How to Get Local SEO Clients from Maps

A prospect is a business whose listing has an obvious gap next to the others in the same search. Each gap shows in a column, and chat can keep the rows that have it.

The list doesn't show everything an audit would. It has no review text, photos or posts, and it doesn't say whether the owner manages the listing.

Treat each row as a reason to look closer. Open the listing from its Map URL before you get in touch, and see finding businesses without a website for the last two signs.

Search one trade in one district, suburb or small town, so the businesses you compare come from the same search. A whole metro in one list mixes areas that customers search one at a time.

1. 1

   Step 1: Ask for the trade and the area

   In chat, type the trade, the place and a number, such as "Find 200 dentists in Dallas, TX". With a number in the request, chat starts without asking how many.

2. 2

   Step 2: Add more areas to the same conversation

   Type the next area, then the next. From the second search on, chat offers a card to combine them into one table, with a Location column saying where each business is.

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   Step 3: Or collect many areas at once

   For a long list of districts or zip codes, run each search on Maps, copy the links and paste them into Bulk. It collects every search in one run and saves one list, without a Location column.

One Maps search lists about 120 businesses. Ask for more and chat searches the area around the place too, up to 1,000 in one request.

"Few reviews" only means something next to the rest of the search. Before you filter, open the list on the results page and ask chat what the businesses in it have:

• "What's the average Review Count?" answers with the average and how many rows it's from.
• "What's the highest Review Count?" names the business with the most.
• "How many rows have Operating Hours?" counts the listings that show their hours.
• "Count by Category" shows the five most common categories, so you can see what else the search mixed in.

The average leaves out businesses with no reviews, because their Review Count is empty. That's why the answer says how many rows it's from.

Use the average as your yardstick. A business far below it, or with no reviews at all, has the clearest gap, and the number makes your first sentence for you.

Keep the businesses below the bar, then the ones with no reviews, as two lists. A row has to match every filter at once, so one view can't hold both.

1. 1

   Step 1: Keep the businesses with few reviews

   On the results page, type "Only rows where Review Count < 20", or a number that fits the average you found. The filter shows above the table, and chat says how many rows are left.

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   Step 2: Ask for the ones with no reviews separately

   Clear the filter, then type "Only rows where Review Count is empty". Download this view as a file of its own.

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   Step 3: Narrow it if the list is long

   Add a second filter to either list.

   • "Rating 4.5 or more" keeps well-liked businesses that few customers review.
   • "Operating Hours is empty" keeps listings that are missing their hours.
   • "Address contains" and a town keeps one part of a combined list.
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   Step 4: Download the short list

   Ask chat to download it as Excel or CSV. The file holds only the rows the page shows, with ratings and review counts written as numbers.

Watch out: A number filter skips empty cells, and sorting puts them last. A business with no reviews isn't in "Review Count < 20" and comes last in any sort by Review Count, so always ask for it on its own.

How the Rating and Review Count sorts work, including how Best rated first weighs a rating by its number of reviews, is in sorting by rating and reviews. Downloads and the results page have their own page too.

A low rating is the other gap in the list, and it needs a different first sentence from a thin review count. Keep the businesses under a rating with "Only rows where Rating < 4", then sort them by Review Count so the ones many customers have rated come first.

On the same screen, a 3.8 sits next to 4.6s and 4.7s, so a low rating is visible to every customer who searches. A review-management or local SEO offer that names the number speaks to something the owner can see too.

Keep the two lists apart. Few reviews calls for a plan to get reviews; a low rating calls for a plan to answer them and earn better ones. Sorting by rating and reviews covers each filter, and an empty Review Count is a reviews gap, not a rating problem.

The results page can show the businesses in the order Maps listed them in your run. Above the table, next to the order the list was saved in, click Show the site's order; click again to go back.

When chat searched the area around the place for more businesses, each further search's businesses follow the first search's. The order isn't available for lists over 500 rows.

Read it as a clue, not a ranking. It's the order of one run, so don't quote a position to a business as fact.

Open with one fact from the business's own row, next to the search it sits in. A number the owner can check in a minute makes the point for you, and it shows you looked.

Reach each business the way its row allows. If Emails is filled, write to the address its website lists, which the emails page explains; otherwise, call the number in Phone.

Several dentists in one group practice can share a website and so one email. Check the website before you write to each of them as if they were separate; building a dentist email list shows how to keep one row per practice.

Before you send anything, read what's allowed when you email or call businesses. For keeping track and following up, see getting your first client.

Most problems come from empty cells or from the area the search covered. This is what to change for each.