Local SEO and Google Maps

What local SEO involves

Local SEO is the work of getting a business to appear in searches tied to a place: “dentist Gdynia”, “mechanic near me”, “florist Mokotów”. For such queries Google often shows a block with a map and a few businesses alongside the ordinary results, and the layout depends on the query. You are therefore competing for two spots at once: a position on Google Maps and a position for your website in the standard results.

Queries without a place name also get a map result. Google knows where the user is, so for “hairdresser” it shows salons nearby. That is why the same keyword gives different results in different parts of a city.

Local SEO makes sense wherever customers choose a business within reach of a trip or a visit: clinics, salons, workshops, law firms, restaurants, physical shops and service companies that travel to the customer. A shop that trades only online needs e-commerce SEO instead.

What determines your position on Google Maps

Google officially lists three factors it uses to rank local results: relevance, distance and prominence. You can change two of them through your work. The third you cannot.

Relevance

Relevance describes how well a profile matches what the user is looking for. Google reads the business category, the list of services, the description, the name and the content of the website the profile links to. Google says businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in matching local results.

Distance

Distance is the gap between the business and the place the user is searching from, or the place named in the query. You cannot change it. Google combines it with relevance and prominence to find the best match, so your position near your premises and at the edges of your service area can differ. That is why we compare visibility from fixed points in the city.

Prominence

Prominence describes how well known the business is. Google uses information from across the web: links, articles, directory listings and reviews. More reviews and positive ratings can help your position in local results.

How we measure progress

Local results depend on where someone is searching from, so a single measurement is not enough. Each month we track several visibility indicators.

• Google Maps positions. For agreed keywords and points in the city, for example in the centre, on an estate and at the edge of your reach.
• Local keywords in the top 10. The number of keywords containing a city or district name for which your website has an average position of 10 or better in Google Search Console in a given month. Search Console does not show every query, and it reports the average position of the topmost result from your site, and we measure Maps separately, from fixed points.
• Reviews. The number of new reviews, the average rating and the share of reviews you have replied to.
• AI answers. Your presence in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude answers to local questions, and the sources they cite.

We set the baseline before the first changes, so later reports have something to compare against. If you are starting from scratch, you can begin with an SEO and GEO audit, which shows the state of your website, your business details and your AI visibility. If your website’s addresses are going to change significantly, a site migration that protects your visibility helps.

Google Business Profile, step by step

Google Business Profile is the business listing shown on Google Maps and in Google Search. Google points to it as a way to improve your local ranking, so we start with its details and settings. This is the order we work in.

1. Ownership and verification. The profile must have an owner on your side and pass Google’s verification. If someone else created the profile earlier, for example a former employee, we first recover access to it. Your company should be the owner, and outside people get the manager role.
2. Business name. We enter the name the business uses in real life: on the sign, the invoice and the website. Adding keywords or a city to the name breaks Google’s rules and risks suspension of the profile.
3. Categories. Categories affect your position in local results. As the primary category we choose the one that describes the main type of business most precisely. Additional categories describe other key departments of the business, and individual services go on the list of services. We pick them from Google’s list.
4. Services and products. We fill in the list of services with short descriptions, and for shops and restaurants also products or a menu. We list only services the business really provides. Complete information helps Google match the profile to customers’ searches.
5. Description. The description can be up to 750 characters. It says what the business does, for whom and in which area. We write it in plain language, without listing keywords.
6. Opening hours. We enter the opening hours, including public holidays and special days. Up-to-date hours save customers a trip to closed premises.
7. Photos. We add photos of the entrance, the interior, the team, finished work and products. A photo of the entrance helps customers find the place in an unfamiliar area.
8. Posts. Posts let you announce an event, a promotion or a new service, and show that the profile is looked after.
9. Customer questions on Google Maps. Since December 2025 Google has been changing the questions and answers section: customers can ask a question in Google Maps and get an answer based on the business’s answers and reviews. That is why it is worth having details such as parking and payment methods in the profile.
10. Link. The profile links to the location page, or to the home page for a business with one place.

Once the profile is set up, we check it regularly. Users and Google can suggest changes to the name, opening hours or address, and some of them are approved automatically.

Google Business Profile is free: Google says it never asks you to pay to keep, verify or reinstate a profile. A call demanding payment for a “renewal” does not come from Google.

Reviews: how to ask, how to reply and what to avoid

Reviews affect your result in two ways. The number of reviews and the average rating are among the prominence signals Google uses in ranking. The second effect is direct: reviews and the owner’s replies help customers compare businesses and decide which one to contact.

How to ask for a review

• Ask every customer, right after the service, while the experience is fresh. Choosing whom to ask is not allowed: Google forbids encouraging reviews only from satisfied customers.
• Use a direct link to the review form: in a text message, in an email after the visit, or as a QR code at the till.
• Decide who in the company asks for reviews and when. Without a named person, this routine fades quickly.

How to reply

Reply to every review, good and bad. A short thank you is enough for a positive one. Answer a negative one calmly and factually, without accusations and without disclosing customer data. Say where the matter can be settled privately. Future customers who are weighing up your business read the reply too.

What not to do

• Do not buy reviews or ask friends for ratings. Google can remove such reviews or suspend the profile.
• Do not offer discounts or gifts in exchange for a review, and do not write reviews of your own business or of competitors.
• Do not report every negative review for removal. A report makes sense only when the review breaks the policies, for example when it is spam, contains abusive content or concerns a different business.

Consistent NAP details in directories and across the web

NAP stands for name, address, phone number: the company’s name, address and telephone number. These three details should look identical in your Google Business Profile, on your website, in industry directories, on social media and on review sites. Outdated details do the most harm, for example an old phone number or a previous address in a directory, because the customer ends up at the wrong address or number.

Tidying up the details goes like this:

1. We set one standard: the full company name, the address in a fixed format, the phone number, the website address and the opening hours.
2. We check where the business appears today by searching for it by name, address and old phone numbers.
3. We correct the listings in sources that matter: Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Facebook, industry and local directories, and review sites in your sector.
4. We report duplicate profiles for removal or merging. Two profiles for the same business split its reviews.

You do not need many listings. What counts is the sources customers actually browse. Listings on industry sites also help AI assistants, which use them as sources of information about a business.

Your website and local visibility

The profile in Google answers the question of where the business is and, briefly, what it does. The website confirms this and tells the story at greater length. Google compares the two sources, so differences between them do harm.

Location page

Every place where the business receives customers should have its own page. It contains the address, phone number, opening hours, a map, directions and parking information, photos of the premises and a list of the services available there. The content describes that specific place. Copies of other branches with the city name swapped give the customer nothing new.

Service pages

Each service you want to rank for gets a separate page with a description of its scope and answers to customers’ questions. We link to it from the menu and from the location page. The general principles are covered on the page about SEO services.

LocalBusiness structured data

Structured data in schema.org format describes the business in a way machines can read. The LocalBusiness type and its subtypes, such as Dentist, Restaurant or AutoRepair, let you give the name, address, phone number, coordinates, opening hours, service area and the addresses of your social media profiles. The data must match what is visible on the website and in your Google Business Profile.

The page on a phone

Local searches are often made on the move, so the page needs a tappable phone number and a button that starts navigation. We also check performance: LCP under 2.5 s, INP under 200 ms, CLS under 0.1.

A business with many branches

In a chain of salons or clinics, each branch competes in its own neighbourhood, and a result in one city does not carry over to another.

• A separate profile for each branch. Each has its own address, phone number, opening hours, photos and categories. Under Google’s guidelines a profile is created for a real-world location, so one profile cannot stand in for branches at other addresses.
• A separate page for each branch. The profile links to the page for its own place, and the branch pages are connected to a shared list of locations.
• One data standard. Holiday opening hours are changed in bulk, from a single spreadsheet.
• Reviews for each place separately. The chain-wide average hides weak branches, so the report shows them individually.
• Content unique to the place. Directions, the team, photos of the premises and questions from customers of that location. Only the information about the service is shared.

A business with no premises that travels to the customer

A plumber, a cleaning company or a photographer often travels to customers and does not receive them at the office address. Google treats such a business as a service-area business. If it also serves customers on site, it is a hybrid business. The profile of such a business has two settings that differ from a profile for a business with a shopfront.

• No address. Google says: “If you don't serve customers at your business address, remove your address from your Business Profile.” The map then does not show a pin at the owner’s home.
• Service area. We list the towns, counties or districts where the business really operates. The list should match what you can actually reach.

On the website we create pages for the areas you cover if they differ for the customer: different call-out prices, a different response time or different completed jobs. An area page has specific content about that locality and the service. We do not create dozens of pages with identical text and only the city name changed.

Local questions to AI assistants

Customers can also ask an AI assistant about a local business: “can you recommend a good orthodontist in Poznań?”, “where can I get car air conditioning repaired in Łódź?”. Assistants build an answer from information found on the web: company websites, directories, review sites and articles.

While working on local visibility, we also tidy up the information AI assistants can find about the business. We look after:

• consistent details about the business in many sources, because the model compares them with each other,
• reviews with concrete descriptions of the service, which can be quoted,
• service pages that answer customers’ questions, and mentions on industry sites.

We test this in practice. We put to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude a set of questions a customer in a given city and industry would ask, and note whether your business appears in the answer, next to which competitors, and which sources are cited. The method is described on the page about AI visibility monitoring, and the general approach on the page about AI SEO and GEO.