7 Critical Steps to Turn Your Google Maps Visibility Into A Steady Stream of Leads

Why Google Maps Is A Premier Lead Generation Tool

As a digital marketing agency, our main goal is to improve your online visibility, number and quality of leads, and business growth opportunities. While there are dozens of online marketing options that require a capital investment, you can benefit from Google Maps without paying a dime.

Here are 3 reasons why Google Maps should be a part of your marketing plan:

1. Hyper-Targeted Geography — You can prospect within a hyper-specific radius, down to the exact city or neighborhoods you want to reach.
2. Real-Time Accuracy — Google Maps listings are actively updated by business owners. Yes, you control what you want to show to your prospects and customers.
3. Extensive Category Coverage — Whether your home services business is typical (electrician, HVAC, plumber, painter) or you represent a niche industry (air duct cleaner, mobile car detailer), you’ll find your category ad services in Google Maps.

Even if you’ve never taken the steps to improve your Google Maps ranking and visibility, you’ve still probably received quite a few leads from it. That’s because over 85% of people in the U.S. use Maps to compare and locate businesses.

However, once you start taking the simple steps to enhance your Google Maps visibility and improve Google Maps rankings, your home services business will likely benefit from a top ranking. Imagine what being placed high above your competitors could do for your local lead generation. This heightened visibility could bring exponentially more phone calls, website visits, and sales to your business.

Ready to learn the 7 simple steps to boost your online visibility on Google Maps? We laid them out in order of importance.

Step #1: Google Business Profile Optimization

Previously known as Google My Business, a Google Business Profile is a free digital storefront on Google Search and Maps. Rather than just rely on your website, it gives you another opportunity to promote your business to active prospects. Through your Google Business Profile, you display vital details about your business, including opening hours, contact info, customer reviews, and website links.

Your Google Business Profile enables you to:

• Boost your online visibility
• Build trust and credibility
• Provide actionable insights
• Drive direct conversions

Now that you know your Google Business Profile is critical to your online marketing and success, Google Business Profile optimization is one of the most effective ways to generate more quality leads and improve your local visibility.

• Start by selecting a highly specific category for your business.
• Next, complete every section with detailed information about your hours, services, products, and more.
• Then, write a 750-character description to explain what you do, who you serve, and the key cities you cover.
• Next, focus on your reviews. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive and detailed reviews. 
• Finally, be sure to upload high quality photos featuring your business, your before-and-after shots, your people, your location, etc.

Step #2: Choose the Right Categories and Services

Sure, it’s rare that a plumber would accidentally choose the category of painter on Google Maps. However, it’s pretty common that home services business owners choose a category that doesn’t accurately describe their business niche.

To optimize your Google Maps visibility, you should choose one highly specific primary category that perfectly describes your core business.

Next, choose one or two relevant secondary categories. Finally, use the Services section to list all of your specific offerings.

Here are a few tips to nail the right categories and services.

• Check out your competition — If there is a local competitor who does precisely what you do, you can accurately extract competitor categories with a tool like GMB Everywhere.
• Be specific rather than broad — If you offer a specialized service in your home services field, make sure you choose that category.
• Align with your website content — Google cross-references your map categories with your website. If your categories don’t align with your website content, your Google Maps listing will suffer.

Step #3: Build a Consistent Review Strategy

At the heart of Google Maps are your reviews. Most homeowners come to Google Maps in an effort to decide who they will hire. Therefore, a good amount of quality Google Reviews helps to make that decision easy.

Some home services business owners think that good reviews just fall out of the sky. Some months you’ll get several reviews. Other months, nothing. That’s why you need to commit to a consistent review strategy shown below.

• Optimize your review requests — Simply telling your customers, “Leave us a review,” or “Find us on Google” isn’t good enough. Rather, provide a QR code that links directly to your Google Reviews. Add them to your business cards, email signature, invoices, and more.
• Make asking for reviews a part of every transaction — Train your frontline staff and service techs to ask for a 5-star review as soon as the job is finished. Hand them a card with your Google Review QR code to make it seamless.
• Respond to every review — Google favors home services businesses that respond to customers who leave reviews. For both positive and negative reviews, respond calmly and professionally and leave positive details about the job.

Step #4: Add Photos, Updates, and Service Details

Google favors fresh content. They want to know that your business has a pulse. A stale Google Maps listing that rarely gets updated doesn’t receive priority status. Therefore, it may cost you online visibility and leads.

Thankfully, it’s easy to keep your Google Maps content fresh.

First, your prospects want to see images of your business and who you serve. Therefore, add several fresh, authentic photos that prove your business is active and trustworthy. Stock photos are not what today’s homeowners want to see.

Next, it’s important to keep prospects up to date with your business. By continuously adding updates, you share news, offers, and events directly on your profile.

Finally, not every homeowner will search for a broad category, such as “plumbing.” Your most qualified prospects will include more specific searches, such as “water heater repair” or “sewer repair.” Therefore, showcase precisely the services you offer to attract the most qualified prospects.

Step #5: Strengthen Your Website Local SEO Strategy

Did you know that your website and your Google Maps ranking are both evaluated by Google to determine where you rank for certain keywords? Your goal should be twofold: to optimize your website for local SEO, as well as your Google Maps ranking. A strong local SEO strategy combines your website, your Google Business Profile, and Google Maps into one cohesive system.

First, your website should feature facts about your business that your prospects need to know. While your name, address, and phone number are important to have on your website, so are your operating hours, your services, years of experience, and more. This approach is especially important for local SEO for contractors because Google looks for consistent business information across your website and Google Business Profile.

Step #6: Build Local Landing Pages

While your home services business may serve New Jersey or Philadelphia, people want to know that you serve their specific community. By simply featuring “New Jersey” on your website, you are directly competing with dozens of other New Jersey home services businesses that do exactly what you do.

By building out multiple landing pages that feature cities or townships, you are telling prospects that you’re in their neighborhood. Then, make sure your NAP data (Name, Address, Phone Number) on your website matches up perfectly with what’s in Google Maps.

Creating location-specific pages also strengthens your presence on Google Maps for home services by helping Google better understand the areas you serve.

Step #7: Track Calls, Form Fills, and Lead Quality

John Wanamaker, a pioneer in marketing famously said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is I don’t know which half.”

Unfortunately, that quote describes a lot of home services business owners nowadays. If you aren’t sure what’s working, how do you know where to spend your time or money?

By tracking the phone calls and form fills that result from Google Maps, you will know without doubt the success of this marketing. To track your calls, set up a tracking number through a service like CallRail.

For prospects that come to your website, you can track their actions on form fills. Integrate your own CRM (like HubSpot or Salesforce) to capture your data alongside the traffic source.

Start Benefitting from Google Maps: More Leads with Zero Marketing Costs

While this blog post makes it clear that Google Maps is among your best online lead generation tools, it should never be optimized in a silo. The best results come from combining Google Business Profile optimization, a strong local SEO strategy, and ongoing efforts to improve Google Maps rankings.

The team at Spartan Digital Solutions has helped hundreds of home services businesses in New Jersey and local areas to boost their presence on Google Maps. As a result, plumbers, HVAC technicians, floor installers, roofers, and painters are experiencing more calls, more bookings, and more sales than ever before.

Not only can we help you to dominate your local competition with a proven Google Maps plan, we can put together an entire lead generation system for you specifically designed to grow your business.

Of course, it all starts with our FREE Lead Generation Battle Plan. Request yours today.