Grid sized. Keywords chosen. Baseline captured.
Why this mattersBy the end of this lesson, you have your baseline map — the starting line. If you are using LeadSnap, this takes about 10 minutes the first time. The principles apply to any geo-grid tool: pick a grid that matches your market, anchor it on the right point, save it with a name you will recognize later, and set a cadence you will actually keep.
Read this once. Sit with it before you answer.
When you set up your first heat map, what grid size, keyword set, center point, and frequency actually match your business and not somebody else's?
Where you stand right now.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- 1Choose a grid resolution that matches your market size (5x5, 7x7, 9x9, or 15x15).
- 2Select three to five keywords prioritized by revenue and search behavior.
- 3Set the center point appropriately for storefronts versus service area businesses.
- 4Save the grid for reuse and schedule the run cadence.
- 5Capture the baseline map screenshot for your workbook.
The whole lesson in a few points.
- 01Grid resolution matches market size. 5x5 tight urban. 7x7 standard suburban. 9x9 or 15x15 for county-scale.
- 02Pick three to five keywords for your first setup: primary service plus city, second-highest revenue service plus city, near-me variation, specific service variation, optional category-level.
- 03Center on your business address for storefronts. Center on the geographic center of your service area for SABs with hidden addresses.
- 04Save the grid with a descriptive name ("Clanton 7x7 1-mile") so future comparisons are apples to apples.
- 05Cadence: weekly during active optimization, monthly during maintenance.
Choose your grid resolution.
Tight urban market with a small service area. 5x5 with quarter-mile spacing. 25 search points covering roughly a 1.25 mile by 1.25 mile area. Good for a salon, restaurant, or storefront in a dense city.
Standard suburban service business with a defined service area. 7x7 with half-mile or one-mile spacing. 49 points covering 3 to 7 miles in each direction. Good for most contractors, professional services, and home service businesses.
Larger service area covering a county or multi-county region. 9x9 or 15x15 with two to three mile spacing. 81 to 225 points covering 20 to 45 miles in each direction.
If you are not sure, start with 7x7. It is the most common size and works for the majority of service businesses. You can always increase or decrease later. Inside LeadSnap, the platform shows you the grid overlay on a real map before you run it, so you can confirm the coverage matches your actual service area before you spend any credits.
Choose your keywords.
Pick three to five keywords for your first heat map setup.
One. Your primary search phrase from Lesson 0.1 — the service plus city version. Highest priority. Two. Your second highest revenue service plus city. Three. A "near me" version of your primary service. Near-me searches behave differently than city-specific searches and reveal different patterns. Four. A specific service variation. "Hail damage roof repair." "Kitchen cabinet refinishing." "Emergency plumber." Five (optional). A category-level search without your city. Helps you see how broad your visibility extends.
Do not try to track 20 keywords from day one. Start with three to five. LeadSnap has a feature where you can group keywords and average their rankings across the grid, which gives you one consolidated view of all your tracked terms. Useful once you have a handful of keywords running.
Set the center point and save the grid.
Center the grid on your business address. That is the default and the right starting point for most maps.
Important exception. If you are a service area business with a hidden address, center the grid on the geographic center of your actual service area. Not your home address if you operate from home. Use the center of where your customers live, not where you live.
Once you have the grid sized and centered, save it. Saved grids let you reuse the exact same coverage area for every future map you run, which means your historical comparisons are apples to apples. Name the saved grid something specific. "Clanton 7x7 1-mile." Not "Grid 1."
Set the run frequency.
During active optimization. Weekly. You are making changes to your profile, adding services, building reviews, posting content. You want fast feedback on whether the work is moving the map.
During maintenance mode. Monthly. Once your profile is stable and you are running the system rather than rebuilding it. Monthly cadence catches drift without overwhelming you with data.
For client-facing reporting. Monthly works for most service businesses. The reports look cleanest with one map per month showing month-over-month progress.
LeadSnap schedules the recurring runs automatically. Set the cadence once, walk away, the data builds itself over time.
Run it and screenshot the baseline.
Click run on your first map. It takes a few minutes for LeadSnap to complete all the searches across every grid point. Once it finishes, take a screenshot of the full map. Save it in your workbook on the Heat Map Baseline page. Date it.
Also note your share of local voice percentage from the summary view. That single number is the easiest metric to track week over week as a quick health check. This is your starting line. Every future heat map gets compared against this one.
Grid sized. Keywords chosen. Saved. Scheduled. Baseline captured.
You are now tracking your real visibility geographically. The next lesson is where you read what the map is actually telling you.
The vocabulary that follows you.
- Saved grid
- A grid configuration (size, spacing, center point) stored in LeadSnap under a descriptive name so every future map you run uses the exact same coverage area. The foundation of apples-to-apples comparisons.
- Run cadence
- The frequency at which your heat map runs automatically. Weekly during active optimization, monthly during maintenance.
- Grid center point
- The latitude and longitude the grid is anchored on. Defaults to your business address. For SABs with hidden addresses, centered on the geographic middle of your actual service area instead.