What is map pack?

Why it matters for a contractor.

It takes a large share of the clicks and is won mostly on your Google Business Profile rather than your website, which is why a contractor with a mediocre site can outrank a better one.

Three signals decide it: proximity to the searcher, category relevance, and prominence. Your website participates far less than contractors expect, which is why an operator with an immaculate Google Business Profile and an ordinary site routinely beats the reverse.

Proximity is the one nobody can sell you around. A single office will not dominate an entire metro, because the searcher's location moves and yours does not. Coverage across a metro is a service-area strategy question involving real locations and real service-area configuration, not an optimization trick, and anyone promising metro-wide map pack dominance from one address is describing something that does not exist.

Category relevance is the cheapest fix on this list and the most commonly wrong. The primary category field is one of the highest-leverage settings a contractor has, and a surprising number of businesses have it set to something vague, something aspirational, or something a homeowner would never type.

What to ask a vendor about it.

• What is my primary category set to, and is that what homeowners call my trade?
• Which parts of my metro do I currently appear in, and which am I invisible in?
• Is my service area configured to match where crews actually go?
• What is the plan for the areas proximity will not let me win?