Key takeaways
- Google ranks local results on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. It says so in its own help pages.
- You can't move your address, so the work goes into relevance (categories, services, website pages) and prominence (reviews, links, mentions).
- Your primary category is one of the strongest single settings on your profile. Get it right before anything else.
- Links from real local sources, like chambers, sponsors and suppliers, still help. Bought links can get you penalized.
- In 2026 Google removed profile Q&A and added Ask Maps, so your website now has to answer the questions customers ask.
The three things Google looks at
Google is unusually open about this one. Its Business Profile help page says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence. Every tactic you'll hear about fits under one of those three.
- Relevance: how well your profile and website match what the person searched. A search for "water heater repair" favors a plumber whose profile and site actually talk about water heaters.
- Distance: how far you are from the searcher, or from the town named in the search. You can't change this one.
- Prominence: how well known and trusted you are, online and off. Google lists reviews, links, articles and directory listings as signals. It also says your position in regular search results counts.
So when someone in Prescott Valley searches "roofer near me", Google is asking three questions. Who does roofing? Who is close? And who looks like the most established, best-reviewed roofer among those?
Distance: the part you can't change
Distance is why a good shop in Chino Valley can lose a "near me" search to a weaker one in north Prescott. If the searcher is standing closer to the other business, Google leans their way.
A few things people get wrong here:
- Service areas don't stretch your reach. Listing ten towns in your service area tells customers where you work. Tests by local SEO firms have found it doesn't make Google rank you farther from your verified address.
- Don't fake an address. Virtual offices and mailbox stores break Google's guidelines and are a common reason profiles get suspended.
- Reach nearby towns the honest way. That means a website page for each town you truly serve, reviews from customers in those towns, and local links and mentions there.
Relevance: tell Google exactly what you do
Relevance is where most profiles leave the easiest wins on the table.
Categories
Your primary category is one of the strongest single settings on your profile. Industry surveys of local SEO experts rank it near the top every year. Pick the most specific category that matches your main service, then add secondary categories for the other real services you offer. Don't add categories you don't do.
Services and description
Fill in the services list with the specific jobs customers search for: "drain cleaning" and "water heater installation", not just "plumbing". Write the description in plain language and skip the keyword lists. Google's guidelines forbid stuffing keywords into your business name, and a stuffed name can get the profile suspended.
Your website
Google reads the website linked to your profile. A site with a separate page for each main service, and a page for each town you serve, gives Google much more to match against. One general "Services" page that lists everything in a paragraph gives it very little.
Prominence: reviews, links and reputation
Reviews
Google names review count and rating as part of prominence. In practice, steady new reviews beat a burst of old ones, and replies to every review show you're active. A review that mentions the job ("replaced our water heater in Dewey") helps relevance too. You can ask customers to describe their experience; you can't tell them what to write. Our guide to getting more reviews within Google's rules covers the details.
Links and local mentions
Links from other websites to yours still count, and for local businesses the best ones come from real local relationships:
- Your chamber of commerce membership page (Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley each have one)
- Sponsoring a youth team, school event or community fundraiser that lists sponsors online
- Supplier and manufacturer "find a dealer" or "find an installer" pages
- Local news coverage, such as a feature in the Daily Courier
- Trade associations and local business directories you actually belong to
Avoid buying links or using link networks. Google's spam policies treat them as link spam, and Google has run several spam updates in 2026 alone.
Citations
Citations are listings of your name, address and phone on other sites: Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp, Facebook, the BBB and industry directories. They matter less for Google rankings than they used to. But AI tools read them heavily, so keeping them consistent now pays off twice. More on that in how AI tools pick local businesses.
What changed in 2026
- Q&A is gone. Google removed the questions and answers section from Business Profiles between December 2025 and early 2026.
- Ask Maps arrived. Gemini now answers questions inside Google Maps, using your profile, your reviews and your website. If your site doesn't answer common questions (prices, areas, timing), the AI has less to work with.
- Google can call you for customers. Google can now phone businesses to check prices, availability and hours for a customer. Wrong hours or a dead phone number cost you more than before.
- FAQ rich results stopped showing in Google search on May 7, 2026. FAQ sections on your website are still worth writing, because people and AI answers read them.
I keep a running list in Google changes in 2026 that affect local businesses.
Where to start
- Check your primary category against your top three map competitors.
- Complete every field: services, hours (holidays too), description, photos.
- Make sure your website has a page for each main service and each town you serve.
- Set up a simple way to ask every customer for a review, and reply to every review.
- Claim and match your Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and Yelp listings.
- Earn a few real local links: chamber, sponsorships, suppliers.
Want this done for your business? The free audit checks your profile against these points and your top local competitors. I'll walk you through it in person anywhere in the Quad Cities.