Business Categories & Keyword Triggering of Google Business Listings

Google Maps & Selecting Business Categories

How do you get all your business categories on Google Maps to trigger your listing?

The official word from Google Maps...

We [Google] understand your concern about the keywords and categories associated with your listing. Google Maps business listings are generated and ranked entirely by mathematical algorithms. Due to normal changes in our algorithms and index, businesses may not always appear for a particular category or keyword search... If you don't know whether or not your listing is included in Google Maps, we recommend you perform a search for [ your business name in your city, zip code ]. - A NOTE ABOUT WHY THAT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH LATER...

LocoBee chimes in on selecting Google Business Categories?

We have not had the best success using the categories provided by Google as a trigger for that category in the search phrase. We have had much more luck getting local business ads to trigger based on keywords placed outside of the actual category selection area. That said you should still target your primary categories whenever you can. The difficulty is when you want to trigger for multiple categories. Your best bet is to go with the category with the most traffic and reasonable competition.

First thing to do is research what "category" (key phrase) drives the most traffic - in other words, most popular with searchers. Secondly, determine which of those categories has the least amount of competition. The category with the most traffic and has the least amount of competition will be most advantageous for you.

At LocoBee we use software to determine what categories are most popular from a search standpoint and we run "discovery" searches to determine the amount of competition. This process has been used by Search Engine Optimization SEO companies for quite a while now - we have applied this technique to a new media channel and we are seeing great success for our clients.

Business Category Competition

Categories that have fewer returned results and more incorrectly categorized businesses are less competitive.

Also, categories that return results that have a greater distance between each listing are less competitive. You may have noticed that Google will expand the radius of its returned results depending on how much competition exists for that particular category. We have seen businesses returned for the same local business results where the physical location is more than 25 miles apart.

When selecting business categories focus on the ones that provide the most opportunity with the least amount of competition. Make that the primary focus of your local business listing.

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