The question I get most often from trades is some version of "I'm on the first page, so why isn't the phone ringing?" The owner has searched "plumber abbotsford", found his site sitting fifth or sixth in the blue links, and reasonably concluded the SEO is done. Then he looks at the three businesses in the box above those links, with the pins and the star ratings and the Call button, and realizes he isn't one of them.
That box is the map pack. For local SEO in Abbotsford, and for a trade especially, it's the result that matters, and it works on different rules from the list underneath it.
Two different contests on one page
Say you run a plumbing company out of Clearbrook. Someone on Gladwin Road has water coming through the ceiling at seven on a Tuesday night. They pull out their phone and type "emergency plumber abbotsford". What they see first, after any ads, is the map pack: three businesses, each with a rating, hours, and a phone number you can tap. Below that are the ten organic results, which on a phone means a good deal of thumb scrolling before anyone gets to number five.
The person with the ceiling leak is not scrolling. They're tapping one of three phone numbers.
The organic results are ranked mostly on what's on your website: the pages, the words on them, who links to you. The map pack is ranked on your Google Business Profile: the category you chose, how close you are to the searcher, how many reviews you have and how recent, whether the hours and phone number match what's on your site and everywhere else. A great website with a neglected profile gets you into the blue links and nowhere near the box. A thin website with a well-kept profile can sit in the box for years.
I can show you how separate they are on our own site. As of the date on this post, RankTrack has seoabbotsford.com at number one organic for "seo abbotsford" and not in the map pack for that search at all. For "seo fraser valley" it's the reverse: third in the map pack and nowhere in the organic ten. Same business, same office on McCallum Road. The two contests just aren't the same contest.
Why we track them separately
When I built RankTrack I made it record the three map-pack businesses on every check, apart from the ten organic domains. The runner (a real Chrome browser in our Abbotsford office, personalization off, location pinned to your city) runs each search, notes who's in the box, and notes who's in the list. Your dashboard shows them as two lines, and you can look at either on its own.
Most rank reports I've seen over the years give you one number, and it's usually the organic one, because that's the one tools have measured since the early 2000s. For a dentist on South Fraser Way, that number is close to meaningless. The dentist wants to know: am I one of the three, and if not, who is, and what do they have that I don't? Usually the answer is a better-chosen category and more reviews than you've got, which is a fixable problem and not a mystery.
What moves the map pack
Proximity is the one you can't do much about. If the searcher is in Auguston and you're out on the Mt. Lehman side, a plumber in Auguston has an edge with that person, full stop. The rest you can work on. The primary category has to be the thing you actually are ("Plumber", not "Contractor"). Reviews, steady and real, with replies. Photos that show your van and your people rather than stock. Hours that are true. A phone number and address that read identically on your site, your profile and the handful of directories that still count.
None of that is glamorous. It's an hour or two of work and then upkeep, which is what the Local SEO plan from $99 a month is: profile setup, categories, photos, citations, the site's wording for your town, and a monthly report so it stays right. You don't need the website rebuilt to get into the box. You need the profile right and the reviews coming.
Where organic still earns its keep
I'm not saying ignore the blue links. The searches that aren't "near me" in spirit (someone researching how much a hot water tank costs, or a property manager looking up "backflow testing fraser valley") are mostly won in the organic results, and that's what the local content in the $199 plan is for. Pieces about specific services in specific places, published on your blog and your profile, so your site has a page for the thing people type.
But if you only have time for one of the two this month, and you're a trade in Abbotsford, it's the profile. Go look at the box for your main search tonight. If you're not in it, that's the job.