Your 3 tips: how to get into Google's top 3

Thank you for asking for these. Here are the first three things I do when I start with a local business, written out in full so you can do them yourself this week. Nothing technical, nothing to buy. Each tip ends with one thing to do today.

Google says local results come from relevance, distance and prominence. You cannot move your shop, so the work is relevance and prominence, and these three tips are where both start. Do them in order.

Tip 1: get the Google Business Profile right

The profile is the listing on the map, and it is what Google reads first when it picks the top 3. Most profiles I open were set up in five minutes years ago and never touched again. Five settings do most of the work:

• The primary category. The exact thing you sell most, not a general one. Search your main term, look at the three businesses on the map, and use the category they use. A plumber is Plumber, not Contractor.
• The name, exactly as registered. The name on your sign, your invoice and your license, nothing added. No town, no service, no slogan. Google forbids it, and a suspended profile is not on the map at all.
• The description. The first sentence names the service you sell and the town you sell it in, in the words a customer would type. Then a few plain lines about who you help and how you work.
• The services list, filled in. One entry for each thing you actually do, each with a short line of its own. Empty services are a gap Google fills with a competitor.
• Real photos. The front of the building, the truck, the team, the work itself. Your own, not stock, and a few new ones every month, so the profile looks like a business that is open and busy.

Do this today: open your profile, check the primary category against the top 3 for your main term, and rewrite the first sentence of the description so it names the service and the town.

Tip 2: get reviews at a steady pace

Reviews sit inside prominence, and they are the one part of it you can move every week. What matters is not the size of the pile. A few new reviews every month, month after month, beats a burst two years ago and silence since. The goal is a pace, not a number.

• Ask right after the job. The customer is happiest the moment the leak is fixed, the car starts, the room looks new. Ask then, in person, while you are still standing there, not a week later by email.
• Make it one tap. Google gives every business a short link that opens the review box directly. Find it in your profile dashboard, save it as a text message on every customer facing phone, and put it at the bottom of the invoice.
• One named person owns it. When "someone" is supposed to ask, nobody asks. The person who did the work asks, and it goes on the same checklist as collecting payment.
• Reply to every review. Good ones get a thank you that names the service. Bad ones get a calm, short reply written for the next customer who reads it, with an offer to fix it by email. Never argue in public.
• Never buy, gate or reward reviews. No paid reviews, no private form that filters out the unhappy, no discount for a review, no friends and family. Google removes them and can suspend the profile.

Do this today: find your one tap review link, save it as a text on your phone, and send it to the last customer who told you they were happy. The full routine is on the review system page.

Tip 3: make the website say the same thing

Google checks the website to confirm what the profile claims. When the listing says one thing and the site says another, or says nothing, Google trusts neither. The site does not need to be big. It needs to be clear about three things:

• The title tag names the service and the town. The title is the line in the browser tab and the link in the search results. "Plumber in Framingham, MA" tells Google and the customer what the page is in five words. Your business name alone tells them nothing.
• One page per service. Each thing you sell gets its own page, with its own title, a plain description of the work, and the towns you do it in. One page that lists everything ranks for nothing.
• The listing and the site match. The business name, the address and the town on the website are written exactly the way they appear on the profile, in the footer of every page. Same spelling, same suite number, same abbreviation. Every difference gives Google a reason to doubt you.

Do this today: look at your home page title in the browser tab. If it does not name your main service and your town, change it. Then check that the footer matches your profile. More in website optimization.

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Not sure where you stand

To know which of the three is your problem before you touch anything, send your business name and website through the free analysis and you get the exact things that need to happen, in an email, within 2 business days. How Google picks the top 3 on Maps explains why the map changes from one street corner to the next.