The Google Maps Ranking Tool I Wish I Had 10 Years Ago — Transcript

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1. 0:00Most people know that if their company
2. 0:02ranks on Google Maps, people are going
3. 0:04to see them and they're going to get
4. 0:05leads and they're going to get
5. 0:06customers. But when it comes to actually
6. 0:08achieving that, it can be quite a
7. 0:10mystery as to how it works and what you
8. 0:13can do to actually show up. Most people
9. 0:17don't even know how well they show up.
10. 0:19So, I made a tool that not only shows
11. 0:21you how well your company ranks now, but
12. 0:23it shows you how your competitors rank,
13. 0:26it shows you how many people live in
14. 0:29your area and where the best places
15. 0:31might be to for your listing to show up,
16. 0:34and it even shows you the difficulty
17. 0:36level of all of the different areas
18. 0:38around your location to give you an idea
19. 0:41of where would be the best place for you
20. 0:43to focus to get the most leads and get
21. 0:45the most customers for your company.
22. 0:47This information is just so valuable to
23. 0:49have
24. 0:51for any company, especially any company
25. 0:54that's investing in their marketing,
26. 0:55their website, their SEO, their Google
27. 0:57Maps, any of that stuff.
28. 1:00If you don't have this information, and
29. 1:02the people doing it for you don't have
30. 1:04this information, like they're at a huge
31. 1:06disadvantage.
32. 1:08We're looking at Local Falcon here. This
33. 1:09is the the tool we've been using for
34. 1:12years to see how well a company ranks on
35. 1:14Google Maps. So, what that means is like
36. 1:16I go to Google, I'm looking for an
37. 1:18excavating contractor, Google shows me
38. 1:21some ads, but I'm an ad skipper. Like if
39. 1:23it says sponsored, I literally don't
40. 1:25even read it, and I skip down to Google
41. 1:27Maps because I like to to look at
42. 1:30reviews, and that's how I make my
43. 1:31decision online.
44. 1:33So, we've got three companies here, one,
45. 1:35two, and three. And if I click more
46. 1:38businesses, there'll be
47. 1:40you know, tons more.
48. 1:41And that's what this chart represents.
49. 1:43This this tool allows us to put in a
50. 1:45business and see where on the map they
51. 1:49show up. And if it's a green one, two,
52. 1:51or three, then that's an area where if
53. 1:53somebody searches for excavation
54. 1:56contractor, they're going to show up,
55. 1:58and people will see them and call them
56. 1:59and that's where they get leads.
57. 2:01But there's a lot of things that always
58. 2:03go through my mind when I'm looking at
59. 2:05these charts.
60. 2:07For example, like where on this map is
61. 2:09actually a good place to show up? Like
62. 2:12we can see that this company is showing
63. 2:14up down here, number one. And you might
64. 2:17think, "Oh, number one, that's great."
65. 2:19But this area is mountains and there's
66. 2:22probably zero houses there. And so
67. 2:24ranking there doesn't do anything. So
68. 2:27that's something I take into account. I
69. 2:30happen to know the area on this map cuz
70. 2:32this is where I live. But when I'm
71. 2:34looking at someone's business in Kansas
72. 2:36or something, like I don't know the
73. 2:37area. So I always have to look it up on
74. 2:40a regular Google map and like try to
75. 2:42figure out where are the properties
76. 2:44actually at.
77. 2:45And I always have to ask my clients,
78. 2:49"Well, where's like the most valuable
79. 2:50neighborhood? Like where do you want to
80. 2:52do work? Where do people have money?
81. 2:54Where do they live?" I have to ask all
82. 2:56these questions and kind of, you know,
83. 2:58make estimations to figure out where the
84. 3:01best place is to actually try to to rank
85. 3:03well on Google Maps. So I built a tool
86. 3:07and this probably version three of the
87. 3:10tool that I built, but
88. 3:12I built it to answer a lot of these
89. 3:14questions for me and it's turned out to
90. 3:17be quite accurate to like
91. 3:20what my experience has been over the
92. 3:22last 10 years of doing this stuff.
93. 3:24And so this is one of our clients, Bear
94. 3:26Door Services. We've showed him a lot on
95. 3:28this channel, so I'm sure he wouldn't
96. 3:29mind me sharing.
97. 3:31Um and then this is what is what our
98. 3:33tool looks like. So we we built our own
99. 3:35thing. It's only internal right now, but
100. 3:37we do run scans for people all the time.
101. 3:39So if you're watching this and you're
102. 3:40like, "Hey, I want to see this for my
103. 3:42company." you're welcome to reach out to
104. 3:44us and we'll do this and and show you
105. 3:47and send it to you and all of that kind
106. 3:48of stuff. So so you can see it. So what
107. 3:51we're looking at here is very similar to
108. 3:53Local Falcon. This is just the ranking.
109. 3:55So, we can see this big green area is
110. 3:57where they're showing up and we can see
111. 3:59how well they rank everywhere. One thing
112. 4:02that
113. 4:03has been a huge like quality of life
114. 4:05improvement for us is you can see up
115. 4:07here like oh, they rank 90, they rank
116. 4:1059. If we go back to the Local Falcon
117. 4:13scan like we can see 20 plus. That's all
118. 4:15we get. And so, we're always wondering
119. 4:17like well, what what where do we
120. 4:19actually land? So, now we can see that
121. 4:22and we're just getting the information
122. 4:24that was there the whole time but that
123. 4:26the other tool isn't showing us.
124. 4:28And so, we also want to know where are
125. 4:31the households? Where do the people live
126. 4:33on this map? So, we uh tapped into the
127. 4:38the United States Census and we're able
128. 4:40to see like how many people live per
129. 4:44square mile in each one of these dots
130. 4:46and how many homes there are.
131. 4:48So, we can see on this map that if
132. 4:50you're showing up down here like nobody
133. 4:53lives over there. So, not not helping
134. 4:56you. Um and we can kind of see where are
135. 4:58the the areas that if we rank well, like
136. 5:02this area's got about 500 homes per
137. 5:05square mile. There's a lot more
138. 5:06potential customers over there.
139. 5:08So, that that answers that huge question
140. 5:10that I always have. I don't have to ask
141. 5:12my client, well, where's where where's
142. 5:14the best place to show up, do you think?
143. 5:16I can just look and kind of figure it
144. 5:18out on my own. Next, we have household
145. 5:20income. So, we can see like what is the
146. 5:22average income level.
147. 5:24And what we want to do is we want to
148. 5:25find the place where most people live
149. 5:27and they make the most money cuz those
150. 5:29are usually the best customers. So,
151. 5:32having that information is really handy.
152. 5:35When it comes to ranking, like ranking
153. 5:37is only one factor.
154. 5:39If you're showing up here on Google
155. 5:41like these three companies are, well,
156. 5:44only one of these companies is really
157. 5:46getting the attention and that's these
158. 5:47guys cuz they've got 47 reviews and
159. 5:50these guys only have four and 12. So,
160. 5:53homeowner or potential customer looking
161. 5:56at this before they've even uh you know,
162. 5:59before it's even registered in their
163. 6:01brain what they're looking at, they've
164. 6:02already made a split-second decision of
165. 6:05well, this company's probably the best
166. 6:06cuz they have the most reviews.
167. 6:09And so, that's that's the next question
168. 6:10and we've always had to
169. 6:13like look manually and see like hey, the
170. 6:17of the companies showing up, where are
171. 6:18they at? Well, we added that too. So,
172. 6:20now we just have
173. 6:21reviews to beat and this is the number
174. 6:23of reviews you need in each location to
175. 6:25be number one.
176. 6:27This kind of gives us an idea like Bear
177. 6:30Door, the company we're talking about,
178. 6:33they have the most reviews in pretty
179. 6:35much the whole area they show up.
180. 6:38And if they wanted to expand,
181. 6:41they could they could use this
182. 6:43information to be more strategic. Like
183. 6:45if they try to expand up north,
184. 6:48well, they're going to be competing with
185. 6:49a company that has over a thousand
186. 6:50reviews.
187. 6:52And they only have 237. So, that's going
188. 6:55to be a lot tougher, but if they go
189. 6:57south,
190. 6:58well, if they could just show up in
191. 7:00Morgantown, they're already crushing
192. 7:03everybody on reviews. And so, that's the
193. 7:04direction I would I would go. So, I look
194. 7:07at all these things like where are the
195. 7:09homes at? They're right there in
196. 7:11Morgantown, almost a thousand.
197. 7:14How many reviews is it going to take?
198. 7:1665? Like that would probably be the
199. 7:18place to go.
200. 7:19Um but I don't have to make that
201. 7:21decision anymore because I can just look
202. 7:23at the opportunity tab. And what this
203. 7:26does is it uses all that data and it
204. 7:29does some mathematical formulas in the
205. 7:32background to give you an idea of
206. 7:36how easy it would be to beat the
207. 7:38companies there on reviews, how easy it
208. 7:40would be to rank there,
209. 7:41uh how many homes are there, what the
210. 7:43average income. It takes all this stuff
211. 7:45into account and it says, "Okay, on this
212. 7:47entire chart, if I were to
213. 7:51be trying to either expand a listing or
214. 7:54create a new one, like where would be
215. 7:56the easiest place to win?" And that's
216. 7:58what these green areas are. And so, that
217. 8:00one
218. 8:01spot in Morgantown that had the most
219. 8:03houses, had decent income,
220. 8:05we could easily beat on reviews,
221. 8:08it's also going to be one of the easiest
222. 8:09places to rank based off this formula.
223. 8:12But,
224. 8:14one of the main factors with Google Maps
225. 8:16is
226. 8:17is location and like the distance away
227. 8:20from your location,
228. 8:21and this doesn't take that into account.
229. 8:23So, I had to create another
230. 8:26tab to show us, well, what's the
231. 8:28opportunity for this given listing
232. 8:31taking into account how far away
233. 8:34businesses are able to actually rank on
234. 8:36Google Maps
235. 8:38in this area.
236. 8:39Because that's what really matters. This
237. 8:41This company with this listing at this
238. 8:43location will probably never rank way
239. 8:46over here. It's just too far away and
240. 8:48there's too many other competitors,
241. 8:50and that's why we've got a green area
242. 8:52kind of around where they already rank.
243. 8:54These checkboxes, that's where they
244. 8:55already are in the top three. Everything
245. 8:57around that is telling us like where we
246. 9:01could expand into.
247. 9:03And so, if they were saying, "Well, we
248. 9:04really want to show up here in
249. 9:06Blairsville in the northeast, need to
250. 9:09open another location there because this
251. 9:11listing will just never make it that
252. 9:13far." But, if they wanted to expand down
253. 9:15into Morgantown,
254. 9:17totally doable based off of the data we
255. 9:19have on this individual scan. So,
256. 9:22all of this like estimating and homework
257. 9:25that we used to have to do on our own
258. 9:28and and kind of guess at because we
259. 9:29didn't have all this data,
260. 9:32um it's now able to be used or it's it's
261. 9:35been able to be seen in scan, so we can
262. 9:38just really quickly get an idea of
263. 9:40here's the opportunity zone
264. 9:43and narrow down where we should focus
265. 9:45because when it comes to local SEO and
266. 9:48ranking on maps, once you're at this
267. 9:50point where you're showing up in a
268. 9:52pretty good area, you have to be extra
269. 9:54strategic about what you go after next
270. 9:57because just doing more won't
271. 9:59necessarily get you to rank in the place
272. 10:02you want to. You have to do
273. 10:04uh you know, very specific actions for
274. 10:06that. Like the biggest breakthrough has
275. 10:08been this opportunity tab
276. 10:11because this turns all of the like
277. 10:13intuition that we've been using for the
278. 10:15last decade into a mathematical formula
279. 10:19and so
280. 10:20it's just kind of turned it into a
281. 10:22science rather than an art.
282. 10:24Something I didn't show you yet is
283. 10:27the uh zones.
284. 10:29So, this kind of shows you the different
285. 10:31zones in your area
286. 10:33where different companies are like, you
287. 10:36know, the major players.
288. 10:38So, each zone will have different
289. 10:39winners and this kind of helps you
290. 10:41decide if you if this is a new market
291. 10:43for you especially
292. 10:45like where's the best place to put your
293. 10:47location? Cuz you don't want to put your
294. 10:49location across the street from your
295. 10:50best competitors, you want to find an
296. 10:52area where there's
297. 10:54customer potential but then also is less
298. 10:57competitive so it's quicker and easier
299. 10:58to win.
300. 11:00Another thing we added here that Local
301. 11:02Falcon doesn't have is the ability to
302. 11:04add your address in
303. 11:06because if you have a local service area
304. 11:08business and your address isn't visible
305. 11:11on Google Maps
306. 11:12then
307. 11:14wherever we run this scan
308. 11:16it's just going to center on the middle
309. 11:18of your service area, which for most
310. 11:20people is a long ways away from their
311. 11:22actual location and Google doesn't care
312. 11:25about your service area very much, they
313. 11:27care about your actual location.
314. 11:29And so, getting these scans where the
315. 11:32center of the map is in the mountains,
316. 11:34but the business is actually located in
317. 11:36the corner, it just skews the data. And
318. 11:40so, everybody that's been using these
319. 11:42scans,
320. 11:43like they have to take that into
321. 11:44account. And so, this just eliminates
322. 11:46that. This centers it on your actual
323. 11:47address, so you don't have a bunch of
324. 11:49messed up data.
325. 11:51We are tapping directly into Google's
326. 11:54data.
327. 11:55And so, we found that these scans match
328. 11:58Local Falcon about 85%, but this data is
329. 12:01coming directly from Google. We tap into
330. 12:03their search engine and ask, for someone
331. 12:07searching from this geo coordinate,
332. 12:09where does this company show up? So, the
333. 12:11data is about as close to the source as
334. 12:14we can possibly get. We'll do another
335. 12:17video, but I spent like,
336. 12:19I don't know, a couple hundred bucks on
337. 12:21data, and I ran some giant scans, like
338. 12:23all over the country, and I did like a
339. 12:26huge meta-analysis of all the businesses
340. 12:30that were showed up in the scan. We
341. 12:31looked at their websites, like
342. 12:33everything about them, to figure out how
343. 12:36do they rank, and what are the biggest
344. 12:38factors. And one of the surprise things
345. 12:41that I didn't expect is that having a
346. 12:44visible address seems to improve
347. 12:46rankings quite a bit. And it I go back
348. 12:50and forth on this. This has been a
349. 12:52debate forever, cuz nobody knows for
350. 12:53sure, except the people at Google.
351. 12:56Um,
352. 12:57I'm still working with the data to try
353. 12:59to verify or, you know, uh, disprove it,
354. 13:03but my theory is that when your address
355. 13:06is visible,
356. 13:08it it just adds another level of trust
357. 13:10from Google. They're like, "Well,
358. 13:12they're willing to show their actual
359. 13:14address. We've verified, cuz the
360. 13:16verification process for proving you
361. 13:18have an address is much more, uh,
362. 13:22thorough than if you're a service area
363. 13:24business. So, they just trust you a lot
364. 13:26more, which would be a really good
365. 13:28reason for them to show show you more
366. 13:30often.
367. 13:31Uh let's see who they're competing
368. 13:33against. Like, how many reviews it takes
369. 13:34to win. So, 103
370. 13:37and like 117. So,
371. 13:39if they had 130, they would be winning
372. 13:42in almost the entire map.
373. 13:45But, where do we care about? We care
374. 13:47about where they could actually rank.
375. 13:48So,
376. 13:50with their address being in Spokane
377. 13:52Valley,
378. 13:53they could potentially cover basically
379. 13:56the whole Spokane area. It looks like
380. 13:58it'll die out near Rathdrum. So, that
381. 14:01would be a strategic decision for them.
382. 14:03Like, do they want to show up in Idaho
383. 14:06or do they want to show up in
384. 14:07Washington? There's certainly a lot more
385. 14:08people over in Washington. You can see
386. 14:11that here. So, like, lot more people,
387. 14:14lot more houses,
388. 14:16and what's the income level look like?
389. 14:19Much higher income, too. See who their
390. 14:21big competitors are. If they actually
391. 14:23move their location to Rathdrum, they'd
392. 14:25they would potentially win like a huge
393. 14:28zone, but they wouldn't be able to win
394. 14:30in Washington. So, that would be the
395. 14:32decision to make. Couraleen or Core
396. 14:35Window Coverings looks like the main
397. 14:36competitor.
398. 14:37Bit stiffer competition in Spokane area.
399. 14:40Like, they just have a lot more reviews.
400. 14:42These guys' recommendations, like, first
401. 14:45one is get more reviews cuz they're
402. 14:46losing on reviews to everybody right
403. 14:48now. So, it doesn't really matter where
404. 14:49they
405. 14:50where they show up. The second thing is
406. 14:53they're not ranking well enough
407. 14:55to to get anything from Google Maps in
408. 14:58Spokane or Rathdrum. So, that would be
409. 15:01the next thing is like, I haven't looked
410. 15:03at their website and all that, but doing
411. 15:05the the basic like SEO fundamentals for
412. 15:08a local business, giving themselves a
413. 15:10best shot of showing up in an area in
414. 15:13general.
415. 15:14Uh in the beginning, when you're ranking
416. 15:16like this, you typically don't have to
417. 15:17be super strategic. You just have to do
418. 15:20the 100 basic things correctly.
419. 15:22And so, do the basic technical things,
420. 15:25get up to 100 reviews. That's what I
421. 15:27what I would aim first. And
422. 15:31that would be enough to get them some
423. 15:32momentum. Beyond that, it would be the
424. 15:34conversation about where do they
425. 15:36actually want to get clients? Where do
426. 15:38they want to be located? Who do they
427. 15:40want to compete against?
428. 15:42And have that discussion of whether they
429. 15:44would want to keep their listing in
430. 15:46Spokane and maybe start another listing
431. 15:48in Idaho
432. 15:49or just move it over to Idaho entirely.
433. 15:52And like, the no-brainer is just keep
434. 15:54getting reviews because it's easy to to
435. 15:57not worry about it so much when you're
436. 15:59busy. And then when you're not busy,
437. 16:02it's so hard to go back and get past
438. 16:04customers leave reviews. So,