5 Essential Factors that Affect Your Map Pack Ranking

If you own a business, you have probably heard about the Map Pack already. It’s the coveted spot after the sponsored links where listings of the top three businesses are displayed. Businesses that succeed in being included in the Map Pack will gain visibility and better traffic. Of course, it all boils down to conversion and sales.

 

However, being part of the Map Pack isn’t a walk in the park. You have a lot of work to do, especially if your website is virtually invisible on the internet. So to get you started, make sure that you have thought of the following factors:

Mobile-friendliness of your website

If your business website is mobile-optimized, then you have one less thing to do. Google has released its mobile-first indexing algorithm, which prompts search crawlers to index mobile versions first.

Needless to say, mobile-friendliness is a key ranking factor for new websites. With this, it’s best to start on a good footing. Do a design revamp if need be, so your customers won’t have a bad experience loading your pages on their mobile devices. If you don’t know it yet, customers with bad mobile experiences will be 62% less likely to buy something from a business.

Your organic rankings

If you’re planning to grace the Map Pack, you have to get excellent organic rankings. Yes, even if you own a local business. Start with the broader level then you zoom into your locality to ensure that you have the edge over your competitors.

Google crawlers use organic signals in displaying the listings on the Map Pack. So if you’re performing poorly organically, you have a low chance of ever being on this 3 Pack league.

Your local rankings

While you are ranking organically, you should also boost the local ranking signals of your business website. This is possible by creating separate landing pages for the areas you’re servicing. This way, your website will enjoy organic rankings while you also stay visible in your locality.

For this part, you have to ensure that you’re using local keywords, so search engines will know that your landing page is associated with a specific location. It will also prevent confusion on your audience’s end.

The small details

Even if we’re thinking big by ranking organically, you should never neglect the little details. Make sure that your content is updated, your event calendar is up-to-date, your location is supported with landmarks, and so on.

These little details will make a big difference later on.

The local filter

The local filter is often the make or break part of being on the Map Pack. This is when two similar businesses are located in close proximity. Since Google wants to give its users a wide array of options, one of the businesses will be dropped from the Map Pack.

So which one gets in? Basically, the business with the highest organic ranking is more likely to get into the Map Pack. Take note that this is still affected by other factors concerning your SEO.