How To Make Money With Google Maps In 2024
Google Maps is a service millions of people around the world use for their everyday navigational needs. But can you also turn this tool into an income source?
Well, a lot of side hustle guides claim that you can. And today, I'm exploring some of most popular options you can use to begin making money with Google Maps by leveraging its immense amount of data and opportunities.
How To Make Money With Google Maps
There are four main ways you can make money using Google Maps:
- Offer local digital marketing services to businesses
- Become a Google Maps analyst for third-party companies
- Make Local Guides on Google Maps and earn rewards
- Use Google Maps to promote your own local business
1. Offer Local SEO Services To Businesses
This digital marketing side hustle is one of the main ways people suggest earning money with Google Maps. This idea is also what I cover in my video above, and here's how the hustle works.
To begin, you have to pick a service-based niche in a certain city. This could include businesses like plumbing, dentists, roofing, hair salons, pet grooming, landscaping; basically any business that relies heavily on Google Maps reviews to get business.
From there, you follow a five-step process to begin this side hustle:
- Create a database of local businesses in this niche and include their contact information and website
- Cold email these business owners and offer to help them improve their Google Maps rankings and local presence
- Sign a contract to help businesses improve their local SEO profile
- Help businesses by getting them more citations, improving their website, and following local SEO best practices
- Get paid your retainer fee
You can do the same thing by offering other services, like website redesign, social media marketing, or email marketing help.
The entire idea is to just use Google Maps as a way to compile local business owner contact information so you can cold email them a service. This is how some people start their own digital marketing agencies, but it takes a lot of upfront work and skills.
2. Become A Google Maps Analyst
Several microtask websites out there work with Google to help test and improve its products, including Google Maps. So, you can potentially earn money online by signing up with these sites and becoming a Google Maps analyst.
Lionbridge, Appen, and WeLocalize are just a few examples of sites that you can check out.
These sites aren't always hiring Google Maps analysts. And you can make money with a range of tasks including data entry, transcription, image annotation, and search engine evaluation.
WeLocalize is where I suggest starting. The company has plenty of translation roles as well, some of which involve using Google Maps.
3. Make Money With Local Guides
Did you know that you can earn rewards by sharing your reviews and experience on Google Maps as a Local Guide?
That's right: Google wants more users to contribute their experiences to help other people. So, you can become a contributor right now by sharing your photos, reviews, and knowledge with other people.
As you share your insights, you earn points and level-up your Local Guides account. This unlocks bonus perks and “special rewards” as Google explains.
Just note that this isn't the best way to earn money online. Some Local Guides report receiving gifts like socks, free cloud storage, discounts to various Google partners, and free gift cards. However, many users report earning thousands of points and never receiving any prizes.
4. Promote Your Business With Google Maps Ads
One last idea to make money with Google Maps is to use it to promote your own local business.
Of course, this idea won't apply to everyone. But if you own a business, you can use tools like Google Ads to promote your business in local searches to attract more customers.
This can be incredibly lucrative, especially if your business is a high-end service and you know how to close. And if you don't have a business, you can always try an ecommerce side hustle like running local ads for businesses in your city.
What's The Highest-Paying Option?
At the end of the day, Google Maps is a massive database. If you know how to leverage this data, you can make serious side cash. However, the most lucrative options likely involve contacting local business owners and offering them various SEO and digital marketing services.
This was actually one of my most successful college side hustles. A friend and I ran paid ads for a local furniture store and managed their social media. At one point, we were making $3,000 a month while in school.
My only caution is to make sure you know the skills to get the job done. It can take a long time to build up an advertising or SEO agency, and it's a competitive space. So, I suggest picking one specific service to offer to one niche business type and to learn the ropes as you go.
Extra Reading – How To Earn $5,000 Fast.
Final Thoughts
I hope this guide on making money with Google Maps helps you start a new side hustle if you're itching to get started.
This idea has been quite popular on the internet recently. And while I think Google Maps has massive side hustle potential, you need to use this data the right way.
I encourage you to watch the video I made above on this topic. It covers some of the main red flags to watch out for if you're starting this side hustle, as well as how to scale in the safest way.
Thanks for reading, and best of luck!
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