How to Get Your Business to the Top of Google Search Results

Getting to the “top of Google search” isn’t what it used to be.

The classic dream of ranking number one in those blue links still matters, but today’s search results page is crowded and complex.

“Winning” now means showing up in multiple places: organic listings, the Local Map Pack, featured snippets, and those AI-generated overviews that appear on roughly 13% of all searches.

Organic search remains one of the most valuable traffic channels for businesses in 2025, but the playbook has evolved. This guide walks you through a practical approach tailored to your specific business type, showing you exactly what needs to happen to claim your spot at the top.

Why “Top of Google” Looks Different in 2025

The search results page has transformed into something far more complex than a simple list of links.

The “Sponsored” links (Google Ads) now appear mysteriously more like the more trusted organic results.

Zero-click results mean people increasingly find answers without ever clicking through to a website. AI Overviews synthesize information from multiple sources and present it directly in the results. Rich results, knowledge panels, and People Also Ask boxes occupy prime real estate above traditional organic listings.

The data tells a sobering story. According to Semrush’s research, when AI Overviews appear on a search results page, they show up on about 13% of queries, with roughly 88% being informational searches. The percentage of zero-click searches continues climbing, meaning potential customers find answers without ever visiting your site.

But here’s the critical insight: this doesn’t mean SEO is dead.

It means the definition of success has expanded. Winning in 2025 looks like this: Your business appears in traditional organic listings for your core services. If you’re local, you dominate the Map Pack for “near me” searches. Your content earns featured snippets and People Also Ask placements. For key informational queries in your industry, you’re cited as a source in those AI Overviews.

That’s a lot of surfaces to own. Let’s break down exactly how to do it.

Step 1: Identify Your Business Type and Search Intent

Before you can dominate search results, you need to understand which results actually matter for your business.

A neighborhood dental practice and a national SaaS company face completely different challenges.

Local brick-and-mortar businesses like restaurants, retail shops, medical practices, and professional services live or die by the Local Map Pack. When someone searches “dentist near me” or “coffee shop downtown,” those three businesses with the map pins get the lion’s share of clicks. These businesses do not travel to the customer; the customer must come to them.

Service-area businesses like plumbers, HVAC contractors, moving companies, and home services need both Map Pack visibility and strong organic rankings for queries like “emergency plumber in [city]” or “AC repair cost.” Naturally, these are the businesses that go to wherever their customer needs them.

Multi-location or regional brands must balance corporate-level authority with individual location optimization. Each branch needs its own optimized presence while the parent brand builds topical authority. These could be larger service-area businesses such as swimming pool construction companies, interior designers or other more specialized and bespoke services.

Online-only businesses including e-commerce sites, SaaS platforms, and digital service providers compete purely in organic listings and need content that addresses every stage of the buyer journey.

Understanding your business type determines where you focus your energy.

Step 2: Match Your Goals to Search Intent with Targeted Keywords

Search intent is the why behind every query, and Google has become remarkably good at interpreting it.

Informational intent drives “how to” searches, definition queries, and research questions. These typically trigger featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and AI Overviews. If you’re a financial advisor, queries like “how to save for retirement” fall here. Though this used to be an SEO’s bread-and-butter, these days this real estate is being mopped up by Google’s AI Overviews.

Commercial intent shows up in “best of” searches and comparison queries. “Best CRM for small business” signals someone evaluating options but not yet ready to buy. These searches often display list articles, review sites, and comparison content. These surveys are often cited in LLMs like ChatGPT or Perplexity (try to get in them, or write your own!)

“LLMs like ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews are lazy shoppers who love ‘Best of’ listicles because they bundle popular options into easy recommendations. The result is a self-reinforcing loop where brands that already have visibility keep getting cited, while smaller alternatives stay invisible.”

DAVID VICTOR, BOOMCYCLE DIGITAL MARKETING

Transactional intent means someone is ready to act: “buy running shoes online,” “schedule pest control,” or “book hotel in Miami.” These queries demand clear calls-to-action and conversion-focused pages. Minimum fluff!

Local intent appears in “near me” searches and location-specific queries. “Pizza delivery,” “urgent care open now,” or “plumber in Fremont” all trigger the Map Pack and location-based organic results.

The content you create and pages you optimize must align with the intent behind your target searches. A plumber trying to rank for “how to fix a leaky faucet” needs completely different content than one targeting “emergency plumber near me.”

Step 3: Audit Your Current Visibility

You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

Open an incognito browser window on your phone. This depersonalizes your search (eh, mostly!) by hiding your previous searches from Google (though it doesn’t hide your IP address, so they still kinda “know”). Search for your core services with and without your city name. Note everything that appears: Which competitors dominate the Map Pack? Do any featured snippets show up? Are there AI Overviews for informational versions of your queries?

Where does your business actually appear?

This mobile, incognito approach matters because it shows you what real customers see without personalization skewing the results.

Next, confirm your technical foundations are solid. Your site must be HTTPS secure, fully mobile-responsive, reasonably fast, and easily crawlable by Google. Clear navigation that helps visitors find what they need should be table stakes.

Use Google Search Console to verify all your important pages are indexed. Run a speed test through PageSpeed Insights. Check mobile usability. These aren’t glamorous tasks, but they’re prerequisites for everything else.

Step 4: Optimize Your Google Business Profile for Greater Relevance

For local and service-area businesses, your Google Business Profile controls your Map Pack presence and appears prominently in branded searches.

The basics must be perfect: accurate name, address, and phone number matching exactly what appears on your website. Choose the most specific primary category that describes your business. Add all relevant secondary categories. Define your service areas if you travel to customers. Set accurate hours including special hours for holidays.

“Never define your business as a Service Area Business unless you want to disappear completely from the Google Map Pack. Google wants physical addresses!”

DAVID VICTOR, BOOMCYCLE DIGITAL MARKETING

But don’t stop there. Upload high-quality photos of your location, team, work, and products. Add every service you offer with descriptions. Create posts highlighting specials, events, or helpful tips. Answer questions in the Q&A section before customers even ask them.

Google rewards businesses that treat their Profile as a living marketing channel rather than a “set it and forget it” directory listing.

Step 5: Build Your Customer Review Engine

Reviews aren’t just social proof for potential customers. They’re a direct ranking factor for local search and a trust signal that influences whether people click on your listing at all.

The system is straightforward: ask happy customers for reviews, make it easy for them to leave one, and respond to every review whether positive or negative. Send a follow-up email after service completion with a direct link to your Google review page. Train your team to mention reviews during checkout or project wrap-up conversations.

Never gate reviews by only sending requests to satisfied customers or offering incentives for positive feedback. Google’s guidelines prohibit this, and customers can smell manipulation.

Beyond Google, maintain accurate listings on the directories that matter for your industry. For restaurants, that means Yelp and TripAdvisor. For home services, Angi and HomeAdvisor. For B2B companies, Google remains dominant, but industry-specific platforms matter too.

Focus on the platforms your customers actually use, not obscure directories that add no value.

Step 6: Create Content-Rich Pages That Deserve to Rank

Generic “services” pages don’t cut it anymore. Every significant service you offer needs its own in-depth, valuable page that genuinely helps potential customers understand what you do, why it matters, and what makes your approach different.

Hardly anyone pays attention to that last point. What is your Unique Selling Proposition? Why should someone do business with you instead of your 50 competitors?

These pages should speak the language your customers use, not industry jargon they don’t understand.

Structure your content with entity-rich page titles, meta tags, H1 and H2 headings. Answer the questions people actually ask. Include proof elements like customer testimonials, before-and-after photos, or brief case examples that demonstrate your expertise.

Strong internal linking between related pages helps both users and search engines understand your site’s structure and topical relationships. When you mention a related service, always link to that service page, but use varied anchor text.

Build pillar or “hub” pages that connect to related spoke pages. This creates topical clusters that signal expertise to Google and provide clear pathways for visitors.

For comprehensive guidance on building an SEO strategy that encompasses all these elements, explore professional SEO services that can grow your business.

Step 7: Create SEO-Optimized Location and Service-Area Pages

If you serve multiple cities or neighborhoods, each location needs its own dedicated page. But here’s where businesses often go wrong: they create thin pages that simply swap out city names in templated content.

Google sees through this immediately.

A genuine location page includes specific details about that area: local landmarks you serve near, unique considerations for that geography, testimonials from customers in that city, and photos of actual work you’ve done there. It explains why you serve that location and what you understand about its specific needs.

For a roofing company, that might mean discussing the specific weather challenges in each city you serve. For a medical practice with multiple locations, it means unique team bios and specific services available at each office.

The goal is creating pages that genuinely help someone in that location, not just pages that exist to rank for “[service] in [city]” keywords.

Step 8: Win Featured Snippets and People Also Ask Using Effective SEO

Featured snippets occupy position zero—above even the first organic result. People Also Ask boxes expand the search results with related questions, each answer providing another opportunity to showcase your expertise.

These SERP features don’t just boost visibility. They establish authority.

When Google excerpts your content as the answer to a question, that implicit endorsement influences click decisions even when people scan other results.

The formatting that wins snippets follows predictable patterns. For definition questions, provide a concise 40-60 word answer in a single paragraph immediately after a heading. For process questions, use numbered steps. For comparisons, structure information in tables. For FAQ-style questions, use proper FAQ schema markup with clear question headers and direct answers.

Study the snippets and People Also Ask boxes that already appear for your target queries. What format are they using? How detailed are the answers? Then create content that matches that format while providing even more value.

Step 9: Get Cited in AI Overviews in Google Search

AI Overviews represent Google’s attempt to synthesize the best answer to a query by pulling information from multiple trusted sources. Getting cited requires building content that demonstrates genuine expertise and trustworthiness.

These overviews heavily favor authoritative sources with strong E-E-A-T signals: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Focus on creating comprehensive, well-researched content on informational topics in your industry. Use clear HTML structure with descriptive headings that make your content easy for AI systems to parse and understand. Cite reputable sources when making claims. Include author bios that establish credentials. Keep information current and accurate.

Use automation to blast your brand out into the web-os-phere (don’t muddy up your own website).

AI Overviews don’t necessarily cannibalize clicks the way some feared. They often increase engagement with search results by providing quick context that helps people refine their queries or identify which organic result to explore in depth.

Being cited positions your brand as a trusted brand authority, even when people don’t immediately click through.

Google loves nothing better than when someone searches for your business name! That’s a primary method they use to help them separate the wheat from the chaff.

Step 10: Build Real Authority and Links to Boost Your Ranking

Content quality matters, but Google still relies heavily on external signals to determine which sites deserve to rank. Links from other reputable websites remain a core ranking factor.

Brand mentions (even without links!) and citations contribute to your authority profile.

For small and medium businesses, earning these signals doesn’t require a massive PR budget. Start with the opportunities already in front of you.

Local sponsorships of community events, youth sports teams, or charitable organizations often come with links from event websites and local news coverage. Industry association memberships typically include directory listings with links. Partnerships with complementary businesses can lead to mutual referrals and links.

“As backlinks go, your local Chamber of Commerce membership backlink is geographically relevant and certainly worth three or four hundred bucks a year.”

DAVID VICTOR, BOOMCYCLE DIGITAL MARKETING

And yes, join your local Chamber of Commerce. In fact, join the Chamber in every city that matters to you.

Creating genuinely useful resources gives other sites a reason to reference you. A contractor might publish a comprehensive seasonal home maintenance checklist that local real estate agents want to share with clients. A financial advisor could create a retirement planning calculator that industry blogs find valuable enough to link to.

The compounding nature of authority makes it easier to earn each quality link and mention over time.

Step 11: Strengthen Your E-E-A-T Signals

Beyond external links, your site itself must demonstrate trustworthiness. Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines emphasize E-E-A-T as central to ranking decisions, especially for topics where misinformation could cause harm.

Your About page shouldn not be an afterthought. It should tell your origin story, showcase your credentials, explain what makes your approach unique, and build genuine connection with potential customers.

Author bios on blog posts should establish why that person is qualified to write about the topic. Professional credentials, certifications, and industry memberships deserve prominent placement.

Make contact information easy to find. Publish clear policies for returns, privacy, and terms of service. Show real customer reviews and testimonials.

Use HTTPS across your entire site. Use HSTS unless it breaks something on your website.

All these signals contribute to Google’s assessment of whether your site deserves to rank for high-stakes queries.

Step 12: Fix Your Technical Foundations

Core Web Vitals measure the actual user experience on your site: how quickly content loads, how stable the page remains as elements load, and how responsive it is to interactions. These metrics directly impact rankings.

Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to identify specific issues slowing your site.

Common culprits include oversized images, render-blocking JavaScript, lack of browser caching, and slow server response times. Many of these have straightforward fixes.

Ensure your site works flawlessly on mobile devices.

More searches happen on phones than desktops, and Google primarily uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking decisions.

Check Google Search Console regularly for indexing errors, duplicate content issues, and mobile usability problems. Set up XML sitemaps to help Google discover all your important pages. Use robots.txt appropriately to prevent indexing of admin pages while allowing access to content pages.

These technical elements might not be exciting, but they’re prerequisites for everything else working. A slow, broken site can’t rank no matter how great the content is.

Step 13: Turn Visibility Into Leads and Revenue Using Data

Ranking at the top of Google only matters if it drives business results.

Make calls-to-action crystal clear. If you want people to call, put your phone number in the header of every page with click-to-call functionality on mobile. If you want form submissions, keep forms simple with only essential fields. If you sell products online, remove friction from the checkout process.

Every page should answer three questions within seconds: What do you do? Why should I trust you? What action should I take next?

Trust signals matter enormously at the conversion stage. Prominent reviews, customer testimonials with photos, industry certifications, guarantees or warranties, and professional imagery all contribute to the credibility that turns visitors into customers.

Test your mobile experience relentlessly. Can someone easily call you with one tap? Are forms simple to fill out on a small screen? Do images load quickly? Is the purchase process frictionless?

Step 14: Track What Actually Matters

Vanity metrics like total keyword rankings or domain authority scores feel good but don’t pay the bills. Focus on metrics that connect to business outcomes.

Monitor organic traffic trends overall and separately for branded versus non-branded queries. Track rankings for your most important commercial and local searches. Measure your presence in SERP features: snippets, People Also Ask, Map Pack positions, and citations in AI Overviews.

More importantly, track conversion actions: phone calls, form submissions, direction requests to your location, online purchases, and ultimately revenue attributable to organic search.

Set up goal tracking in Google Analytics 4. Use call tracking numbers if phone leads matter to your business. Connect your CRM to understand which organic traffic sources produce customers with the highest lifetime value.

Understanding which sources drive qualified visitors helps you optimize for the right outcomes rather than just chasing rankings.

Step 15: Set Realistic Expectations

SEO is not a quick fix.

Meaningful results typically take months, not weeks. How long depends on your starting point, your competition, your domain age, and the resources you invest.

A brand-new site targeting competitive keywords in a major market might need six to twelve months before seeing significant traction. An established local business optimizing an existing site might see Map Pack improvements within weeks and organic ranking gains within a few months.

The competitive landscape matters enormously. Ranking for “personal injury lawyer in New York City” faces exponentially more competition than “family dentist in small town, Iowa.”

But here’s why the timeline is worth it: SEO typically delivers higher ROI than paid advertising over time. Unlike ads that stop working the moment you stop paying, organic rankings compound. Each improvement builds on previous work. Authority accumulates rather than resets.

Patience paired with consistent execution wins.

Step 16: Know When to Get Help

Some aspects of SEO are reasonably DIY-friendly for business owners with time and willingness to learn. Claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile, soliciting reviews, writing service pages, and creating helpful blog content fall into this category.

Other elements require specialized expertise or tools most businesses don’t have access to. Complex technical fixes, large-scale content production, competitive link building, advanced analytics implementation, and systematic conversion rate optimization typically justify professional help.

The strategic question isn’t whether you could learn to do it yourself. It’s whether your time is better spent on this versus running your actual business.

A skilled SEO professional or agency brings experience across dozens or hundreds of clients, access to enterprise tools, and the ability to avoid costly mistakes that waste months of effort.

The businesses that reach the top of Google consistently share a common trait: they treat search visibility as a long-term strategic investment, not a one-time project. They understand that showing up in organic results, the Map Pack, snippets, and AI Overviews requires ongoing optimization as search evolves and competitors improve their own presence.

Getting to the top of Google in 2025 is more complex than it used to be, but also more achievable for businesses willing to do the work. Start with the fundamentals that matter most for your business type, measure what drives actual results, and build systematically over time.

The top of Google is waiting. Go claim it.