Your Business Might Be Invisible to the Person Driving to It.
This has come up a few time recently, but I recently took a trip to Canada and discovered a marketing problem I hadn’t really thought about before: Apple Maps.
I was driving a rental car using Apple CarPlay and tried to find my hotel by name. It couldn’t find it. I ended up fumbling around while driving, trying to find the hotel’s physical address so I could enter it manually.
That got me thinking: How many businesses have spent thousands on SEO, Google Business Profile and Google Maps, but have never checked whether Apple Maps can actually find them?
For years, everything has been Google. And Google Business Profile makes it relatively easy for businesses to establish and manage their presence. But Apple Maps is a different ecosystem—and one that businesses and marketing agencies often overlook.
That’s becoming a bigger problem because Apple CarPlay puts Apple Maps directly in the dashboard of millions of vehicles. When someone is driving to your business, they may not be searching Google. They may simply say, “Hey Siri, take me to ABC Company.”
Marketing agencies need to start thinking beyond Google. If you’re doing local SEO for a client, Apple Maps should be on the checklist.
Is the business listed? Is the name, address, phone number and website correct? Is the map pin in the right place? Can someone actually find the business from their car?
This isn’t about Google versus Apple. It’s about being findable.
Search is no longer just Google. People search on phones, through voice assistants, in apps, through AI—and increasingly from the dashboard of their car.
Your business can have a great website and a perfectly optimized Google Business Profile, but if a customer can’t find you when they’re sitting in their car, you still have a visibility problem.
Maybe it’s time we start treating Apple Maps as part of local SEO.
