Why your business should be on the map, and how to get there

Type "plumber" or "pizza" into your phone and look at what comes up first. Before any website, and most of the time before the ads, there is a map with three pins on it. Those three businesses get the call. Everyone below the map is competing for what is left.

That map is not built from websites. It is built from business listings: the profile you claim on Google, on Apple, on Waze. If you have never claimed yours, one of three things is true. You are not on the map at all, you are on it with details someone else typed in, or a competitor is sitting exactly where you should be.

Where the map actually lives

"Being on the map" is shorthand for four separate things, because customers do not all use the same app.

• Google Maps and Google Search. The big one. A Google Business Profile is what puts you in the map at the top of a search and on the map itself. It carries your hours, phone number, photos, reviews, and a button that opens directions.
• Apple Maps. The default on every iPhone, and what Siri and CarPlay use. Apple does not read your Google profile. It has its own system, Apple Business Connect, and a business that never claimed its place there is often shown with a guessed category and no photos.
• Waze. Owned by Google, but with its own map and its own list of places. Drivers who navigate with Waze see the businesses on it, not the ones on Google Maps. It is the one most people forget.
• Bing and everything else. Bing Places feeds Bing search and a surprising number of in-car systems. Small, free, and about twenty minutes of work.

What a good listing does for you

It is easy to treat a listing as a directory entry. It is closer to a second front door.

• It answers the questions people ask before they call. Are you open now? Where exactly are you? Is there parking? A complete profile answers those without anyone picking up the phone.
• It turns a search into a visit. The directions button is the most used thing on a listing. If the pin is on the wrong street, that button sends people to your neighbour.
• It collects reviews where people look for them. Reviews on Google are how strangers choose between two businesses they have never heard of. A listing with none reads as closed, or new, or both.
• It shows the business is real and current. Recent photos, correct hours, replies to reviews. Google notices, and so do customers.

The mistakes we see most

Most businesses are on the map in some form. Fewer are on it well. The usual problems:

1. 01The pin is in the wrong place. Placed automatically from an address, often on the wrong side of the block or in the middle of the road. Every "we couldn't find you" is a customer you already won and then lost at the door.
2. 02Two listings for one business. An old one from a previous owner or an earlier address, and a new one. Reviews split between them, and Google trusts neither.
3. 03Hours that are wrong. Holiday hours never set, so the listing says open on a day you are closed. The one-star review that follows is about the closed door, not the business.
4. 04Different details in different places. One phone number on Google, another on Apple, a third on the website. Consistency is one of the things the map ranks on.
5. 05A category that is nearly right. "Restaurant" when you are a pizzeria. "Store" when you sell bathrooms. The category is one of the biggest factors in whether you show up for a given search at all.
6. 06Nothing since the day it was set up. No photos in three years, no posts, unanswered reviews. A listing that looks abandoned gets treated as one.

How to set it up yourself

If you have an afternoon, this is the order that works.

1. 01Search for your business on Google Maps first. If a listing already exists, claim it rather than creating a new one. Duplicates are the hardest thing to undo later.
2. 02Claim or create your Google Business Profile. Verification is usually by video these days: you film the outside of the premises, the signage, and something that shows you run the place. Allow a few days for it to come back.
3. 03Fill in everything. Primary category first, then secondary ones. Hours, including special hours for public holidays. Phone, website, services, and a description in plain language. At least ten photos: the front, the inside, the work, the people.
4. 04Drag the pin to the door. Not the building, the door customers use.
5. 05Do the same on Apple Business Connect. Same details, same photos, same pin.
6. 06Check Waze and Bing. Search for yourself in both. Fix what is wrong, add what is missing.
7. 07Ask your next ten happy customers for a review, and reply to every one. Then put a reminder in the calendar to add a few photos every month.

Everything above is free. The only cost is the afternoon, and the patience for the verification video.

If you would rather not

Fair enough. This is one of the small jobs we do at LC Development, usually in a day: claim or clean up the listings, fix the pin, sort out duplicates, and hand you back logins that are yours. If you want it done, get in touch and tell us the name of the business. The first conversation is free, and so is the advice if you decide to do it yourself after all.