Apple Maps SEO Tips

Apple Maps has become a component of my New York City Local SEO strategy for clients in 2024. Although its reach isn’t as broad as Google Maps, certain aspects of the platform can enhance visibility, potentially resulting in increased website clicks and phone calls from Apple Maps users.

Here are some fundamental Apple Maps SEO tips that I’ve gathered from nine months of usage in 2024 for my clients.

Also, if you would like a free local SEO audit for your business, you can click on that link to get started.

Get Listed

Getting listed is a pretty obvious start to getting new traffic and phone calls to your business. Half of my local SEO clients did not start the year with Apple Maps, so getting listed was the first step. From my experience, it can take a few weeks to get Apple to approve a new listing, and then a few more weeks for the account to even show up for a category search.

That means, at a minimum, you should get listed as soon as possible to get traffic.

It should be noted that Apple Maps does not accept Service Area businesses without a physical storefront. This implies that even with official state documents proving your home-based business registration, you will not be permitted to list on Apple Maps.

Category Choice

Based on my experience, categories significantly influence Apple Maps’ ranking in search results. For instance, I categorize TM Blast as a marketing agency, advertising agency, and business consultant due to the absence of an SEO category. Consequently, when someone searches for any of these three categories in or near Saratoga Springs, NY, my business appears in the results.

From what I’ve seen, you should be listing as many relevant secondary categories on your profile to expand your reach. Category search seems to be more of how Apple Maps displays results over traditional keyword searches. My guess is that is due to the fact that Apple Business Connect is new and doesn’t have the data that Google and Bing have to expand their understanding of a profile.

Location Matters for Apple Maps Local SEO

Earlier in this blog post, I noted that Apple only approves locations with a storefront address. I believe this is because the searcher’s location significantly influences the search results. For example, I have a client in Brooklyn, New York, listed on Apple Maps amidst several competitors. In such cases, the location factor becomes negligible because there are ten other businesses offering the same services within a two-mile radius. If they were the sole provider, or one of a few in that area, they would naturally rank higher by default.

So, while location is indeed a factor in Apple Maps SEO, there can be instances where the the number of similar businesses in an area requires more optimization.

Apple Maps Description

Mentioning nearby towns or cities close to your actual location can enhance your ranking and expand your reach on Apple Maps. For example, enhancing your local visibility on Apple Maps means listing towns and cities in your description. This might offer a modest improvement in Apple’s algorithm rankings and, at the very least, clarifies your business area to your audience.

For example, if you operate a moving company listed on Apple Maps, including the towns and cities you serve could potentially increase your click-through rate (CTR) because searchers will recognize that you service their area. It’s worth noting, however, that Apple Maps does not provide CTR data in their insights, so this is all based on assumption.

However, since Google Maps and Bing Maps has a service area section while Apple Maps does not, I find that listing off the towns and cities in the description to be even more important than doing that on the other two platforms.

Apple Maps Showcases

The showcases section is a minor ranking factor in Apple Maps, offering a valuable feature for business owners to highlight special aspects of their business. For instance, if there’s a week-long sale, a business owner can design a graphic with a concise description of the sale. This graphic will appear in the showcase tab on the business profile, potentially encouraging users to engage with it, such as by calling the business directly.

Apple Maps – Photos

Photos, similar to showcases, serve as a minor ranking factor for businesses. The primary purpose of utilizing high-quality images is to prompt a click-through by those searchers. For instance, as a moving company listed on Apple Maps, sharing action shots of your team can be beneficial. Users can distinguish between stock images and authentic company photos. The subtle choice of photo can lead to a click, potentially signaling Apple to rank your business higher in subsequent search results.

Apple Maps – Reviews

Reviews on Apple Maps are sourced from Yelp, Foursquare, and TripAdvisor, which is noteworthy as Bing uses the same sources. Thus, if you’re gathering reviews from various platforms (beyond just Google My Business), you’re on the right track. Reviews on Apple Maps serve as a ranking factor and can enhance the click-through rate of your listing.

Apple Maps – Insights

In my opinion, you aren’t able to get much granular insights into Apple Maps, at least as of writing this in September 2024. For my clients, I like to report on the total number of phone calls they get, since that is a KPI that they like to view. From my standpoint, getting calls on Apple Maps is a net plus gain because any phone call you get from the platform will be an increase from the same time frame a year prior.

However, if you have had your Apple Business account for a year plus and want to optimize it further, then you need to get a third-party tool to measure your performance.

Local Falcon (Third-Party Tool) – Apple Maps Scan

In 2023, Local Falcon enabled marketers to track their performance on Apple Maps. Although the analysis for Apple Maps in 2024 is limited due to the absence of an AI overview section, scanning remains crucial for assessing a company’s keyword rankings within Apple Maps.

To enhance your Apple Maps SEO, it is advisable to conduct consistent keyword scans every one to two weeks to monitor the trend line. The SoLV metric is critical to examine, as it determines when your listing appears on the first page of a search engine’s results. Notably, Duck Duck Go incorporates Apple Maps into their search results, which is the source of the SoLV data.

Apple Maps is the Default on iPhone

The big reason why getting on Apple Maps is critical is that is what is the default mapping platform on iPhones. That means when a user clicks on a map list in a text message, then the iPhone will open up that directly in Apple Maps. The same goes with how other apps will, by default, open up in Apple Maps for that user.

That means that if a user is already using Apple Maps and does a “map search” for something, then the results that will be displayed there will only be for Apple Map profiles.

DuckDuckGo Uses Apple Maps

As a note, DuckDuckGo has a market share in the United States of 2% as of August 2024. Just something to remember that there is a little bit of squeeze you can get from this search engine.

Additional Ranking Factor – NAP

One of the more overlooked aspects of map optimization is NAP. Apple, like Google and Bing, look for trusted third-party signals to help rank their results. That means that if you only had an Apple Business Connect page, then you will have a hard time ranking (unless you were the only business in your area) against the competitors.

Therefore, to rank better in Apple Maps, you need to do the other parts of your Local SEO strategy. That means you need to be on Google and Bing at a minimum, and then consider getting on additional websites that showcase your business name, hours, category, phone number, address, and more. Some of those sites include listings like Facebook, Trust index, Yelp, local chamber of commerce sites, and so on.