Running Your First Geo-Grid Scan: A Guide
The fastest way to understand it is to run one
Geo-grid scanning is easier to explain by walking through it than by describing it in the abstract. This is that walkthrough — every step between opening SeoMap for the first time and having a finished heatmap on screen, in the order it actually happens.
Step 1: Link the business
Everything starts with telling SeoMap exactly which business to track, and there are two ways in. The direct route is a search: type the business name, pick it from the matching Google Maps listings, done. That match happens against the business’s exact Google CID/Place-ID, not its name — which matters the moment two businesses anywhere share a name, a common problem for franchises, chains, and ordinary trade names like “Miller’s Auto Repair” that exist in more than one town.
The other route skips the search entirely: a one-click Google Search Console import. Connecting a Search Console property creates the project automatically and pre-fills its keyword list from that property’s real top search queries over the last 90 days, which is a faster and more evidence-based starting point than guessing keywords from scratch — see Search Console and local rank tracking for how the two tools complement each other.
Step 2: Pick a keyword and a grid size
With the business linked, the next decision is what to search for and where. The keyword can come from the Search Console import or be typed manually — most businesses start with their single most important term. The grid is the more interesting choice: anywhere from a compact 5×5 (25 points) up to a full 15×15 (225 points), square or circular, with point spacing set independently of the grid size itself. A 7×7 grid is a reasonable default for a first scan; a 13×13 earns its extra cost once the heatmap needs to carry a pitch or a client report. The full grid size guide goes through the trade-offs in more detail.
Step 3: See the cost before committing to anything
Before the scan runs, SeoMap shows exactly what it will cost. Credits are counted per grid point — 1 credit per point on a queue scan, 3 credits per point on a live scan — so a 7×7 comes to 49 or 147 credits, and a 13×13 comes to 169 or 507, with no separate “scan package” pricing to decode. New accounts start with 500 free credits, enough to run a real first scan and see the result before deciding on a plan, and every account has a hard daily budget cap sitting underneath all of this so a scan can never turn into a billing surprise.
Step 4: Watch the map fill in live
This is the part that’s hard to picture until it’s happening in front of you. Once a scan starts, the map doesn’t sit blank until everything’s done — it fills in point by point, in real time, as each grid coordinate returns its own real, simulated Google Maps search result. A full 13×13 scan, 169 individual measurement points, finishes in under three minutes. Watching a business’s actual visibility take shape live, rather than waiting on a static report, is the moment most first-time users understand what a geo-grid scan actually measures that a single rank check never could.
Every point stays interactive after the scan finishes. Clicking one opens the complete top 20 results found at that exact coordinate — competitors, their ratings, review counts, and whether any listing showed as an ad — so a red or gray point isn’t a dead end, it’s the start of a specific competitor check.
Step 5: Read the finished heatmap
Once the last point lands, the map is color-coded and finished: green for a top-3 placement, amber for 4–10, red for 11–20, gray anywhere the business didn’t show up in the top 20 at all. Underneath the map, three numbers summarize it — ARP, the average position where the business was found; ATRP, the same average but counting the gray “not found” points instead of dropping them; and SoLV, the share of the grid sitting in the top three. Reading all three together — not just the flattering one — is what separates an honest read of a first scan from a selective one.
What the first scan is actually for
A single scan is a baseline, not a verdict. Its real value shows up the second time: running the same grid again later, and letting scan comparison show exactly what moved, point by point, since this first run. In the meantime, the finished heatmap is already useful on its own — as a shareable link that needs no login to view, or as a one-click, print-ready report export — which is precisely why it works as well for an agency’s first client pitch as it does for a business checking its own visibility for the first time.
The whole loop, start to finish, is short: link the business, pick a keyword and a grid, see the cost, watch it fill in, read the map. Nothing about it requires understanding local SEO going in — that’s what the finished heatmap is for.