How to show up in Google Maps when someone searches 'rafting near me'
Someone standing on the river bridge in Buena Vista types “rafting near me” into their phone. Google shows three businesses on the map. Yours is not one of them. That person books with a competitor, probably within the hour, and you never know they existed.
That is not a minor missed connection. 76% of people who run a “near me” search on their phone visit a business within 24 hours. For outfitters and guide services, these are about as close to a guaranteed booking as organic search gets. The person already decided what they want to do. They’re just looking for who can take them.
We published the first version of this article in early 2026. Things have moved. AI Overviews now show up on 68% of local searches. Google has started weighing behavioral signals, like who actually clicks and calls from your listing, more heavily. The distance between businesses that actively manage their Google presence and those running on autopilot keeps growing.
Here’s what changed, what still works, and what you should do about it.
Your google business profile matters more than anything else
It was true before. It’s more true now. The 2026 Whitespark Local Search Ranking Factors survey puts your Google Business Profile at roughly 32% of the signals Google uses to rank businesses in the local pack. Eight of the top ten local pack signals come from your GBP.
Your primary category is the single most important decision. If you run a rafting company but your primary category says “tour operator,” you’re invisible to anyone searching for rafting. Google offers surprisingly specific categories. Use them. A whitewater rafting outfit should pick “rafting” as the primary, then add secondary categories for kayak rentals, SUP, or whatever else applies.
Fill out every field. Your business description should mention the activities you run, the rivers or trails you operate on, and the towns you serve. Write it the way you’d actually say it. “Half-day and full-day whitewater rafting on the Arkansas River from Buena Vista and Salida, Colorado” tells Google what you do and where.
If you haven’t set up your profile properly, or you’re not sure your categories are right, our guide to setting up a Google Business Profile for outfitters walks through it.
Google now watches what people do with your listing
This is the biggest shift since our last update. Google confirmed in late 2025 that behavioral signals are a ranking factor for local results. Clicks on your listing, calls from your profile, direction requests, photo views, website visits from the GBP. All of it feeds into how Google decides to rank you.
Listings that get engagement rise. The ones that get scrolled past drop.
You can’t fake this, but you can influence it. A complete profile with real photos, current hours, and a filled-out description gets more clicks than a bare one. Post updates, respond to reviews, add new photos. Profiles that look alive get treated differently than profiles that haven’t been touched since last October.
Operating hours matter more than most people think. Google is more likely to show businesses that are currently open when someone searches. If your hours are wrong, or you haven’t updated them for the season, you may be filtered out during your busiest times.
Reviews are still your biggest competitive lever
Review signals now account for roughly 20% of local pack ranking weight, up from 16% in 2023. That number keeps climbing. But here’s the part that trips people up: recency matters as much as count.
A business with 300 reviews that all came in two years ago looks stale. A business with 120 reviews that picks up five or six new ones each month looks current. Google weighs recent reviews more heavily because they’re a better signal of what your business is like right now.
The fix hasn’t changed. Ask every customer for a review after their trip. A follow-up text with a direct link to your Google review page works well because the experience is fresh. Some outfitters hand out a card with a QR code at the takeout. Whatever fits your operation, make it routine rather than occasional.
Respond to every review too. Google confirmed that responses are a ranking signal, and in 2026 they carry more weight than before. A sentence or two is plenty. Keep it short and real.
Our piece on getting more Google reviews for outdoor businesses goes into the mechanics.
AI overviews are eating into the local pack
AI Overviews now sit above the local pack on a growing number of searches. A Whitespark study from mid-2025 found them on 68% of local queries. Local packs only appeared on 39%. For some categories the growth was steep. Restaurant queries went from triggering AI Overviews 10% of the time in early 2025 to 78% by the end of the year.
The local pack still drives bookings. People searching “rafting near me” still see the map, still tap listings, still call. But the space above the pack now belongs to AI-generated summaries, and those summaries pull from your GBP data, your website, and third-party mentions of your business.
That third piece is new. The 2026 Whitespark survey ranked unstructured citations as the fourth most important factor for AI search visibility. Unstructured citations are mentions of your business that live outside formal directories: blog posts, local news articles, Reddit threads, tourism board pages, forum discussions. All of that feeds into whether Google’s AI recommends you.
This is a real change from traditional local SEO, where structured directory listings (name, address, phone number in the right boxes) were what counted. Those still count. But getting mentioned naturally across the web, in the places where people talk about what to do in your area, now has ranking value too.
This piece on AI search and near-me queries goes deeper on what’s shifting.
Keep your name, address, and phone number consistent everywhere
Your NAP needs to match exactly across every place it appears online. Your GBP, your website, Yelp, TripAdvisor, your chamber listing, every outdoor recreation directory you’re on. If your GBP says “Arkansas Valley Adventures” and Yelp says “Arkansas Valley Adventures LLC” and your website says “AVA Rafting,” Google isn’t confident these are the same business.
Do a manual check of your top 10 listings. Tedious, yes. But it’s a one-time fix that keeps paying off. We wrote a full guide to NAP consistency for local SEO if you want a detailed walkthrough.
For outdoor businesses, get listed on the directories that carry weight in your niche. Your state tourism board, local visitor bureaus, outfitter association directories. These matter more than generic business directories. And in 2026, those listings do double duty: structured citations for Maps ranking and source material that AI Overviews can pull from.
If you operate from multiple locations, each one needs its own profile
If you launch trips from both Buena Vista and Canon City, those are two different sets of “near me” searches. Each location needs its own GBP with its own address, phone number, photos, and reviews.
Each one should also have its own page on your website. A page about “rafting in Canon City” and a separate one about “rafting in Buena Vista” helps Google tie each profile to the right local content. Our guide to multi-location SEO for tour operators covers this in more detail.
Don’t create profiles for locations where you don’t have a physical presence. Google penalizes fake listings, and it’s not worth the risk.
What to do this week
You don’t need to do all of this at once. But if your GBP has been sitting untouched since last season, here’s where to start.
Check your primary category. If it says “tour operator” or “outdoor recreation” instead of something specific to your actual activities, change it. Add secondary categories for the rest.
Update your hours for the current season. If you’re not open yet, set your seasonal hours so Google knows when you will be. Then post a photo. Not stock. An actual photo from a recent trip or of your shop. Google tracks when your profile was last updated, and profiles with fresh photos tend to rank higher than those running on the same eight images from three years ago.
Send a review request to your last ten customers. Get that habit going before the busy season buries you.
When you have a spare afternoon, audit your NAP across your top listings and make sure your website has a page for every put-in point or storefront you operate from. Those take longer but they compound.
Most outdoor markets still have room in the local pack for a business that puts in steady, unglamorous work. Your competitors probably have a half-filled profile, inconsistent listings, and haven’t asked for a review in months. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be more consistent than them.
