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Home › Start here › Show up on Google Maps and get reviews
Start here · Marketing

How to get your business on Google Maps and get more reviews

To get your business on Google Maps, create and verify a business profile with Google, fill in every detail and keep it current. Showing up higher in local results depends on an accurate, complete profile, consistent business details across the web and a steady flow of genuine reviews. SEO software can track your local rankings and help fix your website, while local listings and review management tools keep directory details consistent and make asking for reviews easier.

By Bill Belcamino · Page updated September 23, 2026 · Our methodologyResearched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team
How to get your business on Google Maps and get more reviews
Bill Belcamino
Bottom line up frontby Bill Belcamino, founder of HelpCompare
Editorial assessment

Bottom line up front: Do I need to pay for software to show up on Google Maps and get reviews?

Mostly no: a complete profile, identical business details everywhere and a steady flow of genuine reviews are work, and the listings and review tools are a category we don't track yet.

SEO software is the priced piece, from Ahrefs at $29/mo (Starter, with the full toolset at $129/mo on Lite) to Semrush at $117.33/mo billed annually, and it only helps here if it tracks rankings by town or ZIP code.

Reviews are where most local businesses fall down. Ask at the moment the customer is happiest, right as the job wraps up, with a direct link sent that same day, because a request a week later mostly gets ignored. Aim for a steady trickle rather than one big push, since buyers read the newest reviews first and a burst followed by months of silence looks odd. Ask everyone, not just the customers you expect to be happy, since filtering who gets asked breaks review platform rules, and some platforms don't want you asking at all, so read each one's policy first.

My read of the verified data on this page, checked against vendor sources on September 23, 2026. Disagree or spot an error? Tell Bill

How to show up on Google Maps and get reviews, step by step

The software this job takes

What to look for

Common mistakes to avoid

What to settle before you buy

Frequently asked questions

How do I get my business on Google Maps?

Create a business profile with Google, add your address or service area and complete the verification step. Then fill in categories, hours, photos and services so the listing is complete. Keep the details identical to those on your website.

How do I rank higher on Google Maps?

Complete every part of your profile, choose the most accurate primary category and keep your name, address and phone consistent everywhere online. Earn a steady flow of genuine reviews and reply to them. A website with a page for each service and area you cover also helps.

How do I get more Google reviews for my business?

Ask right after a good experience and make it easy with a direct review link by email, text or a printed card. Ask every customer rather than only the ones you expect to be happy, and never pay for or fake reviews. Replying to reviews shows future customers you're listening.

What is local SEO?

Local SEO is the work of showing up when people nearby search for what you offer, both in map results and regular results. It covers your business profile, reviews, consistent directory listings and local pages on your website. SEO software tracks local rankings, and listings and reputation tools handle directories and reviews.

How we built this page

We start from the job, not the product. The phrasings people search for this job (for example “how to get my business on google”) come from our research into how small and mid-size teams describe it. Which software categories the job takes is our editorial judgment. Every tool, entry price, billing unit and date comes from HelpCompare’s open dataset, recorded from each vendor’s own pricing page; nothing is estimated, and where a vendor publishes no price we say so. We take no affiliate commissions and publish no scores of our own. See our methodology or download the data from Open Data.

More jobs in Marketing

Cite this page: HelpCompare, “How to get your business on Google Maps and get more reviews”, helpcompare.com/start/get-found-locally/ (updated ).

Source links on this site are checked every month; last check . How sources are checked.

From shortlist to switched

Built for the leader who owns the selection, answers for the spend, drives the rollout, and lives with the results. HelpCompare covers the whole decision, not just the first step.

01 · CompareWhich tool fits your team, side by side.133 comparisons 02 · Price & approveSourced, dated pricing and a one-page brief for sign-off.Decision brief 03 · SwitchWhat moves, what you rebuild, what it costs.264 guides 04 · ShareDownload and cite the data. CC BY 4.0.Open data
Bill Belcamino, founder of HelpCompare
About the author

Bill Belcamino

Founder and author, HelpCompare

Engineer by training, operator by experience, marketer by choice. Bill spent eight and a half years as an engineer at HP, was COO of Auctiva (the number one third-party selling platform on eBay, past 200,000 users) and ran Google’s $70M/year search syndication partnership at Alot.com. Then he spent 13 years building his own web properties with his own money at stake. He has bought, trialled, integrated and cancelled more SaaS tools than he can count, and started HelpCompare because the real cost of switching tools is the part nobody covers.

“I’ve sat on both sides of the table: the agency recommending the tool and the client paying for it.”

Researched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team. No paid sponsorships, no affiliate commissions.

Read Bill’s story How we verify pricingSpot an error? Tell Bill