your competitor is not better than you, just easier to find

The businesses in the top three on Google Maps are rarely the best in town, they are the ones Google can read.

Hi,

There is a moment that happens with almost every owner I talk to. I show them the map for their main search term, they look at the three names on it, and they say some version of: "Him? He is not better than me."

They are usually right. The business in the top three is often not the best one in town. It has less time behind it, or a smaller crew, or reviews that mention the same complaints the owner hears about that competitor from customers who switched. And yet it gets the call, every day, from people who never heard of either business and just picked the top one on the map.

Here is the lesson: Google does not rank the best business. It ranks the business it understands best.

Google has never seen your work. It cannot taste the food, inspect the patio, or sit in the chair. What it can read is a listing, a website, reviews and what other sites say about you. It takes that and decides how relevant you are to the search, how close you are to the person searching, and how much the internet seems to know about you. That is the whole formula, and I wrote it out in plain words in how Google picks the top three on Maps.

So the competitor who beat you is not better. He is legible. His listing says exactly what he does and where. His website says the same thing. His reviews mention the service and the town. His photos are recent. Every signal points the same direction, and Google can put him on the map with confidence.

Your business, meanwhile, might be the best in the area, with a listing that says "contractor", a website that says "welcome to the website", reviews that say "great guy" without naming what you did, and a phone number on the site that does not match the one on the listing. Google cannot read that with confidence, so it does not put you on the map. Not because you are worse. Because you are unclear.

Picture two auto shops on the same street. One has done European cars for a very long time and is booked solid on referrals. The other opened recently, but the owner filled out every field on the listing, named the makes he works on, added photos of the bays, and asks every customer for a review that mentions the car. Search "European auto repair" in that town and the newer shop is on the map. The older one is not. Nobody searching that phrase ever finds out that the older shop is better, because they never see it.

The good news in this is that being legible is a fixable problem. Talent is hard to build. Clarity is not. You can make your listing, your site and your reviews say the same true thing, over and over, until Google has no doubt about what you do and the area you do it in. That is most of what I do for a living, and it is the part of marketing that rewards the better business, because once Google can read you, being better starts to count.

Next time you see a weaker competitor on the map above you, do not get angry. Read his listing. Then read yours as if you were Google. The gap is usually right there.

Talk soon,
Brandon

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