Map pack rank tracking uses a geo-grid: a set of evenly spaced points where rankings are checked as if someone were searching from each spot. Because Google weighs distance, a business can rank first near its address and nowhere a few miles away. The grid shows that spread, and how it changes month to month.
Why a single rank check misleads
Google's Business Profile help lists distance as one of three local ranking factors, describing it as how far each business is from the person searching. That means there is no single map pack ranking. A dentist on US 41 may sit first for searches made a few blocks away and drop off the results entirely for someone searching from Golden Gate.
One-point checks hide this. If the check runs from your office, or from the center of Naples, it usually reports the best case. Checking from your own phone is worse, because results can also shift with search history and exact location. A grid replaces one guess with dozens of measured points.
How a geo-grid works
A geo-grid is a square of evenly spaced map points. At each point, the tracker runs the same search with that point set as the searcher's location and records where your business appears in the local results. The result is a heatmap: strong rankings near the center, fading toward the edges, with clear holes where a competitor dominates.
Two settings shape every grid:
- Grid size: how many points per side. A 7x7 grid has 49 points; a 9x9 has 81. More points mean finer detail and more cost per scan.
- Spacing: the distance between points. Tight spacing shows a neighborhood in detail; wide spacing shows a whole service area at low resolution.
The right combination depends on how far customers will travel to you, or how far you travel to them.
Choosing grid size and spacing for Naples
Naples geography breaks the default settings most tools ship with. A square centered on a business near the Gulf puts a large share of its points over open water, where no customer is searching. Golden Gate Estates, by contrast, spreads homes across large lots to the east, so a tight grid there captures very few real searchers.
| Business type | Suggested grid | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Walk-in shop or restaurant near the coast | 7x7, tight spacing, center shifted inland | Keeps points on land where diners and shoppers actually search |
| Medical or professional office | 9x9, moderate spacing | Patients drive across several ZIP codes, so coverage matters more than detail |
| Home service covering Collier County | Two or more grids, wide spacing | One grid on the base, another on the Estates or Marco side where jobs come from |
We set the center, size and spacing once, document them, and keep them fixed so month-to-month comparisons stay fair. Our Naples ZIP code pages describe how this plays out area by area.
Reading share of local voice
A heatmap is easy to look at but hard to compare over time. Share of local voice turns it into one number: how often your business appears in the top three across every grid point, weighted by position. If you show first at 20 of 49 points and third at 10 more, your share is far higher than a business that ranks third everywhere.
We report three figures each month: average rank across the grid, the percentage of points where you are in the top three, and your share of local voice against the main competitors. A rising average with a falling top-three share usually means you improved on the edges and lost ground near the center, which calls for a different fix than the reverse.
Tracking competitors on the same grid
Every scan also records which businesses hold the positions you do not. Over a few months that shows who is gaining, where, and for which keywords. When a competitor suddenly takes the north end of town, we compare their profile categories, review velocity and website changes against yours to work out why.
Rankings are only half the story, so we place grid results next to Business Profile calls, direction requests and website clicks. The fixes usually come from Google Business Profile management and citation and NAP cleanup.
Monthly cadence and what moves the grid
Local rankings move daily, so weekly scans mostly record noise. We scan monthly on the same day of the week and time, with the same settings, which keeps comparisons honest. Extra scans run after major changes such as a category update, an address move, or a reopening after a storm.
Naples has a strong seasonal pattern, so we compare each month with the same month last year where data exists, not only with the month before. A dip in July is not the same problem as a dip in January.