The No BS Checklist to Rank #1 on Google Maps.
Stop chasing secret hacks. This is the only checklist built to take ready-to-buy leads right off Google Maps and out of the AI answers, using steps that actually work in 2026.
Updated: July 2026
Dear Hardworking Business Owner,
You are here because you understand the value of Google Search, and of all the new AI models people now ask instead: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity. And you want to make more money from them.
Winning ready-to-buy leads that bring in the jobs you actually want.
Here is the foundation of what it takes to make that happen.
This isn't another generic SEO guide.
It's a simple, straightforward checklist packed with only what works right now to dominate the map pack and beat your local competitors.
Zero theory. Only actionable steps you can implement today.
Maybe you've tried SEO before.
Maybe you even hired an agency that promised you the sun and the moon, then handed your account to someone who had never seen your trade in their life.
Maybe you saw a bump in your rankings, right up until the next core update landed and tanked your traffic overnight.
You've been burned at this point.
And no one shows you the actual stuff it takes to win.
If you want to win, you need a checklist like this one.
So let's cut through the noise and all of the bullshit and show you what matters.
That's exactly what you'll get in the No B.S. Checklist to Rank #1 on Google Maps.
A step-by-step checklist to get found and chosen by customers in your city. The same one 945 Studios uses to help clients grab the top spot.
We've even left a secret tool for you on the inside.
Here's a Taste of What's Inside the Free Checklist.
Eight things, and you can start on most of them today. Every item names what to change, where to change it, and why Google cares. No scores out of a hundred and no page speed report you cannot act on.
How to Get Into ChatGPT
What an AI answer engine actually reads when it decides which local business to name, and the handful of places that information has to exist before it will name yours.
The Three Mistakes Killing Map Rankings
The three we find on nearly every profile we audit. All three are fixable in an afternoon and all three are quietly costing calls right now.
Optimizing a Profile Without Hurting It
There is a version of profile optimization that makes things worse, and plenty of businesses have done it to themselves. What to fill in, what to leave alone, and what gets you suspended.
The Real 2026 Ranking Factors
What Google weighs for local results now, separated from the myths that keep getting repeated in forums years after they stopped being true.
The Reviews That Move the Needle
Volume is not the lever most people think it is. Which reviews actually shift a ranking, how to ask so you get them, and what to do with the bad one.
How to Borrow Competitor Traffic
Where your competitors are already being found and how to be found in the same places. Nothing black hat, nothing that risks the profile, just the openings most people never look for.
The One Website Fix for Local Lift
The single change on a website that most often moves local rankings, and the reason it works. Most small business sites are missing it outright.
Keywords and Local Authority
Where keywords belong, where they backfire, what Google treats as relevant to your town, and how local authority is actually built rather than bought.
There is also one tool in there that we use ourselves and rarely talk about.
What People Ask Before They Download It.
Is this actually free?
Yes. There is no card, no trial, no form and nothing to cancel. You click the button and the PDF downloads.
We hand it over that way because the people who read it and do the work themselves were never going to hire an agency anyway, and the ones who read it and decide they would rather someone else did it now know exactly how we think.
Do I need to be technical to use it?
No. Most of what moves the map pack happens inside your Google Business Profile, which is a form.
A handful of the items touch your website and each of those says plainly what needs to change, so you can either do it or forward it to whoever built the site. Nothing on the list requires code.
How long does it take to see anything move?
The profile items can move rankings within days, because you are giving Google information it did not have. The website and authority items are slower and usually show up over one to three months.
Anyone promising you the top of the map pack next week is either guessing or lying, and it is worth knowing which items are which before you start.
Does any of this still work now that AI answers the question?
It matters more, not less. ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity are largely reading the same public signals about your business that Google reads: your profile, your categories, your reviews, and what other sites say about you.
A business that is invisible in the map pack tends to be invisible in an AI answer for the same reasons, and the checklist covers what to do about it.
Do I have to give you my email?
No. There is no form on this page and nothing to fill in. The checklist downloads straight from the button.
So you are not on a list, you will not be put on a sequence that emails you every Tuesday for a year, and you never have to unsubscribe from anything. If you want to talk after reading it, the number is at the bottom and it reaches Nick.
If You Read It and Think "I Am Not Doing All That."
Which is a normal reaction to a checklist written by people who do this all day. Local SEO is one of the nine things we run, and it is the one this list is drawn from.
One Email, and the List Is Yours.
Worst case you read it, find you are already doing most of it, and stop worrying about the map pack. That is a real answer and most people never get it.