How Google picks businesses for the map
When a customer searches for a service with a city name, or adds "near me", Google shows a map with a few businesses above the regular results. Google names three factors behind that list: relevance, distance and prominence.
- 01
Relevance
Whether your profile and site match what the customer is looking for: category, description, list of services.
- 02
Distance
How far the business is from the customer, or from the place named in the search.
- 03
Prominence
How well known the business is online: reviews, links, mentions in directories, articles and the press.
Google Business Profile: what to fill in
A Google Business Profile is free. These fields matter for your place on the map and for whether a customer calls:
Primary category
One, most precise category, plus additional ones for your other services.
Description and services
What you do, for whom and where, in the words customers type.
Address or service area
Your premises, or the cities where you serve customers on site.
Hours and contact
Current hours, phone number and website, holidays included.
Photos
Real photos of the place, the team at work and the results.
Reviews and replies
A reply to every review, critical ones too, factual and not templated.
The same business details everywhere
Name, address and phone number should read exactly the same on your site, your Google profile, Bing Places, industry directories and social media. An old address in one directory or a different number in another weakens how much search engines and AI assistants trust what they know about you.
| Where | What we check |
|---|---|
| Your website | Details in the footer and on the contact page, LocalBusiness structured data |
| Google Business Profile | Name, category, address, phone, hours, website link |
| Bing Places | The same details, because Microsoft Copilot answers from Bing |
| Business and industry directories | Old addresses, duplicate listings, outdated phone numbers |
Service and location pages
The map profile is half of local SEO. The other half is your site: a separate page for every service and every city you actually work in, with specifics: scope, prices or ranges, travel area, availability, examples of work.
We do not build hundreds of city pages that differ only by name. Google treats them as an attempt to game results, and customers find no answers on them anyway.
| Phrase a customer types | Page that answers it |
|---|---|
| dentist seattle capitol hill | Practice page with address, hours and directions |
| dental implants seattle cost | Service page with price ranges and cost questions |
| dentist open saturday seattle | Hours in the Google profile and on the contact page |
Example for a dental practice. Your phrases come from your site's data.
Customer reviews
Reviews affect how prominent a business is and whether a customer picks you or the business next to you on the map. A simple request after the job is done, with a link straight to the review form, works best.
Buying reviews or writing them yourself breaks Google's rules and can end with reviews removed or the profile suspended. We do not do it and do not recommend it.
Local links and mentions
Local sources tell Google and AI assistants that the business really operates in a place:
- Local news sites and business directories for your city
- Chambers of commerce, trade associations and organizations you belong to
- Partners, suppliers and events you work with
- Guest articles on local and industry websites
Local SEO and AI answers
Google AI Overviews and Gemini use what Google knows about businesses, and Microsoft Copilot uses Bing. When a customer asks an assistant to recommend a business in a city, the answer is built from profiles, directories, reviews and business websites.
A complete profile, consistent details and specific pages help on the map and in AI answers at the same time. That is why every plan tracks both.
Local SEO in Querora plans
The Start plan covers one service or one city, Growth up to three and Pro up to ten services or locations. In every plan we look after your Google Business Profile, consistent details in directories, location pages and phrases with a city name, and every week we check rankings and AI answers.