A question I get asked a lot, usually just after someone sees how well their business could be doing on Google, is a simple one: if you get me to the top, how long am I going to stay there? The honest answer is that getting to the top and staying at the top are two different jobs. I can show you the difference on a real business. Eco Glaze Scotland, a double glazing company based in Errol, between Perth and Dundee, was first across the whole map for "double glazing windows" on the earliest scan I have, on 9 March, and it was still first on every scan I ran through to the middle of June.
I'll say upfront why I'm showing you this. Rank on Google is in the business of getting local companies to the top and keeping them there, so of course I want you to see one that has stayed. But the useful part for you is what actually kept it there, because none of it is complicated and some of it is on you rather than on me.
First, and still first three months later
On the scan from 9 March, Eco Glaze had an average position of 4.27 and was in the top 3 across 65.09% of the map. It was first on all three of the scan's measures: average position, how often it landed in the top 3, and market share. The next glazing company on the same map was averaging 8.76, so this was not a close-run thing.
Map scan, 9 Mar 2026, "double glazing windows", 13x13 grid over 897.98 km². Avg position 4.27, first, and in the top 3 across 65.09% of the map.
More than three months later, on 12 June, it was still first on all three measures, with an average of 6.09 and the top 3 across 56.8% of the map. In between those two scans I ran one most weeks, and it came out first on the map every single time. It is one of a number of local businesses we have done this for, and you can see more on our results page.
Map scan, 12 Jun 2026, same keyword and grid. Avg position 6.09, still first, and in the top 3 across 56.8% of the map.
What keeps a business at the top
If you get to the top and then leave your profile alone, you drift. The businesses below you are still posting, still collecting reviews and still tidying up their websites, and one of them eventually takes the spot back. So staying there is just the same work, kept up. For Eco Glaze that came down to three things.
The first was keeping the Business Profile active. It got a fresh post and a fresh photo most weeks, so the profile always looked like a business that was open and working, rather than one that had been set up once and left. That steady drip is the bulk of what we do on a Business Profile month to month.
The second was reviews, and this part sits with the business rather than with us. The Google review count climbed from 45 in March to 91 by August, and the rating held at just about five stars. Tony, the owner, kept asking his customers, and he noticed the difference himself. As he put it in a public review in June, "I have started to notice a lot more calls coming through from my Google!"
The third was the website underneath it all. When we started, most of the service pages were not even linked from the menu, the homepage had no main heading, and there was no local schema for Google to read. We built the service and location pages out properly, from Dundee and Perth across to Angus and Fife, and linked them together, so the profile at the top of the map had a real website standing behind it.
What staying at the top does not look like
It does not look like a number that climbs a little every week. Eco Glaze's average position bounced around from 4.27 at its best to 6.91 at its weakest from one scan to the next, and its share of the top 3 moved up and down with it. If you only ever saw one of the weaker weeks, you might think something had gone wrong. Nothing had. The business held first place on the map the whole time, and that is the number that decides who gets the calls.
It is worth being straight about one more thing. Eco Glaze was already at the top when my earliest scan was taken, so what you are seeing here is a business holding its position, not climbing from nowhere. Holding it is not glamorous and it does not make for a dramatic before and after, but it is most of the value, because the top of the map is where the enquiries come from and every week you keep it is a week your competitors do not have it.
How we measured this
Each of these scans drops a grid of 169 points, 13 across and 13 down, over the Dundee and Perth area, and records where the business ranks at every one of them for the search "double glazing windows". Every number in this post is taken straight off those scans, and the review counts are read off the Business Profile. The grid can shift slightly from one scan to the next, so I have only set figures beside each other when they were measured the same way, and where a week came out weaker I have left it in rather than dropping it.
If you would like to know where you stand before you spend anything, you can run a free scan of your own town. It gives you a map like the ones above for your business, and a straight answer on what is keeping you off the top.
J
Runs Rank on Google and Nivoro Marketing from Bishopton, Renfrewshire.