E57: How to Dominate the Google Map Pack With a Fully Optimized Google Business Profile
If you want your local business to show up in the Google Map Pack, your Google Business Profile has to be fully optimized.
In this episode of the Marketing Domination Podcast, I break down the biggest mistakes I see that kill visibility and explain how to properly set up and maximize your profile so Google clearly understands what your business does.
I walk through the most important factors that influence rankings, including choosing the right primary category, filling out your services completely, and keeping your profile active. I also share how I handle spam reviews, why photos help more than most businesses realize, and when it makes sense to create additional Google Business Profile locations to expand your reach.
If your goal is to rank higher in Google Maps and get more local customers finding and calling your business, this episode shows you exactly what I recommend doing.
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Sean Garner is a marketing consultant and Certified StoryBrand guide dedicated to helping small business owners grow and dominate their industries. He created the Marketing Domination podcast to teach people how to combine storytelling with strategic marketing to help businesses connect with customers and stand out online.
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MARKETING DOMINATION PODCAST
Introduction
Sean Garner [00:00]: So what are some of the biggest issues that are killing visibility with your Google Business Profile? What should you do about spam reviews, and do photos actually help your ranking?
If you truly want to show up in the coveted Google Map Pack—the top three listings on Google Maps when customers search for what you do—you need to have your profile fully maximized. In this video, we’re going to answer those questions and more so you know exactly what you need to do to grow your rankings and dominate online. Welcome to Marketing Domination.
Starting off with the biggest issues I see hurting local business owners and killing their rankings is that their account simply isn’t properly set up and maximized. I’m going to show you inside an account so you can see what it actually looks like.
Here’s one of the businesses that we own, and one of the biggest mistakes I see is not completing the profile. When you’re inside the profile manager, you want to make sure that everything you possibly can fill out is completed. Your business category needs to be selected, your description needs to be filled out, and details like your opening date, messaging number, website, social profiles, service areas, and hours all need to be included. Any additional information that can be added, such as payment details or other business attributes, should also be filled out.
However, the most common issue I see that truly kills visibility is choosing the wrong category. With your Google Business Profile, you can select multiple categories, but one must be set as the primary category.
One way to find the most relevant category is by searching for your service and reviewing what competitors are doing. For example, if I search “IV therapy near me,” I can look at the businesses currently ranking in the Map Pack. In this case, our business is ranking number one with the Map Pack ad and the listing right below it. But if we weren’t, we could analyze the businesses that are ranking and see what category they have selected.
Just because another business is using a certain category doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the correct one for you, but it can give you a good reference point for understanding how Google is categorizing businesses in your market.
Choose the Right Business Category
Sean Garner [02:08]: This is a perfect example of why optimization is an ongoing process. If we look at IV therapy, for example, you can see our primary category is set to IV therapy services. The second-place competitor has theirs set as health spa, which is what ours used to be. The third listing is IV therapy service, and then others are categorized as medical spa or medical clinic. So you can see there are several different categories being used.
The reason for that—and why you always need to monitor this—is because Google is constantly updating categories. Not too long ago, Google actually released the category IV therapy services. Before that, our primary category was health spa.
So Google is always optimizing their platform and adding new categories for businesses. If you’re not paying attention to those changes, you can miss opportunities. As soon as we switched to the new IV therapy services category, we immediately moved up in the rankings because we were the only ones in the area who noticed the change and optimized our profile for it.
This is why selecting the correct primary category and relevant secondary categories is so important. It helps Google clearly understand what you do. One thing I always remind people about SEO is that it’s not about tricking Google. It’s about being clear and proving why you deserve to rank where you want to rank.
The way we do that is by clearly telling Google our main service and additional services through the categories we choose. You can also look at your competitors and see what categories they’ve selected. For example, this business is categorized as a medical spa.
If you click on our listing, you can see we have several categories selected, including IV therapy services, health spa, medical lab, medical spa, and wellness center. You can go through your competitors manually to see what categories they’re using.
Tools to Help Optimize Your Google Business Profile
Sean Garner [04:01]: One of my favorite tools for optimizing a Google Business Profile is GMB Everywhere. I like it because it has a free version, though I personally use the pro version since it unlocks more features.
One helpful feature is the category finder. There are a couple of ways to use it. You can plug in your website URL, and the tool will analyze your website content and suggest categories based on what it finds. Of course, if your website isn’t optimized well, the recommendations may not be as strong, but it still gives a great starting point.
Another option is to manually enter the type of service you provide. For example, if I type in IV therapy services, it will generate related categories that might also apply to the business.
While that tool runs, you can also see related services it suggests, which leads to the next important part of optimizing your profile: listing your services.
This tool helps you quickly identify the right categories and services. It’s a great resource to make sure your profile is properly optimized.
When it comes to services, you’ll notice that we have detailed service listings along with descriptions. You can also use the same tool to find recommended services based on your business category.
This is another area where I see many business owners make mistakes. Either they don’t fill this section out at all, or they only list a few services. The more relevant services you include, the better. And the more detail you provide, the better.
You’re allowed up to 300 characters for each service description. When we optimize profiles for our clients, we fill out every relevant service and maximize those descriptions.
One of the biggest secrets to improving your search visibility is simply doing the work. Fill everything out completely and provide as much relevant information as possible.
What Should You Actually Fill Out in Your Google Business Profile?
Sean Garner [06:14]: So many people don’t even do the basic things, and then they’re frustrated about why they’re not seeing results. The first step is simply making sure your services are completely filled out. You can use GMB Everywhere to help identify them, or you can go directly into your profile and start selecting services. You can even add custom services and type in the specific things you offer based on the core services your business provides.
What I see most often killing visibility for small business owners is that their account isn’t even properly set up. When I say optimized, at the beginning that really just means filling out the profile completely. Choose the right category, list your services, and include detailed descriptions.
One additional tactic I like to use is the products section. Google allows you to upload products, and a lot of service businesses assume they can’t use it because they don’t sell physical products. But that’s not the case. You can treat your services as products.
You can create a product that represents a specific service category. Inside that listing, you can add a description of up to 1,000 characters, upload an image, and link it directly to the landing page for that service. When we implement this for clients, it helps strengthen their overall optimization because, again, good SEO is simply being clear and proving to Google why you deserve to rank where you want to rank.
The next question is how to deal with spam listings in your area. We’ve seen a big increase in this in some markets, including the Tulsa area. First, you need to know how to identify spam. Don’t assume every negative review is spam. Sometimes businesses genuinely make mistakes. But if you suddenly receive 20, 30, or even 50 one-star reviews within a few minutes, that’s very likely spam.
When that happens, the only real solution is to report it to Google. There isn’t a way to completely prevent it. Inside your profile, you go to the reviews section, click on the review options, and flag the review as spam.
Just remember that a one-star review by itself doesn’t qualify as spam. But if it’s clearly a fake review or part of a coordinated attack, you can report it so Google can review and potentially remove it.
How Do You Deal With Spam Reviews on Google?
Sean Garner [08:34]: Another thing you can do is report reviews as spam if the person was not actually a customer. For example, if it’s a disgruntled former employee or someone connected to them who is leaving malicious reviews, you can report those.
However, if the person actually interacted with your business—even if they called and had a bad experience—there’s nothing you can do about that. If they engaged with your business, Google typically won’t remove the review.
But if it’s clearly spam, you can go into your reviews, click on the review settings, select the exclamation point next to the review, and report it as spam. Usually it takes Google about two to three days to review the request. If it’s legitimate spam, they will remove it. We recently had a situation in one of our markets where a large number of spam reviews were posted, and Google ended up removing all of them after we reported them.
Do Photos Actually Help Your Google Business Profile Rankings?
Sean Garner [10:02]: Next question: Do photos actually help with rankings? The answer is yes.
Photos help because they show Google that you’re actively using the platform. Google wants to see businesses engaging with all the features inside the profile. Uploading photos signals that your profile is active and optimized. The photos themselves aren’t the direct ranking factor—it’s the engagement and activity that helps.
Where photos become even more powerful is when your customers upload them. When someone leaves a review and includes a photo, that review carries more weight in Google’s eyes. If the photo shows the service you performed—whether that’s at your location or at the customer’s home—that further validates the interaction.
So if you can encourage customers to leave reviews with photos, it can significantly strengthen those reviews. At a minimum, you as the business owner should be uploading photos to your Google Business Profile regularly. Ideally, you should add new photos at least once a month or whenever you have relevant images available. Some businesses even automate this by uploading job photos once work is completed.
The next question is whether you should have multiple locations listed. The answer is yes—if it’s legitimate.
Your Google Business Profile usually has a limited reach. In most markets, ranking outside of about 15 to 20 miles becomes difficult. In highly competitive or densely populated cities like Dallas, Miami, Los Angeles, or New York, your reach might only extend a few miles.
If you want to expand your reach into other areas, you need additional listings tied to real locations. But verifying those locations is more difficult now than it used to be.
Previously, Google would simply mail a postcard with a verification code. But because people abused the system by creating fake listings, the process has changed. Now verification usually requires submitting a video through Google Maps, or sometimes even completing a live verification call.
During verification, you typically have to prove the location is legitimate. That means showing signage, demonstrating that you can access staff-only areas, unlocking the door, showing office space, and verifying the business name at the location.
It’s more involved than it used to be, but it’s still possible as long as the location is legitimate and you can prove you operate there.
Should Your Business Have Multiple Google Business Profile Locations?
Sean Garner [12:57]: It is absolutely worth it. We have clients in very competitive markets where we help them open multiple Google Business Profile locations so they can expand their reach in search. Like I said, if you’re lucky, you might rank in the top three of the Map Pack within a 15 to 20 mile radius. But in very competitive markets, that’s often not the case. If you want to expand your reach and rankings, you need multiple locations when possible. I do recommend it, but it can be difficult to get approved.
As a side note, I’m not necessarily advocating this, but you don’t always have to sign a lease to create another location. Sometimes businesses use partnerships or arrangements with other legitimate spaces. Ultimately, the main thing is getting the listing verified. As long as you’re not making major changes later—like changing the business name, switching the primary category, or updating the address—you usually won’t trigger another verification. Many businesses use strategies like this to help expand their visibility in other areas.
However, once you have multiple locations, everything you’re doing has to be done multiple times. You need reviews for both locations. If you’re not generating a lot of reviews yet, splitting them across locations can slow down your growth. But if your business already has strong volume and wants to expand into new markets, multiple listings can dramatically increase the areas where you rank in the Map Pack.
The final question is whether you should respond to every review. The answer is yes.
For our own businesses and for our clients, we typically set up some level of automation because we want to show Google that the account is active and that we are engaging with reviews. For example, we often use an AI chatbot system to automatically respond to five-star reviews using a prewritten tone that still feels personalized. These responses can also include references to the cities we serve or the services we provide, which helps reinforce those signals inside the reviews.
However, we do not automate responses for reviews that are four stars or lower. Those should always be handled manually. As a business owner, you don’t want to automatically respond to a three- or four-star review because those usually require a more thoughtful response.
Should You Respond to Every Google Review?
Sean Garner [15:12]: I want to reach out to that customer and find out what the issue is. I want to do some internal investigation and ask, did we really drop the ball here? Did an employee mess something up? Or maybe the customer just had a bad day. I want to reach out to them personally.
A lot of times when people leave a bad review—especially a four-star review—they may not even realize the impact that can have on a business. If you reach out to them as the owner, I’ve personally seen dozens of four-star reviews turn into five-star reviews just because the owner followed up.
You can say something like, “Hey, I noticed you left a four-star review and we really strive to deliver a five-star experience. Can you tell me what happened?” When people feel heard and you have that conversation with them, many times they’ll appreciate the effort. After resolving the issue, you can say something like, “Thank you so much for sharing that feedback with me. We’d love the opportunity to serve you again. If you feel like we’ve resolved this, it would mean a lot if you’d update your review to reflect the five-star experience we aim to provide.”
If it’s a business where customers return regularly, you can also ask them to update the review after their next visit once you’ve shown them that five-star level of service.
Now when it comes to two-star or one-star reviews, I think about this from a consumer perspective. Whenever my wife and I are looking for a restaurant, we always look for places that have a lot of good reviews. As a business owner myself, I’m obviously looking for the businesses with lots of five-star experiences.
But the first thing I do after that is click on the one-star reviews. I want to see how the business responds to them.
One-star reviews definitely hurt, but how you respond to them can matter even more than the five-star reviews. If someone leaves a one-star review and the business owner responds with a long rant about how terrible the customer was and argues with them publicly, it doesn’t make the business look good.
But if a one-star review comes in and you respond professionally—acknowledging the issue, admitting if you dropped the ball, and offering to make it right—it shows everyone else reading the review that you care about your customers and that you take responsibility when something goes wrong.
Need More Help With Your Marketing?
Sean Garner [17:29]: Professionally calling out a customer in a short, to-the-point way that doesn’t make you look upset or emotional can actually help your business. To a new potential customer reading that review, it makes it obvious that the person leaving it was just having a bad day or being unreasonable. So how you respond to those one-star reviews is key.
There is no point in arguing with people in the review thread. You only get one response, so you can’t have a full conversation there anyway. The best thing to do is respond in a way that keeps future customers in mind. Don’t think you’re going to win the argument or prove a point to the person who left the review. If you need to, you can reach out to them personally or directly.
But if your goal is to win future customers, respond the right way. Use that review as an opportunity to show professionalism. So yes, responding to Google reviews is huge.
For a lot of people, though, they don’t even know what to say when asking for reviews. That’s why we created the Google Review Scripts. You can go to SeanGarner.co/reviewscripts.
There, you’ll get the exact framework we use to help our clients collect hundreds of Google reviews. It includes an initial message you can send right now to former customers, friends, and family to help jumpstart your reviews. It also includes the exact three-email, three-text-message sequence we use with clients to generate hundreds of reviews and help them rank number one in the Map Pack.
So if you want that, go to SeanGarner.co/reviewscripts and start applying it today so you can get more reviews for your local business, grow, and dominate.
Thanks so much for checking this out, guys. We do this every single week on the Marketing Domination Podcast. And if you want us to implement these strategies inside your business, we’d love the opportunity to talk to you. Go to SeanGarner.co, download those review scripts, and then book a call with me. We’ll personally do a complete audit of your marketing, your SEO, and your website, see how everything is performing, and look for blind spots, show you exactly what you need to do so you can grow and dominate online and serve the people you’re called to serve. Have an awesome day, and we’ll talk soon.
