What 70% of Google clicks actually means for your local service business

Seventy percent.

That's the share of clicks that go to the three businesses sitting at the top of Google Maps when someone searches for a local service business. Not the top ten. Not the first page. The top three.

Three businesses. Seventy percent of the people looking.

Everyone else — position four, five, ten, twenty, wherever you are right now — shares what's left. And what's left isn't much.

We throw this stat around a lot at Honeyrock because it's the number that makes everything else make sense. Once you really understand what it means for your business, the way you think about marketing changes completely.

Let's make it real

Abstract percentages are easy to ignore. So let's put some numbers around it.

Let's say 200 people in your area search for a plumber on Google this month. That's not an unreasonable number for a county like Surrey — probably conservative if anything.

Of those 200 people, around 140 will click on one of the three businesses at the top of the map. They'll look at the reviews, check the website, and call one of them. Job enquiry made.

The remaining 60 people scroll down. Some of them click on a website result further down the page. Some of them go back and refine their search. Some of them give up and ask a neighbour for a recommendation instead.

If you're not in the top three, you're competing for a share of those 60. And you're competing with every other plumbing business in the area that also isn't in the top three.

Now think about what those 140 people represent in actual revenue. If even a quarter of them turn into jobs — and a good plumbing business with a solid follow-up system should be converting more than that — you're talking about 35 new customers a month from Google alone.

Are you one of them?

Why the map pack dominates

The map — the bit at the top of Google with the three businesses and the pins — is called the local pack or map pack. And it dominates local search for one simple reason: it's exactly what people are looking for.

When someone searches "plumber Surrey" they don't want a Wikipedia article about plumbing. They don't want a blog post about the history of pipes. They want a plumber. Near them. Now.

Google knows this. So it puts the most relevant local businesses right at the top of the page before anything else. Before the websites. Before the ads in a lot of cases.

The map pack is prime real estate. And like all prime real estate, the businesses occupying it are getting the lion's share of the value.

Position four is not almost position three

This is something a lot of people misunderstand. They think being in position four or five is nearly as good as being in the top three. It's not.

Position four is effectively invisible. Not slightly less visible. Effectively invisible.

Here's why. The map shows three results. That's it. To see position four, five or six a user has to actively choose to expand the map or scroll past it to the organic results below. Most don't. They see three businesses, they pick one, they call.

Being in position four feels close. It isn't. The gap between position three and position four is enormous in terms of the calls you receive.

This is why we're so focused on getting clients into the top three — not the top five, not the top ten. The top three. Because that's where the clicks are.

What about the websites below the map?

Good question. There are organic website results below the map pack — the blue links that appear underneath the map. Do those matter?

They do — but significantly less than the map pack for local searches.

Studies consistently show that for searches with local intent — "roofer near me," "plumber Guildford," "electrician Surrey" — the map pack dominates clicks. The organic results below get some traffic but it's a fraction of what the map pack generates.

This is why we say something that surprises a lot of people: your website's job isn't to rank on Google. Your website's job is to help your Google Business Profile rank on Google Maps.

Every page we build, every word we write, every link we earn — it's all in service of getting you into those three spots on the map.

That's a fundamental difference in how we think about this compared to most SEO agencies. And it's why what we do works for local service businesses when generic SEO doesn't.

The compounding effect

Here's something worth understanding about the top three spots on Google Maps. The businesses that occupy them don't just get more calls. They get more reviews. More reviews means better rankings. Better rankings means more calls. More calls means more jobs. More jobs means more reviews.

It compounds. The longer you're in the top three the harder you are to shift. Which is why the time to get there is now — before your competitors figure this out and lock you out.

The good news is that most of them haven't figured it out yet. Most local service businesses are still operating with a neglected Google Business Profile, a website that doesn't support their rankings, and no system for collecting reviews consistently.

The top three spots in your area are there for the taking. The question is whether you go after them or leave them for someone else.

What does getting into the top three actually take?

It's not as complicated as it sounds. The businesses sitting in those spots right now got there by doing a handful of things properly:

• ✓A fully optimised Google Business Profile — categories, services, photos, description, all of it
• ✓A website structured the way Google wants to see it — consistent with the GBP, covering every service and area
• ✓A steady flow of recent reviews — not a one-off burst, a consistent stream
• ✓Local authority signals — the right directories, the right links, consistency everywhere

None of these are mysterious. None of them require a huge budget. They just need to be done properly and maintained consistently.

That's what we do. And the 70% is waiting on the other side.

Want to know exactly where your business stands?

Book your FREE FOUND Audit and we'll personally review your website, Google Business Profile, reviews and local visibility — then show you your official FOUND Score and exactly what to fix first.

No obligation. No hard sell. Just honest advice.