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James Dooley and Mike Martin of GBPly.com explain how local businesses can rank their Google Business Profiles through consistent daily actions, matched citations and proximity expansion to win in the Google Maps three-pack.
This video explains which digital marketing strategies local businesses should focus on in 2026 to improve Google Maps rankings, capture high-intent "near me" searches and win a place in the three-pack. James Dooley and Mike Martin start with KPI tracking because monitoring grid rankings, review velocity and proximity tells local businesses whether their daily actions are actually moving them up the map. They cover brand SEO, AI visibility and Google Business Profiles because stronger search presence improves trust and conversion rates.
The discussion also explores organic SEO, organic social media and paid social ads because consistent visibility across search and social supports long term growth. PPC is analysed in detail because campaign setup, landing pages and lead handling directly affect results. They also discuss Reddit, Quora and paid AI ads because diversified enquiry sources and early adoption can strengthen digital marketing performance for local businesses.
PromoSEO lead generation for local businesses recently received recognition as the "Best Local Businesses Lead Generation Agency."
Local Maps SEO: How to Optimise Your Google Business Profile in 2026 is available on:
James Dooley is a Manchester-based entrepreneur, investor, and SEO strategist. James Dooley founded FatRank and PromoSEO, two UK performance marketing agencies that deliver no-win-no-fee lead generation and digital growth systems for ambitious businesses. James Dooley positions himself as an Investorpreneur who invests in UK companies with high growth potential because he believes lead generation is the root of all business success.
The James Dooley Podcast explores the mindset, methods, and mechanics of modern entrepreneurship. James Dooley interviews leading marketers, founders, and innovators to reveal the strategies driving online dominance and business scalability. Each episode unpacks the reality of building a business without mentorship, showing how systems, data, and lead flow replace luck and guesswork.
James Dooley shares hard-earned lessons from scaling digital assets and managing SEO teams across more than 650 industries. James Dooley teaches how to convert leads into long-term revenue through brand positioning, technical SEO, and automation. James Dooley built his career on rank and rent, digital real estate, and performance-based marketing because these models align incentive with outcome.
After turning down dozens of podcast invitations, James Dooley now embraces the platform to share his insights on investorpreneurship, lead generation, AI-driven marketing, and reputation management. James Dooley frequently collaborates with elite entrepreneurs to discuss frameworks for scaling businesses, building authority, and mastering search.
James Dooley is also an expert in online reputation management (ORM), having built and rehabilitated corporate brands across the UK. His approach combines SEO precision, brand engineering, and social proof loops to influence both Google’s Knowledge Graph and public perception.
To feature James Dooley on your podcast or event, connect via social media. James Dooley regularly joins business panels and networking sessions to discuss entrepreneurship, brand growth, and the evolving future of SEO.
James Dooley: Local maps SEO. Today I'm joined with Mike Martin who's the founder of gppower.com. So he's got a lot of data. He knows exactly how to rank those Google Business Profiles. And first before we get started on the optimization of the Google Maps listings, Mike, how important is trying to improve the rankings of your Google Business Profile now we're in the AI era?
Mike Martin: Well, there's there's multiple answers to that. I mean, if you think about it, the Google Business Profile is is in in in most cases the only real provable entity that you've got left. Obviously Gemini's connected to um Google Business Profiles. Gemini's obviously one of the AIs. It pushes everything into Gemini now. They've just released Ask Map, which again pushes everything from Gemini into Ask Map or vice versa. So and there's no way that you can rank for single keywords or near me keywords faster in in no matter what. Like, for example, if you was to rank a local business website, you would target keyword location, yeah?
James Dooley: Yeah.
Mike Martin: But keyword near me will get at least three times the search, and we check this over over thousands of different industries, at least three times the search in the area, and you can rank for keyword near me like plumber near me, roofer near me, electrician near me, accountant near me within within a matter of weeks on a Google Business Profile. You can be in the top three right above the websites. So the amount of traffic you get and the intent of traffic that comes from it is just ridiculous. It's just people are seeing such good results so fast by focusing on optimizing their Google Business Profiles.
James Dooley: So with regards to optimizing the Google Business Profiles then, you're saying that it gets you're getting three times more searches for let's say plumbers near me or roofers near me than roofers Manchester or roofers in Manchester, right? Is there anything different that you do or is it still the same type of optimization for both roofers near me and roofers Manchester?
Mike Martin: Uh yeah, well, firstly, it's a minimum of three times. So, we've tested loads of industries. Some are 10, 12 times. Like dentists, they get about 15 to 20 times as much search for dentist near me than they do for dentist key in in locations. Um now, so really, obviously, ranking a website is the rules haven't changed massively over the last 5 6 years. Obviously, the SEO side of things and and and stuff like that has stayed the same. But, Google Business Profile is completely different. It's based on daily actions. It's based on small daily actions. There's really four areas that you need to focus on. Filling out your profile completely, posting on a regular basis, posting images on a regular basis, and then chasing reviews and responding to them on a regular basis. That's pretty much it. Now, what a lot of people where a lot of people make the mistake is if they're doing it in a roofing industry, they might go in and say, "Right, I'm going to upload 50 posts a week and 50 images a week." It's impossible to stay consistent, and it's completely out of whack with what the other businesses in the industry are doing. Now, if you're the if you're the busiest business in the in the in the industry, then you're going to be doing more than everybody else, but not necessarily 10 times more, cuz there's only a certain amount of search and a certain amount of work. So, if you look in the industry and you figure out that people are posting once a month or once a week, and people are uploading images once a day, then you're probably going to want to go and say, "Right, I'm going to do three posts a week, I'm going to do five images a week, and I'm going to chase reviews, and then respond to them as much as I possibly can." Um and if you just do that and stay consistent, because that's why most businesses fail. It's not because ranking a Google Business Profile is difficult, it's because ranking a Google Business Profile is time-consuming, and it's daily actions that have to be done every single day. In Google, you can't schedule those things yourself, and that's why we created GBP let, because in GBP let, you can actually schedule everything months and months and months in advance and stay consistent and it's those four areas times consistency that really starts to build out your um footprint online.
James Dooley: What was In the previous video, you came up with something It was something like the four P's. It was something like pics, posts, praise, and something like What What was that saying that you said?
Mike Martin: Uh profile pictures, posts, and praise, which is basically profile completeness, post regularly, pictures regularly, chase praise regularly, and respond to it when you get it. And that's kind of it. It's those It's those four P's times consistency, which is everything you need to know about ranking Google Business. It's more like a social profile. If you imagine you was trying to build a a a YouTube channel, okay? You Every posting every day on a YouTube channel will get you 5, 10, 15, 20,000. You have to do it over a long period of time. With Google Business Profiles, it's the same thing, but you see the results a lot quicker because everything you do on a Google Business Profile over that consistency is ranking you in Google for intent-based keywords like industry near me. It makes sense?
James Dooley: Yeah, it does make sense. Yeah, and consistency is key in so many channels. Article velocity, link velocity, on YouTube, video velocity, uploading every single day massively improves your channel. Um from what you're saying there, picture velocity, it consistently uploading every day, post velocity. I want to touch upon review velocity because I've had [\h__\h] real pains where I've just gone and sent out mass emails, loads of email loads of reviews coming in a single day, loads of them don't get published cuz it looks like it's I've It's been a lot of spam. I've gone and bought 50 fake reviews. Obviously, can you touch upon what GBP link does with regards to the review where you can load in all your client database, all existing clients, but it drip feeds out and why that's important cuz now you're talking about consistency, this is how you can get the consistency on the reviews of the Google Business Profiles.
Mike Martin: Yeah, well, like you just said, most people will say, "Okay, I'm going to start chasing reviews." And we'll do it maybe 1 week out of every 3 months. So, they'll send out 1,000 emails to 1,000 clients, and they'll get 50 or 60 reviews coming in. And those 50 or 60 reviews will get deleted by Google within a week cuz Google's like, "Ah, they're obviously spamming. Otherwise, they couldn't have got that many or they must be fake." So, what we've built is a system where you can upload your client emails once a week or once a month, and it will drip feed those out over a 30-day period. And And because it drip feeds them out, it means that your your reviews are coming in consistently over time, which then also improves your rankings on a massive scale as long as you're responding to them. So, what a lot of people don't realize is we we've got clients that have gone from not ranking anywhere at all, and they're in industries where people at the top have got 600, 700, 800 reviews. And they're like, "Well, I've only got 25 reviews." And I'm like, "This is brilliant. Don't worry about it. Let's get you one review a week, right? Over the next 6 weeks, and watch what happens." And they've gone climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing. And they're in the three-pack beating people with three, four, 500. So, when people see someone with 600 reviews, they look at it and they think, "There's no way I can ever beat them." But if you're actually looking most Google Business Profile three-packs, you'll see that there's usually someone in there with a lot less reviews than the other guys. And what they're doing is they're winning with consistency. The most consistent business always wins, and I mean always. Obviously, you still need things like your NAP information needs to match, and your citations all over the internet need to match, and all the other little things you're doing for your for your online SEO, and things like that. But the most consistent business that's got a half-decent footprint online will always win in the Google Maps. Always. And And And we've tested this so much. It's like, "Oh my god, it's it's so true. They just win every single time."
James Dooley: So I've got some quick-fire questions for you with regards to local maps SEO, right? You just mentioned there citations and business listings and keeping that consistent NAP, the name, address, and the phone number. Is that a ranking factor for improving Google Business Profile rankings?
Mike Martin: Okay, so some people build citations with name, address, and phone number. Some people build citations with name, address, phone number, and backlink to the website. Yep.
James Dooley: Yep.
Mike Martin: Skip the website. Just do name, address, and phone number. Thousands and thousands of places. Make sure it matches exactly what you you've got on your Google Business Profile's name, address, and phone number. Identical. So, if you've got street or you've just got ST, do it exactly ST followed by a comma. Make sure it's the same everywhere. Google recognizes it everywhere. Google doesn't feel like you're trying to do link spam. And it actually benefits you a lot more over time because you're building a brand rather than just building lots and lots and lots of backlinks pointing to your website, which in most cases don't help that much anymore anyway because you're not getting them in in in areas where they're either passing the the the link juice on or they're they're even worth having because everybody can Like, if I go to ChatGPT or if I go to one of the AI bots nowadays and I say, "Right, I need a thousand that you're going to list my website with my link to my website, right?" You're not going to get any benefit from that cuz it's dead easy to do. AI can do it super fast, super easy. But, if you go in and you only get it to do your name, address, and phone number and forget about the backlink to your website, then you're going to start seeing benefits coming from that cuz you're not building link spam, you're building the brand. The business brand is being mentioned everywhere without the link spam coming back in. Does that make sense?
James Dooley: Yeah, absolutely. Next question with regards to local maps SEO. It's hard to get your client to go and leave you a review with the keywords put in there. When you reply back to them reviews, so within GBP dot com you can reply back to the reviews. Are you trying to get the users of GBP dot com to try to working the keywords of what they did on that job to try and help? Does that help the Google Business Profile rank better in the maps by by the keywords in the reply to the reviews that they've left.
Mike Martin: Other than the word keywords, yes. So, forget about keywords completely with Google Business Profiles. Google understands who you are, what you do, and where you are, and exactly what it needs to rank you for. Keywords is completely relevant. It's the intent behind it, right? The intent behind what's actually being put in there. So, if if a plumber turns up at somebody's house at 9:00 at night, and they put in their thing that I couldn't find anybody local, and they answered the call at 9:00 at night and was there within 20 minutes, then all of a sudden Google looks at that and says, "Okay, these guys answer the phone at night. These guys are open at this time at night. They And and it it reads and understands what what's being said." So, you can forget about the keywords because if somebody then goes into us maps and clicks, "I need a plumber that's open at 9:00 and answers the phone round here at night." Or, "I need a plumber that answers the phone after 9:00 at night." And they say into us maps, it will instantly rank them over the businesses that have got more rank more reviews and more testimonials and and and and have been posting and doing images longer just because of that one little review. So, if you can get a client to explain what they wanted, what happened, and then what you did in in a review, it's much more powerful than just saying, "Oh, this guy's absolutely amazing. I love him." Cuz everybody gets everybody to say that. Um so, it's it's more about the intent of what they are writing than actually putting keywords in. Um keywords websites, keywords not for Google Business Profiles. That that's In my experience, it's all about those those daily manual actions and the intent of what's being put on the page.
James Dooley: Yeah. So, let's let's role play something here. I'm an enterprise SEO agency, right? I've been using GPP now for a few months, right? I've gone and followed exactly what you said. I've gone and gone a load of the business citations. I've repeated that NAP perfectly throughout the internet. It's started to increase in rankings. I'm seeing those red grids turn into amber grids and turn into green grids, and I'm getting really excited. In GPP, they have got the ranking replies, and they're turning green, and I'm and I'm and I'm excited. I'm now going using it and I'm going sending out loads of these reviews and I'm getting lots of five-star reviews. I'm responding with the intent exactly same what we've done and again it's all going green. And I've got to a point now as an enterprise SEO agent say improving my Google Business Profile and everything's green. I'm number one in the whole area.
Mike Martin: Yep.
James Dooley: But my client wants to carry on paying me and wants more. How can I then increase the proximity of that grid to go okay I'm I'm doing it within a three-mile radius. How do we get it to a 10-mile radius or a 20-mile radius of where I'm based? From a local SEO expert I want to try and expand that and when I load it in now my grid is all green here but on the outside it's all red. How do I expand that proximity for Google Business Profile rankings?
Mike Martin: Right. So what are the key things first I'll I'll go back to the beginning first of what you were saying earlier on which is to do to do with consistency. Right? You need to let your clients know and understand that Google Business Profile ranking is all about consistency. And if you're consistent for months and months and months and then you stop being consistent it's going to be worse than never doing it in the first place and you're going to drop through the floor it's going to be a lot harder to get back into that three pack. So you need to make that your clients aware of that at the beginning so your clients don't come to you and say well I'm already ranking I don't want you anymore. And it's like you need to make sure your client understands that consistency is the key and if we stop being consistent all right and there's no way a business owner can do that themselves right? And then secondly with regards to ranking further afield. So we we we we we've got two tools. So I I was the owner until very recently of Magic Page plugin WP Schema plugin Lead Simplify Local Content Engine Quote Flow Lead Themes Lead Forms and Book a Local. Seven or eight eight software tools. I've just given them all to my business partner because we're completely focused on this and we've got two tools. Two tools is the only two things we focus on. GBP late and three local. And three local, we're keeping that because it's the best proximity maximizer for Google Business Profiles that's out there. And the reason it's not it's not the best, you can do it with with websites, but the reason we use it is because of how quick it is to set up. You can set up in 15 minutes and it'll create pages in within 5, 10, 15, 20-mi radius of your business. These location pages specifically point back to the business and the brand inside of the schema. But as soon as they're created, so what we do is let's say you draw a radius around your business and you want 150 pages in them areas. We don't care if a page is ranked, what we care about is the structure of the schema in the back end of the pages. And the way we do it is we link back to your business with your with your geolocation data and everything pointing back to your business with your business name and brand. But then what we do further down is we have a link going to the same as link going to the Google Maps CID URL. And then underneath that we have the geolocation data as a service area page in that location for your business. So we're telling Google three things. This is the business, this is where they're based and this is what they do. This is the same as information, which is their their CID URL for their Google Business Profile, and this is a service area for this service in this location with this geolocation data. And what that does over a period of time it starts to push the Google Business Profile out further. And so you still have to keep the consistency. So I always tell a client when you very first set up, do post on a Monday, image on a Tuesday, post on a Wednesday, image on a Thursday, chase and respond to reviews on a Friday. Done. So you just do that for 4 weeks and don't do anything else, right? Then what you see is if you starts to see movement, you're like, "Okay, we're moving." Leave it alone and keep staying consistent, which means there's no additional work to do. If you're not seeing movement, add a couple of of extra posts, maybe a couple of extra images that week and things like that. And just just gradually increase it. And what will happen is the rankings will start to Once you start to see that movement, then what will happen over a period of time is you don't want to go unrealistic on the amount of daily posts and images that you do. But what then what you want to do is once that stops and freezes and the client's like we're not getting any further, it's like, "Okay, the consistency's doing this." Then we start building out the location pages and we structure the schema correctly in the in the way so that the schema tells Google, "This is a service area for this business and this is their their Google Maps listing." And what slowly happens is it starts to increase even further and further. We stay consistent and we make them changes and you don't really need to do much else. And that works absolutely brilliant. And that's that's that's how we were able to get my my coaching business ranking 150 miles in that direction and in that direction for coaching business near me and then over the sea in France. Um and and lots of other areas. So we've within a 2-hour radius, we were on the first page of Google nearly everywhere um with a Google Business Profile. And like my SEO agency, my SEO agency ranks for for SEO agency near me and local SEO agency. Uh probably 25 miles away from my actual where it's based and I don't do much with it at all. I just set it up, put it into here and let it go and it's just sat there for the last 3 months and it's just tick tick tick tick tick and now we're ranking absolutely everywhere.
James Dooley: That's class, Mike. So not only can you be looking to get consistent kind of rankings, increase the rankings, you can now start to try to expand that proximity on Google Maps. Anyone who's watching this with regards to local maps SEO, is there anything that we've missed? Leave a comment in the comment section. Also, make sure that you check out gbp dot com where Mike Martin is the founder. Um it's a great tool. We use it within uh Fat Rank and Promo SEO. We've actually just moved all Local SEO Sharks clients over there as well. They do a lot of local SEO with regards to Google Business Profiles, what used to be classed as being GMB SEO. It works absolutely great. I absolutely love myself, the ranking replays that can send for you to the client and I love that being able to drip feed the reviews that comes in. Mike, it's been an absolute pleasure and we hope you like the video on local maps SEO.