the road with my phone the set of results would be widely different as it will be based on a different location set by my phone's gps coordinates this makes it very difficult for local business owners to understand how far their google my business listing extends in google maps results for any given keyword and to figure out who their competitors truly are so what can you do head over to geomappy.com geomappy is a nifty tool that enables you to track and easily visualize your google my business local rankings directly into google maps and from multiple locations this is perfect if you want to understand the strength of your listing and how fight reaches on google maps let me show you an example for one of my clients who is an emergency electrician located in london to access the map ranking i just need to click on the view option next to the map icon using the drop down menu i can flick through each keyword i have set in my campaign and see exactly where my clients listing ranks for each keyword individually ranking results are colored coded so you instantly know if they have gone up down or stayed the same as you can see my client ranks very well for emergency electrician near me however if i select emergency electrician london he is way down the list this is because his business is located on the outskirts of london making him less relevant than an emergency electrician who would be located bang in the middle of the city this is extremely useful information i know it would require a huge amount of work and resources to be listed in the top three results for the keyword emergency electrician london so instead i can focus on more realistic target keywords that will yield better results such as much broader term like electrician as you can see from the map for this term he has some decent positions such as four and seven but since they are outside the top three he won't be listed in the map pack which is really where i want him to be one of the great features of geo mappy is that if i click on the ranking positions i can see how much progress we've made recently but it also gives me access to the detailed list of which businesses rank above him this is great insight as i can easily check them out and see what they are doing that we don't all your results are archived so you can track your progress and download them in various formats geomappi has been specifically designed to help you understand how visible your business is on local maps which is something other conventional keyword tools are not able to do creating an account is easy just click on the start a 7 day free trial option and fill in the form once logged in just click on add new and set up your first campaign by either entering your business name which will be detected automatically or if not you can add it manually make sure you enter the exact business name you have registered in your google my business title choose the size of the area you want covered up to 15 miles and the frequency at which you want rankings to be done then click on next this is where you can add the keywords you want to track once you're done click on the start tracking button you will be redirected to the main dashboard from there click on campaign and execute tracking will begin it should only take a couple of minutes after which you can check your results by clicking on the view link just use the dropdown to switch between keywords and verify the rankings respectively for more information just watch the easy to follow tutorial available in a support area geo mappy is not a free tool and works on credit basis checking one keyword for one location will cost you just one credit in my clients example checking seven keywords across 12 different locations cost 84 credits you get 671 credits for as little as 10 dollars which gives you plenty of room to do a lot of tracking you will not be tied into a subscription and you can spend as you go if you don't use the credits you have purchased they simply roll over to the following month if you decide to give geomappy a shot and purchase some credits there is a code in the description below which will give you a 500 credit bonus when you sign up time to move on to factor number two business categories when you create a google my business listing for the first time you must choose a primary business category and you also have the choice to add secondary categories categories help google understand what your business is about what type of services or products you offer and to display your listing in search results for keywords matching these categories so if i search for a divorce lawyer in san diego for instance you can see that the top three results are all listed under the divorce lawyer category categories are extremely influential in establishing how well your business will rank for a given keyword if i repeat the same search but this time i use family lawyer san diego instead of divorce lawyer i can see that shannon j black appears for both keywords this could be done to the fact that she has added family lawyer as a category in her listing so if sometimes you find your listing sitting a few spots behind your competitors listings it could simply be because they have added categories to their listing that are missing in yours or that you have different ones the question is how do you find out what their categories are so you can replicate the same model as we've already seen in the divorce lawyer example primary categories are visible as part of the results in google search but google will not short the secondary ones here is a quick hack on how to discover them search for the exact business name of your competitors in google let's use shana j black as an example this should bring the google listing panel on the right hand side of your screen from there click on the map picture which will open the listing in google maps right under the name and the review rating you will see the primary category for this listing which you can add to your google sheet so in this instance it's divorce lawyer right click next to the primary category and select the view page source option this will lead you to the html code that sits behind the page if you are on a pc select control f from your keyboard or command f if you are on a mac and a search box will show up in there type the primary category divorce lawyer and then using the down arrow scroll down to the third occurrence of the primary category which should be right after the business name and something that says null next to the primary category you should see all other categories that are associated with this listing in this case divorce service family lawyer and lawyer just add them to your sheet and repeat the same steps for other competitors this will help you understand where you have some category gaps which you can add to your google my business profile as long as you provide your services of course let's now move on to factor number three business title having keywords in your google my business title will help you rank a great deal in local search results if i search for handyman in phoenix for example it's not surprising to see that all top 3 results do include the word handyman in their business title but also that two of them have the location included in there as well phoenix if you find your listing ranking below one of your competitors it could simply be because they include their target keywords in their business title and you don't but you can't simply add keywords in your business title willy-nilly as it is against google's guidelines which stipulates that your google my business title should reflect your business real world name in this handyman example if i hover on their websites i can see their web address match their business name which leads me to believe that business title is legitimate so what can you do you can cheat like this example of a dentist called king's cross dental who has added the keyword 24 hour emergency dentist as part of his business title in his google listing so he can rank for emergency related keywords in his area obviously i wouldn't recommend doing this but it is rife in every industry alternatively you can hunt the cheats like this dentist and report them to google so their rankings will be in line with their name you can do this manually but i feel it's very inefficient a better approach is to log into a tool like geomappy.com where you can quickly identify the businesses that may be ranking illegitimately let me show you how to do this with another example a window cleaner called top dog window cleaning bait in birmingham england when i check his rankings for the keyword commercial window cleaning birmingham for example i can see his ranking fairly well next to his location and as you would expect his rankings drop as you go a little further out but he holds a couple of number four positions which means that with a little bit of optimization he might be able to climb one spot and make it into the map pack which would likely generate more traffic and more business if i check who ranks above him i can see that the business in position number three is a business called eco gleam window cleaning but their web address looks especially different from their google my business name and when i search for them in google i can see straight away they are spamming the local results by staffing additional keywords in their name what i can do from here is report this business to google using the business redressal form so the listing is corrected which should help top dog window climb into the map pack result for more info on this you can watch my video report dirty competitors to google and rank higher once again use the google sheet to understand how your listing fares against your competitors business title time to move on to factor number four external links external links pointing to your site have a significant impact on your google map rankings if you're new to the seo game here is a brief explanation of what an external link is any given link from any website pointing to your site will be considered as an external link here is an example for this block drain company located in london who has a link pointing from this website back to the emergency plumbing page links can come from forums directories articles and anywhere else on the web but when it comes to local rankings it is a lot better to have links from local websites pointing to your site than anywhere else such as your local chamber of commerce for example the combination of links pointing to your site is known as your link profile if your competitors have a better link profile than you their google listing are likely to rank above you in google maps to simplify having a better linking profile than your competitors will very often result in your listing ranking above theirs in google maps but how do you find out your competitors link profile so you can compare it with yours head over to ubersuggest.com ubersuggest is a great tool where you can get tons of information about your website including keywords you rank for your top ranking pages some content ideas you can use to improve your website but also how strong your link profile is to find out what your linking profile looks like just simply enter your website address in the main field then choose a country and click search you will be prompted to sign up using a google account so hopefully you already have one if not create one from the left hand side menu click on backlinks from there ubersuggest will provide you with the existing number of links pointing to your site across how many different website from which it will calculate a domain score out of a hundred the higher the score the better it is repeat this process with your competitors site and add the figures to the google sheet so you can figure out very quickly how you measure up against them and start link building if necessary moving on to our next factor reviews as you know online reviews are crucial for your business reputation but they also play a part in your google map rankings basically the more quality reviews you get the more likely you will jump up in rankings but if your competitors have a better review profile than yours it could be the reason why they rank above you in google maps the solution find out how well your competitors are doing with reviews and outdo them to do this first search for each and every one of your competitors and collect their review information which should include the total number of reviews they have so far along with the average rating and then add them to the spreadsheet once you know how far behind you are just start collecting reviews reviews can be difficult to get so if you feel you are lagging behind your competitors watch my tutorial called how to get more google reviews faster with one simple tip it works a treat let's move on to our final factor speed the speed at which your website loads into a browser is becoming increasingly important to users whose patience is running thin google knows this and has taken it into account and added it to its ranking algorithm having a super fast website will not propel you to the top of google maps but if you were on the same par with your competitors for all other factors but your website was faster i'm pretty certain it would make a difference to check how fast your website is head over to google page speed insight and enter your web address in the field then click on analyze after a few seconds you should see how fast your website loads on desktop and mobile and include a breakdown of the performance repeat this process with your competitors and add it to the spreadsheet if you are well behind your competitors i suggest you consider improving this aspect which i feel is likely to grow in importance in the near future for more information on this topic check out my video website speed optimization maximum boost where i got one of my clients site optimized to 100. i've just gone through what i feel are some of the most significant factors which could explain why your listing is ranking lower than your competitors in google maps there are many others that could be considered but the video would likely last a few hours the google sheet should give you a solid starting point and clarity in areas you need to improve try to be the best in all of them and i am confident you will see some very positive returns i hope you enjoyed the video let me know if you have any questions in the comments below and until next time happy marketing

Channel: Ranking Academy

Views: 9,470

Keywords: google maps ranking, google maps seo, google snack pack, google my business seo, local seo 2020, local search engine optimization, google my business optimization, rank in google maps, local seo training, local seo google my business, rank in google maps 2020, rank higher on google maps, local business seo, local seo strategy, google local listing seo, google maps for business, google 3 pack ranking, rank higher in google maps

Id: SbM4A1Cfbv4

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2020