Meta Title: What Competitors Do on Google Maps You're Not | Guide Meta Description: Wondering why rival businesses outrank you on Maps? Break down their exact categories, photos, and review tactics. Get the checklist.
She was two chairs down from me at a business networking event — the owner of a salon three blocks from mine. Same neighborhood. Similar services. Roughly the same number of years in business. And yet, every single time someone searched "hair salon near me," her pin sat comfortably in the local 3-pack while mine was buried somewhere on page two of Maps results.
I didn't get it. I had more reviews. My shop looked better. My prices were competitive. So what was she doing on Google Maps that I wasn't?
That question sent me down a rabbit hole that changed how I think about local visibility entirely. And I'm guessing you're reading this because a version of that same frustration — "that other business always shows up before me" — keeps nagging at you, too.
Here's your reader promise: By the end of this guide, you'll have a concrete, phase-by-phase checklist to reverse-engineer what your top-ranking competitors are doing on Google Maps and close every gap you find.
Before You Touch Anything: The Pre-Flight Check
I need you to resist the urge to jump straight into your GBP dashboard and start changing things. I've watched business owners do that, and half the time they make things worse — triggering suspension flags or diluting their category precision without realizing it.
Here's what you need locked down first:
Access to your Google Business Profile with owner-level permissions (not just manager).
A private/incognito browser window — you'll be doing competitor searches, and your personal search history will skew results.
A spreadsheet or doc open — you're going to be cataloging competitor data. Old school? Sure. But it works.
Your own business info on hand — current categories, services listed, photo count, last post date, review count.
Your Stop/Go test: Can you name your GBP primary category right now, without logging in to check? If yes, go. If no, stop — log in, take inventory of your own profile first, then come back.
Phase 1: Spy on Their Categories (This Is Where Most Gaps Hide)
Here's the thing nobody tells you about Google Maps rankings: your primary category carries more weight than almost anything else on your profile. And most business owners pick theirs once during setup and never revisit it.
What to do:
Open an incognito window. Search your core service + "near me" (e.g., "nail salon near me" or "brake repair near me").
Look at the three businesses in the local 3-pack. Click into each profile.
Note their primary category — it's displayed right under the business name.
Then use a free tool like Pleper's GBP category finder to see their secondary categories. You want all of them.
Drop everything into your spreadsheet. Do this for at least 4-6 top competitors.
Visual checkpoint: You should now see a pattern — the top-ranking businesses almost always have a more specific primary category than you do. "Pediatric Dentist" instead of "Dentist." "Brake Repair Shop" instead of "Auto Repair." That specificity is category precision, and it's what neural matching rewards.
Verification: Search three different service-related queries in incognito. If the same competitors keep appearing with tighter category matches, you've confirmed the gap.
The friction warning: Don't go stuffing 15 secondary categories onto your profile to "cover everything." Category stuffing is a known spam trigger. Stick to categories that genuinely reflect services you offer and that your top competitors are also using. The sweet spot is usually 5-10 secondaries, chosen with intent.
The hard truth? That salon owner who outranked me? Her primary category was "Hair Salon." Mine was "Beauty Salon." Sounds trivial. It wasn't.
Phase 2: Audit Their Photo Game (It's Not Just About Looking Pretty)
I used to think photos on GBP were a vanity metric. Upload a few nice shots of the storefront, maybe the team, and move on. That assumption cost me months of visibility.
Google's Vision AI actually analyzes your photos. It's checking for location verification — branded vehicles near recognizable landmarks, interior shots that match your stated address, exterior photos that align with Street View. Profiles with updated, geo-relevant photos generate 42% more direction requests and 35% more website clicks than those with stale or stock imagery.
What to do:
Pull up each competitor's GBP photo section. Count their total uploads.
Note the recency — when were the last photos added? Top performers upload fresh media constantly.
Look at the types: interior, exterior, team, products/services, "at work" shots. What's the mix?
Check if they're posting short videos. Google favors profiles with diverse media types.
Visual checkpoint: Your competitor's photo section should show 20+ uploads with timestamps within the last 30 days. You'll likely notice at least 30% are exterior or landmark-adjacent shots. If your own profile has 8 photos from 2022... that's your gap.
Verification: Compare your photo count and recency against the top 3 competitors. If they have 3x your volume and their newest upload is this week while yours is six months old, you've found a major leak.
The expert nuance: Don't upload stock photos. Seriously. EXIF-stripped generic images fail Vision AI verification checks and can actually hurt your profile's trust signals. Take real photos. Use your phone. Geo-tag them. A slightly imperfect photo of your actual business at its actual address is worth more than a polished stock image.
Phase 3: Decode Their Review Strategy
This one stung when I figured it out. I had more reviews than my competitor — but she had something I didn't: consistent owner responses with service-relevant language.
Google's neural matching doesn't just count reviews. It reads them. It analyzes the semantic content of both reviews and responses. A response like "Thanks for choosing us for your balayage appointment, Sarah! We're glad you loved the result" feeds Google more relevance data than "Thanks for the 5 stars!"
What to do:
Read your top competitors' most recent 20 reviews. Note the language customers use.
Read the owner responses. Are they personalized? Do they mention specific services?
Check the velocity — how many new reviews per week/month?
Run a quick sentiment analysis (even manual — just categorize reviews as positive, neutral, negative). How do they handle negatives?
Visual checkpoint: You should see a pattern of timely, personalized owner responses that naturally incorporate service keywords. The review sentiment graph (visible in GBP Insights) should trend positive with no clusters of unanswered complaints.
Verification: If your competitors respond to 90%+ of reviews within 48 hours and you respond to maybe 40%... that's not a small gap. That's a canyon.
Friction warning: Do not blast your customer list with automated review requests. Bulk sends hit spam filters, and Google's increasingly aggressive about flagging inauthentic review patterns. Sentiment-triggered, personalized requests — sent after a genuinely positive interaction — are what actually work.
See Where You Actually Rank Before You Optimize You've just identified category, photo, and review gaps — but do you know exactly where your business ranks from different points across your service area? We built GBP Rank Tracker to scan from 21 geographic grid points around your location, showing you real-time ranking data and competitor intelligence on a visual heat map. No subscription — just pay-as-you-go starting at $5 per scan.
Phase 4: Match Their Posting Cadence
Post freshness is one of those signals that's easy to ignore because it feels like busywork. But here's what I noticed when I started tracking competitors closely: the businesses that consistently held 3-pack positions were posting weekly. Not monthly. Not "whenever we remember." Weekly.
What to do:
Check each competitor's "Updates" section on their GBP. How often are they posting?
What type of content? Offers, events, "what's new" updates, behind-the-scenes content?
Do their posts include keywords that match their services page?
Are they using images or video in posts?
Visual checkpoint: An active posts carousel with fresh offers or updates visible when you view their profile. Four or more posts per month is the benchmark.
Verification: If your last GBP post was eight weeks ago and your competitor posted yesterday, you already know what to fix.
Profiles with complete, actively maintained content are 2.7× more trusted by Google's ranking systems. And with 80%+ of searches now surfacing Maps results, that trust gap compounds fast.
Phase 5: The Stuff Nobody Talks About — Q&A and Schema
Q&A engagement is the section most business owners forget exists on their profile. And that neglect is visible — unanswered questions tank your E-E-A-T signals for local intent queries.
What to do:
Check if your competitors have Q&A sections with pre-populated answers (yes, you can ask and answer your own questions — Google encourages it).
Look at whether user-submitted questions are answered promptly.
On the website side, check if competitors have LocalBusiness schema markup. (Right-click > View Page Source > search for "LocalBusiness.")
Visual checkpoint: A Knowledge Panel that's expanded with services, Q&A, and hours that perfectly match the website. NAP consistency across their website, GBP, Yelp, Bing, and Apple Maps.
Verification: Cross-check your NAP (name, address, phone) across 10 directories. If there's any variance — even a suite number format difference — you've got a trust score leak that needs fixing.
The Ugly Truth Table: When Things Go Wrong
| Problem | The Weird Fix | Where I Found It |
|---|---|---|
| Sudden 3-pack drop despite steady reviews | Primary category too broad — swap to exact match found via incognito competitor search | Local SEO forums, practitioner consensus |
| Low direction requests even with good rank | NAP inconsistencies across directories — force-sync via bulk citation audit, upload landmark-tagged photos with EXIF data | Citation audit guides |
| Profile invisible in AI Overviews | Stale posts + services don't match website copy — post weekly with service keywords, preempt Q&A | GBP optimization communities |
| Review requests getting spam-flagged | Automated bulk sends — switch to sentiment-triggered, personalized requests post-visit | Review management forums |
| Suspension without notice | Over-optimized service areas without proof — add client story photos pinned to real addresses for Vision AI | GBP suspension recovery threads |
(That suspension one is brutal. I've seen it happen to a dentist who expanded his service areas to three cities he'd never set foot in. Ghost suspension, no warning.)
The Timeline Nobody Wants to Hear
| Stage | What You're Doing | What Changes | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Fix categories, NAP, schema, initial photos | Profile completeness (2.7x trust baseline) | 1-2 weeks |
| Momentum | Weekly posts, review responses, Q&A | 35-42% more clicks and direction requests | 4-6 weeks |
| Authority | Competitor benchmarking, media refresh, heat map tracking | 3-pack entry, AI Overview eligibility | 2-3 months |
| Sustained Rank | Sentiment analysis, ongoing optimization | 45% conversion lift | 6+ months, ongoing |
"Set it and forget it" yields exactly nothing. This is a living system.
FAQs
How long before GBP changes affect my Maps ranking?
Basic fixes like category swaps and photo uploads can shift visibility within 1-2 weeks. But 3-pack dominance from compounded signals — reviews, posts, engagement — typically takes 2-3 months of consistent effort. There's no overnight fix, and anyone promising one is selling something.
Why do my reviews not seem to help my ranking?
Raw review count matters less than review quality, recency, and owner response patterns. Google's neural matching reads the semantic content of reviews. Respond personally, mention specific services, and avoid triggering spam filters with bulk automated requests. Track how your review strategy impacts your actual grid rankings to see what's working.
How do I find out what categories my competitors are using?
Search your service + "near me" in incognito. Click into each 3-pack result to see their primary category. For secondary categories, use free tools like Pleper's category tool or scan competitor profiles with a grid-based rank tracker that surfaces category and profile intelligence.
Can I get suspended for changing my GBP categories?
Not for legitimate changes. But rapid, repeated category swaps or adding categories for services you don't actually offer can trigger review flags. Make changes deliberately, one round at a time, and ensure every category reflects a real service.
What's the minimum number of photos I should have on my profile?
Twenty is the baseline to be competitive, but recency matters more than raw count. A profile with 15 photos uploaded this month outperforms one with 50 photos from two years ago. Prioritize geo-tagged exterior shots, interior photos, and team-at-work images.
How do I check if my NAP is consistent everywhere?
Manually audit your top 10 directories — Google, Bing, Apple Maps, Yelp, Facebook, and industry-specific sites. Even small formatting differences (like "St." vs. "Street") create NAP consistency issues. Use a local ranking tool to monitor how citation health affects your grid positions over time.
That salon owner who kept outranking me? She wasn't doing anything magical. She was just doing the basics — all of them, consistently — while I was guessing.
Your Next Move Run a free competitor intelligence scan with GBP Rank Tracker to see exactly where you rank versus your competitors across your entire service area. One scan. Twenty-one data points. No subscription required.
Stop guessing what they're doing differently. Go look.