When someone searches for “physio in Chamberí” or “locksmith near me”, Google first shows a map with three businesses, and many customers never look any further. According to Whitespark’s Local Search Ranking Factors survey, which gathers the views of the world’s leading local SEO specialists every year, what matters most for getting into those three spots isn’t your reviews or your website: it’s the primary category on your Business Profile.
That’s good news, because it means part of the work comes down to simple decisions that many businesses get wrong when they set up their profile and never go back to. Other factors, like distance, can’t be changed. Knowing which is which saves a lot of time.
What decides which three businesses appear on the map
Google explains it in its official help pages with three criteria: relevance, meaning whether your profile matches what’s being searched for; distance between your business and the person searching, or the area they mention in their search; and prominence, how well known your business is, which is measured through reviews, links, mentions and its presence across the web.
Whitespark’s study breaks those criteria down into specific factors. These are the ten that carry the most weight on the map in 2026, and how much room you have to work on each one:
| Factor | Can you work on it? |
|---|---|
| 1. Primary category on your profile | Yes, and it’s the first thing we check |
| 2. Proximity to the person searching | No |
| 3. Keywords in the business name | Only if they’re part of your real name |
| 4. An address in the city being searched | Only when choosing your premises |
| 5. Being open at the time of the search | Yes, with complete, accurate opening hours |
| 6. A high rating | Yes, with good service and by asking for reviews |
| 7. Address shown on the profile | Yes, if you serve customers at your premises |
| 8. Additional categories | Yes |
| 9. Number of reviews with text | Yes |
| 10. Exact position of the map pin | Yes, by checking the pin matches your front door |
Notice that seven of the ten are down to you. And there’s something new in the 2026 edition: three of the five factors that matter most for appearing in AI answers about local businesses relate to citations, the number of times your name, address and phone number appear in directories and on other websites. The map and AI are increasingly drawing on the same sources.
There’s a catch with the business nameKeywords in the name helping doesn’t mean you should call your profile “Pérez Dental Clinic Cheap Implants Madrid”. Google’s guidelines require you to use your business’s real name, and adding keywords is grounds for suspension. On top of that, any competitor can suggest an edit. It only counts if that’s the name on your shopfront, your invoices and your website.
Your Google Business Profile, step by step
Most of the profiles we review have the basics and not much else: name, address and phone number. Google rewards complete, active profiles, because they give it more information to decide when to show you. This is the order in which to work on yours:
- Claim and verify your profile with a company email address, not a personal one, and give admin access to whoever manages it. Never hand ownership over to a supplier.
- Choose the most specific primary category that describes what you do: “Physiotherapy clinic” rather than “Medical centre”; “Family law attorney” rather than “Lawyer”. Check which category the top three in your area are using.
- Add secondary categories only for services you genuinely offer. Each one opens you up to new searches.
- Fill in your opening hours, including bank holidays and special hours. A profile that shows as closed when a customer is searching loses ground.
- Write your services and description using the words your customers use, without overdoing the repetition.
- Upload real photos of your shopfront, interior, team and work, and refresh them every few months. Photos help people choose you once they can see you.
- Post updates from time to time: offers, completed jobs or changes to your hours. They show the business is active.
Want to be in the top three on the map in your area?Local SEO for your city or area starts at €220 a month. See it in the calculator.
Reviews: how many, how to ask for them and how to reply
Reviews count twice: they help you climb the map and they decide whether the customer calls you or the business next door. Whitespark highlights three things: your average rating, the number of reviews with text written directly on Google, and whether they keep coming in over time. A profile with 200 reviews from three years ago competes less well than one with 60 that gets several new ones every month.
| Where your profile stands | What to do |
|---|---|
| Fewer reviews than the top three in your area | Ask every satisfied customer, every time, with a direct link by WhatsApp or email |
| Rating below 4.5 | Look at what keeps coming up in the criticism and fix it before asking for more |
| Star-only reviews, with no text | Ask customers to say which service they received and in which area |
| No reviews in recent months | Build the request into your process: when you finish the job or send the invoice |
Reply to all of them, good and bad, within a reasonable time. With negative reviews, give your side of the story politely and offer a solution: the person reading your reply is a future customer, not just the one who complained. And if you automate your customer follow-up, asking for a review can become just another step in the process, without relying on someone remembering.
Never buy reviewsSince Spain’s 2021 reform of its consumer protection law, publishing or commissioning fake reviews has counted as an unfair commercial practice, and Google removes suspicious reviews and can flag the profile with a public warning. Don’t offer discounts in exchange for a five-star rating either: it’s against Google’s policies.
Your website and citations: what happens outside your profile
Your profile doesn’t compete on its own. Google checks what it says against your website and the rest of the internet, and this is where many businesses with a good profile get stuck in fourth or fifth place. What helps most:
- A page for each service on your website, linked from your profile, with the name of the service and your area in the title and the copy.
- Location pages if you serve several cities or neighbourhoods, with genuine information about each one, not the same text with the name swapped.
- Identical name, address and phone number on your website, profile, social media and directories. An old number in ten directories confuses Google.
- Relevant directories for your sector and city, professional associations and local business associations.
- Mentions in the local press and on local websites: sponsorships, events or news about your business.
And these are the mistakes that sink the most profiles on the map:
- Using a virtual office or coworking space as your address. Google requires you to serve customers at that address and often suspends these profiles.
- Having duplicate profiles for the same business, such as an old one nobody deleted. They split your strength and confuse Google.
- Frequently changing your name, address or category. Each change can trigger a new verification or a temporary drop.
- Hiding your address for no reason. If you see customers at your premises, show it: it’s one of the top ten factors.
If your website doesn’t show up in the regular results either, start by checking why your website isn’t showing up on Google: the map and your website reinforce each other. For a dental clinic in Madrid, local SEO work grew appointment requests by 180% in six months. If you’d like us to look at how your business compares with the three that currently appear in your area, take a look at our SEO services or tell us about your business.
