Geo-Grid Rank Tracking: See Where Your Business Really Ranks on Google Maps

Short answer: geo-grid rank tracking checks where a business ranks in the Google Maps local results from many points on a map grid around it, instead of from one spot. The Geo-Grid Local Rank Tracker takes a business name, keywords and a location, searches Google Maps as if a customer stood at each grid point, and returns the rank at every point, an average rank, coverage, a Share of Local Voice score, the competitors that beat you at each spot, and a colour-coded heatmap. It costs $0.004 per grid point, so a 7x7 grid for one keyword costs about 20 cents, with no subscription and no Google API key.

Local rankings depend on where the searcher is standing. A dentist can be first for "dentist" on their own street, fifth a mile north and missing from the top 20 on the other side of town. Checking the rank from your office, or with a rank tracker that uses one city-level location, hides all of that. A geo-grid shows the whole picture, which is why it has become the standard diagnostic for local SEO and Google Business Profile work.

How does geo-grid rank tracking work?

1. Pick a centre point, usually the business address.
2. Lay a grid over it: a 5x5 grid is 25 points, a 7x7 grid is 49.
3. Choose a radius, the distance from the centre to the edge of the grid.
4. At every point, run the keyword search as a customer there would, and record where the business appears in the local results.
5. Colour each point by rank. Green where you are in the top 3, red where you are missing.

The resulting heatmap shows exactly where you are visible and where visibility falls off, and which competitors take your place in each area.

What do you get from each scan?

• One row per grid point per keyword: grid position, latitude and longitude, distance from the centre, your rank (or not found), your rating and review count, and the top competitors at that point.
• A summary per keyword: average rank, coverage (the share of points where you appear), best and worst rank, Share of Local Voice, and the competitors that appear most across the grid.
• An HTML heatmap per keyword that you can open in a browser, screenshot or drop into a client report.

What is Share of Local Voice?

Share of Local Voice (SoLV) is a score from 0 to 100 for how much of the available ranking strength across the whole grid a business captures. First place at every point scores near 100; appearing weakly or only in one corner scores low. It is the single number to track over time, or to compare against a competitor on the same grid.

How do you set up a scan?

1. Business name exactly as it appears on Google Maps. If the name is common, add the Google place ID for exact matching.
2. Keywords your customers actually search: "emergency plumber", not "plumbing services company". Two or three keywords are plenty to start.
3. Location: a city, area or full address. It is geocoded automatically, or you can pin an exact centre.
4. Grid size and radius. Use odd sizes (3, 5, 7, 9) so the business sits on the centre point. A 5x5 grid fits a neighbourhood; 7x7 to 9x9 fits a city. Match the radius to the area you really serve.
5. Run it, then open the key-value store for the summary and heatmap.
6. Schedule it weekly or monthly for each location or client to see the effect of your changes.

{
  "businessName": "Blue Bottle Coffee",
  "keywords": ["coffee shop", "espresso bar"],
  "location": "San Francisco, CA",
  "gridSize": 7,
  "radius": 2,
  "distanceUnit": "miles"
}

How much does geo-grid tracking cost?

$0.004 per grid point scanned.

• One keyword on a 5x5 grid (25 points): $0.10
• One keyword on a 7x7 grid (49 points): about $0.20
• Two keywords on a 7x7 grid, weekly for a month: 392 points, about $1.57

Subscription geo-grid tools typically start around $25 a month and sell credits in bundles. Paying per point is cheaper for a single business or an agency with a handful of clients. On the free Apify plan, scans are limited to a 3x3 grid and one keyword, which is enough to see how it works; the full grid needs a paid Apify plan. You can run a scan on Apify in about a minute.

How do you read the heatmap and improve it?

• Strong centre, red edges: normal. Proximity is a big ranking factor. To push the edges, build relevance and prominence: more reviews that mention the service and area, complete categories and services on your Business Profile, and location pages on your site.
• Weak even at the centre: a relevance problem. Check your primary category, business name, and whether the keyword appears in your services and reviews.
• Strong for one keyword, weak for another: Google does not see you as relevant for the second service. Add it as a service, write a page for it, and ask customers who used it for reviews.
• One competitor wins a whole side of the map: look at what they do differently. Their reviews are a good place to start, as covered in how to analyse competitors' Google reviews.

Rank on the map is one part of local visibility. The other growing part is whether AI assistants recommend you when someone asks for "the best dentist in Leeds". The AI Brand Visibility Tracker checks exactly that across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and others.

Frequently asked questions

More local SEO and AI search tools are in the SEO and AI visibility hub.