The Mistakes that Choke Google Map Rankings Before You Know it
The electricians who are having difficulty ranking in local search aren’t making a single deadly sin. They’re making eight smaller mistakes, and the total burden of those mistakes is on their Google map ranking like a toolbox on a spring-loaded door. No-one told them, the algorithm certainly didn’t issue an elegant memo, and what we get is a business that does good work – but remains invisible as a competitor with better digital hygiene swoops up every lead in town. That’s the special cruelty of the seo for electricians error – the penalty is invisible and the cause and effect relationship is almost never clear without someone pointing it out to you.
The map pack – the three-business local listing box that sits at the top of the Google search results page – has a cluster of ranking factors that are very well documented but often misunderstood. Mistakes in the way a business page is set up, managed and supported elsewhere accumulate. Some are one-off choices that are made and forgotten. Some can be recurring practices that limit ranking performance over time. Knowing which errors are present in your system, is the key to clearing the way. And it will take an afternoon to correct most of these mistakes.
Keyword Stuffing the Business Name
It’s the most common error and for that reason, first on the list. Browse the map pack results for “electrician” in any city and you’ll see business names such as “Best Electrician [City] – Licensed & Insured Services” when their registered business name is simply a different phrase. Electricians include keywords in their Google Business Profile’s business name field because, in the short run, it boosts map pack placements. Google does give extra weight to business names with keywords. But this runs afoul of Google’s guidelines, which require the business name on the profile to be exactly as it’s used in the real world – on the front door, receipts and the company’s legal name.
Google is occasionally but fiercely vigilant about this. A business with a keyword-stuffed profile name is edited by Google, suspended or reported out of the index by competitors who know how to report a valid guideline violation. A suspended profile is removed from local search. The temporary rankings boost isn’t worth the risk and, ironically, the electricians that are cheating the system by using fake names are often replaced by those doing it right when Google gets serious.
Choosing the Wrong Primary Category
The primary category on a Google Business Profile is one of the biggest ranking factors in local search, and it’s one of those ranking factors that is often overlooked by electricians. For most electricians, the primary category should be “Electrician.” Seems obvious. Yet the profiles that are sometimes created by well-meaning web designers, marketing agencies that don’t understand trades businesses, or the business owner in a rush are often miscategorized under the headings of “Contractor”, “Home Services” or even “Electric Utility Company”. They project a different relevance signal and push down rankings for the main queries – “electrician near me”, “local electrician” and “emergency electrician” – that are driving the most relevant traffic.
Supporting categories are also important, and most profiles are missing them. Google supports multiple categories, and by including related categories such as “Electrical installation service“, “Electric vehicle charging station” or “Fire alarm supplier” the profile will show up for specific searches, without weakening the primary category signal. The categories should align with the services provided, used extensively, and the primary category should be selected as the anchor.
Leaving the Profile to Linger in the Sun
A Google Business Profile isn’t a set-and-forget tool. Google’s algorithm does not ignore engagement signals – the freshness of the photos, whether there are posts, how regularly and in a timely way reviews are being replied to, whether business details are up-to-date. A profile that was created correctly two years ago and hasn’t been updated since sends an “aging” signal that slowly drags down the profile’s rankings, despite the fact that the initial information was correct.
This maintenance doesn’t take hours per week. Posting a photo per month on the various job sites, a short Google Post every couple of weeks and responding to reviews within a day or two sends all the right engagement signals. It’s like a regular service on the van – you wouldn’t want it to break down on the job. An abandoned profile depreciates. A well-cultivated one appreciates.
NAP Inconsistencies Scattered Across the Web
NAP – Name, Address, Phone number – must be 100 percent consistent with every online listing of your business. Not similar. Not the same, but maybe with slight differences. Identical. Google evaluates a business’ NAP data from scores of directories, aggregators and business listing sites to determine how credible and established it is. When data conflicts occur (due to inconsistent information – “St.” on one site and “Street” on another; old information such as a phone number that is still present on a site from 3 years ago; a suite number present on some listings but not others), this undermines the local authority of the business.
The issue grows insidiously over time. The phone number changes and is updated on Google but not on Yelp. A business relocates and updates the website address but not the other six sites. A listing was created on a directory years ago with a different format of the business name.
Allowing Website Performance to Drag Down
Slow loading pages, poor mobile experience, and unresolved technical issues with a website impact map pack rankings in an unexpected way to many electricians. Google includes its Core Web Vitals metrics that measure loading speed and stability and responsiveness to user input when calculating local rankings. We can set up a profile to perfection, but the website it’s connected to can be losing all quality signals because it takes seven seconds to load on mobile and 50% of the pages have errors.
Check the website using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. If the mobile score is below 50 that’s a current ranking factor that needs to be resolved before you can get the most from your other efforts. Look for crawl issues, broken links and deindexed pages in Google Search Console. Fix the technical foundation first. Until you’ve fixed the technical issues, your content, keywords, and even backlinks don’t perform as well as they could. Electricians don’t cover up bad wiring. It’s the same with a website.
