We all want to be the first. This desire is inherent in almost all business owners. But not everyone wants to make any effort for this. What can we say about carefully understanding the issue and doing not “something”, but what is needed.

But, we always lack something. Be it time, desire, or money.

In fact, for me personally, everything is simple.

You need to understand and understand what, or on whom, our place in this world depends.

Card view mode:

To make your mark visible on the map, in the Google Maps view mode, you need to be a popular company. You must understand that not all points in one place can be seen at once. The smaller the scale, the more points are visible in one place, and the most popular places are visible at the maximum viewing scale.

Also, since the system is following you, each user sees either “their” popular places (in this case: Guest house on Papanin, Ronin sushi), or the most visited by them, for example: Work, favorite cafe, cinema and so on.

New users of the region (tourists or travelers) see by default the most popular places in the city, for example in this case it is a gas station, or tourist centers, the business that is located there, because it is considered the most visited. To become popular, you need to try to influence the activity of customers by encouraging them to take action on the map (reviews, photos) and regularly be active in the Google My Business service (publications, responses to reviews, publication of photos).

If you want to check how popular you are in your city or area, we recommend using incognito mode. Then the system does not take into account your search preferences.

Map search mode or Google search:

In the top search positions, the system shows companies according to the following criteria (these are our observations): the closest company to you, the best in the system’s opinion, the most affordable for you in terms of pricing, a young company in random order, your favorite place and much, much more

In the situation below, our place on the map depends on the Google Maps system (call it what you want: algorithm, artificial intelligence, Google Robot). Which, based on the algorithm built into the program, provides the end user (client) with a search result and assigns your company a place in the search.

What does this place depend on?

It is important to remember that you and I, as business owners and as customers, can sometimes influence the algorithm and the search situation, and sometimes not.

For example: We can influence as a customer the assessment of the quality of the company’s work – by leaving a review on the map for the company. This is the “Rating”, we see it:

If the review is positive, the algorithm will improve the company’s rating, if negative – it will worsen.

But few people know that whatever the review is – it, “review”, is the activity of the map user (client) in relation to the business. And any activity according to the algorithm is also rewarded with an improvement in the rating.

So a negative or average quality review also affects the rating, but not by improving the assessment of your company’s work, but by increasing the rating, which we, unfortunately, do not see.

But we cannot influence, for example, the distance to your facility, which is why map search is called local. Very often, if there are a very large number of companies of the same category in one search region, the closest location is the first in the list. But not always. Yes, a company nearby may not have the required minimum rating or the first place may be taken by a company that pays for advertising:

How did we come to this conclusion? If it is not stated anywhere.

Well, first of all, it is said: In this article, Google told us how to improve search results on Google Maps. Nowhere does it say: “Get a good review”, “Publish good photos” and so on. It is simply said – do it.

Secondly: in our company, we regularly study the statistics of our clients, where we have similar objects, in the same group and category of business in different cities and in the same city. Which gives us the opportunity to trace the logic of the algorithm and develop a promotion strategy. In simple words, to understand how the system thinks and try to influence it to achieve the desired result. In our practice, there was a case when a company with poor ratings from people got to the top, due to high activity. But customers did not choose this company.

What else can we influence to improve the position of our company in Google Maps?

  • Photo

The thing is that again, our activity in the Google My Business service is also important for the system. Such activity, both from the client’s side and from the business side, affects the company’s rating. And the system rewards more active businesses with additional views.

Quantity: Google insists that we fill out all sections in the Google My Business service. For example, most people, when they are offered to upload a photo of an object, upload only 1-3 photos, mainly photos of the facade of the building, less often the interior and even less often of the team working in the company. This is usually all, but this is not enough.

Quality: We noticed that the system checks the quality of the photo, so we recommend that clients order a professional photo shoot on a good camera with high resolution and a wide-angle lens. Such photos give more, not only to the clients who look at them, but also to the system that will evaluate them according to its criteria.

Photo 360: yes, such high-quality photos in this format can only be taken with professional equipment, not to mention combining them into a 3D tour, but these photos significantly affect the company’s rating on Google Maps. This is because this technology was invented and integrated into the Google Street View system, Google is actively promoting it, which is why it introduced such a standard for business points. From our practice, they add 20-50% of the indicators to the attendance of the facility.

Many complain that it is expensive to take such a photo. About 200-300 dollars. But we will not agree with such a statement. Our photos are half the price, because we have applied a global approach. We rent a camera to our clients and help them take the necessary pictures remotely. For example, in Ukraine, such a procedure will cost our client 3 times less and the result is the same.

Categories: What about photos of the Workflow, menu or price list, schedule board, logo or sign, and much more that the system offers?

You can rent a cooler camera from Google itself

  • Information about services
  • 98% of card users ignore menu items with goods and services. It takes a long time to fill them out, and why would the client call himself, right? But no! Every entered word about your service makes it possible to find you.
  • Don’t be like everyone else.
  • Our company has been working with the Google Maps service for 5 years. And now 95% of business owners do not configure, optimize, or work on promotion in this direction. Therefore, those who do, get regular good results. On average, after our work on a regular point on the map, the number of searches increases by 3-6 times. The ideas and technologies that we implement in the business process for the client also affect this indicator.
  • Violation of the rules
  • A common mistake in working in the Google Maps and Google My Business services is ignoring the rules of the service. After all, in January 2019, the system itself changed and every mistake has consequences. For example, many are now trying to spam their company name (title) with their keywords. But the thing is that the system encourages companies with such a title and often does not even show them in the search, preferring more honest and relevant queries, showing them only if there is no alternative. This mistake is made either by beginners in working with Maps, or by promotion agencies that promised their customers a quick result, and the further fate of the business does not matter to them. 2. Very often there are also violations of the rules in working with photos. People publish photos that belong to the brands of the companies they work with, a bunch of advertising and promotional offers simply in the form of a photo. You must remember that maps are, first of all, maps. A service that helps to understand where the object is and what it looks like. For this, you can earn a ban from a moderator or a complaint from a competitor. In the Google My Business community, people often write about how their point was blocked, and they cannot get it unlocked manually for up to 1 year.3. And the most, in our opinion, vile and stupid method of promotion is buying reviews. God, how many times after this method, we got people out of the swamp. Well, firstly, Google blocks pages with reviews from one-day accounts. Moreover, the company’s rating in the system will simply drop, and it will start to disappear from the search. Very often, the owners do not even notice this. Secondly, those who sell reviews do not have 10,000 good accounts to give reviews from real people and users. And what will you do when you need to buy 500? 1000? 10,000 reviews to raise your rating? Let us remind you that Google keeps track of who gave the review and in our practice, it simply bans a person’s review along with the account, after which only the person himself and no one else can see the reviews from this user. People forget that many people use their smartphones to geolocate and get feedback from someone who was physically in your company and from someone who is in another city or country, these are different things. And the most unpleasant thing is feedback for harm. Giving a good but fictitious review, for example, to a medical center or doctor who, God forbid, will maim people, means joining the current situation. Therefore, our ideas, consultations, technologies and all our work are aimed at receiving relevant and high-quality feedback and promoting the client without violating the rules of the service. We work with business, develop and teach business to work correctly not only with Google My Business, but also with the Client. Our motto is to be better, not to seem better!

Mappers GEO company invites you to cooperate!