Google 3-Pack: How to Locally Optimize Your Online Presence

673 views

One of the best ways to bring more people to our shop or office is by improving how we appear in local Google search results. A smart way to do this is by getting into the Google 3-Pack.

In this post, we’ll explain what the Google 3-Pack is and how we can use it to bring in more people both online and in person. Let’s get started with local SEO.

What is a Google 3-Pack?

The Google 3-Pack shows the top three local business listings in search results. What people see depends on their location, what they search for, and how close they are to the businesses.

For example, if someone searches for “cupcakes in New York City,” Google will show the top three cupcake shops nearby.

Benefits of Being in the Google 3-Pack

Around 44% of people who search locally click on one of the businesses in the 3-Pack. So, showing up there gives us more chances to be seen, and more views mean more clicks.
Being listed in the 3-Pack can also help people choose our business. Those who find us there are more likely to buy from us. That’s why being easy to find is important if we want more customers.

When we appear in the Google 3-Pack, people can quickly see:

Our business name and details
Directions and a map location
Reviews and star ratings
Questions and answers
Our working hours and busy times
Price level (like $, $$, $$$, etc.)
Photos
Menus (if we’re a restaurant or café)

People using phones can also call us right from the listing, share our location, or check more details about our business.

For example, if we run a sports bar that serves food, we can add helpful details like:

What kind of food and drinks we offer
What we’re known for
Special services
If our place is wheelchair friendly
And much more

How to Get Into the Google 3-Pack

Now that we understand what the Google 3-Pack is and how it helps, let’s see how we can improve our local search results.

The first step is to claim our Google Business Profile (GBP).

Then, we can follow these easy tips to improve our local search rankings and get into the Google 3-Pack.

Before doing anything, we should make sure our Google Business Profile is complete and correct. We need to update basic details like our business hours, phone number, and address.

If we have a tool that manages listings, we can update our profile across the internet faster. This saves us time. After updating, we must check and manage the profile often—every week or even daily. If we don’t stay active, we might lose our spot in the rankings.

Being active on Google Business Profile can include:

Updating hours for holidays
Adding new photos from events
Sharing regular posts or offers
Replying to customer reviews
Answering questions
Watching what other businesses are doing

We must take care of our local 3-Pack position because it helps people find us more easily. If we are not active but our competitors are, we might lose business.

Google does not count our social media activity for rankings, but being active there still helps because it builds our brand. So, if we don’t post much or don’t have social accounts, it’s a good time to start.

Google will show businesses that are active online. When our social media pages are busy and updated, they can also show up in Google search. This helps us get more attention and can push us into the Google 3-Pack. For example, if we search for Magnolia Bakery in New York, we’ll see its Facebook and Instagram pages on the first search page.

The more reviews we have, the more chances we have to get into the Google 3-Pack.

It can be hard to get reviews, but here are some simple ways to ask:

Give a small reward like a $5 gift card or 10% off
Ask customers in person after they visit
Send an email asking for a review
Run a campaign asking for reviews
Add a review section to our website
Place a Google review link or QR code in our email signature or website footer

We should make it easy for people to leave a review—and remind them that it only takes a moment. Answering reviews is just as important as getting them. It shows we care about our customers and helps build trust. We should reply to both good and bad reviews in a kind and respectful way.

Some tips for replying to reviews:

Use the customer’s name
Say thank you for the review
Mention their feedback clearly
Say sorry if they had a bad experience
Share a way for them to contact us if needed

When we reply to reviews in a thoughtful way, it shows we are paying attention and want to fix any problems. It helps people trust us more. If we feel upset by a review, it’s okay to take a short break before replying. But we should try to reply soon. We can also use a review management tool like the one from Semrush.

If our website isn’t mobile-friendly, we may lose visitors. Having a website that works well on phones is very important for SEO and the Google 3-Pack. Mobile-friendly sites load faster and are easier to use. This helps people stay longer and make buying decisions. Google also sees fast and mobile-friendly sites as a good sign and ranks them higher.

We should also add good photos and videos to show our business clearly. This helps us stand out and gives people a better idea of what we offer. Good visuals include things like our logo, services, food, or the outside of our store. Photos should be:

JPG or PNG format
Between 10 KB and 5 MB in size
At least 250 x 250 pixels

Videos should be:

Up to 30 seconds long
At least 720p quality
Up to 75 MB in size

Make sure the photos and videos we upload are clear and not heavily edited. Adding good visuals can help attract more people to our business.

Pro Tip: If we use a Listing Management tool, adding photos and videos becomes very easy.

Another helpful feature in Google Business Profile is the option to add the products and services we offer.

For example, Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery listed all their baked items. When someone clicks on a photo, they can also read a short description of the product.

And if they really like something, like a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, they can tap the call button to place an order quickly.

Just like we use keywords on a webpage, we should also use them in our Google Business Profile.

Our profile lets us add keywords to help people find us in more searches.

But we should not stop at just adding the basic keywords. We should do keyword research and use the best words in our profile.

We can add keywords in:

Our business name
Our description
The questions and answers section
Our Google posts

If we’re a new cupcake shop, using different keywords like “cupcakes in Upper Manhattan” or “cupcake shop in New York” can help us show up in more searches.

It’s good to mix keywords smartly in our name and description. If we use too many, Google might lower our ranking.

Google Posts are another great way to stay active and show people we care about our business. These posts let us share updates, photos, blog links, menus, offers, and other news with our customers.

This helps us talk directly to customers and keep them updated. If someone likes what they see, they can quickly tap “Order Online.”

If we want to save time, we can use a social media posting tool to share posts instead of logging in each time. If customers keep calling us with the same question, the Q&A section in Google

Business Profile can be very helpful. Customers can ask questions on our profile, and we get the chance to answer them ourselves.

If no one has asked anything yet, we can still add common questions and answers to help future visitors. And this is another place where we can use helpful keywords to improve local SEO.

For example, if someone asks, “Do you have gluten-free cupcakes?” We can reply, “Yes, we have gluten-free cupcakes in many flavors like chocolate, vanilla, carrot cake, and red velvet.”

We should try to answer questions as soon as we can. Anyone can answer, but if we reply first, we make sure the answer is correct. It can be hard for local businesses to get into the top search results at first, but that’s okay. To improve our rankings and bring more people to our site or shop, we can run local ads.

Running Google local ads can help us get more attention for a short time. If we don’t know how to set up a campaign, we can hire a professional for help.

Another way to show up in Google search and in the 3-Pack is to make our website better for local search.

Let’s say we’re a cupcake shop focused on New York. Our website pages should focus on that area. We need to do some keyword research to see what words people use when searching.

An easy fix is to update our page title and tags with phrases like “Cupcakes in Upper Manhattan” or “Cupcake Shop in New York City.” We should also add these same keywords into the page content to help Google understand our focus.

A good example is how some New York cupcake shops use their location right in their page titles. Now, when people search for cupcakes in that area, our shop has a better chance of showing up.

All these steps work together to help us rank better on Google.

We can also check our current standing by doing a quick local listing audit.

Just type in our business name, click the orange button, and we’ll get a report on how we appear online.

This report will show:

Where our business is listed
What information is missing or wrong
A review breakdown
A local SEO comparison with other businesses

We can even download the part about online listings to see which ones are correct, which are missing, and which need fixing.

If we want to improve our local SEO further, we can use the Listing Management tool by clicking the green button in the report.

Our business might be listed on over 150 sites like Google, Bing, Apple, Facebook, Alexa, Foursquare, and more.

But these sites don’t always update our info, even when we do.

That’s why a Listing Management tool is so helpful—it lets us update our business info on over 70 sites at once. This saves us a lot of time and stress.

The Listing Management tool helps us: