77 Media · Portfolio · Dental clinic

From invisible to top-3 on the map

Where they started

A family clinic that did not show up when neighbours searched. The people driving past it every day were finding its competitors instead.

What we did

• Listings cleaned up

  Name, address and phone made identical across every directory Google checks. The mismatches were quietly splitting its ranking.

• Google Business Profile rebuilt

  Categories, services, hours, photos: filled in properly and kept current, so Google reads a business that is very much open.

• Reviews answered every week

  Every review acknowledged, which both reassures the next patient and signals activity to Google.

• Top three in four months

  Into the map pack for its core searches, with calls up 41%.

The client's name is held back by agreement; we will walk you through the full detail on a call. The result figure is our own measurement for this engagement.

How to rank higher on Google Maps

Google ranks the map pack on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. You cannot move your building, so the work is all in the other two. Everything below is what we actually did here, in the order it mattered.

• Get the primary category exactly right

  This drives relevance more than any other single field. Pick the category that names what you do, not the broadest one that sounds impressive, and use secondary categories for the rest.

• Fill in services and hours, and keep them true

  Every service listed is another search you can match. Hours that are wrong on a holiday cost you a customer and a bad review at the same time.

• Make the details identical everywhere

  Same business name, same address format, same phone number on your site and on every directory Google cross-checks. Mismatches quietly split your ranking between two versions of you.

• Build reviews steadily and reply to all of them

  A regular flow of reviews with owner replies feeds prominence. Ask at the moment the customer is happiest, not by email a week later.

• Post to the profile and track the position monthly

  A profile that is updated looks alive to Google. Tracking the rank on a grid of nearby points tells you whether the work is moving anything, instead of guessing.

Four months of that took this clinic into the top three for its core searches, with calls up 41%.

Work like this runs on the Foundation plan — local SEO starts on the Foundation plan. See the plans and prices.