Turning Google Maps results into a CSV for a small outreach project
I recently helped a friend who runs a small web design studio build a list of local businesses to contact. The goal was simple: every bakery and cafe in two neighbourhoods, with phone, website and rating, in a spreadsheet. What I tried first Copying from Google Maps by hand. It works for ten places and falls apart at fifty. What worked One search per niche and area, e.g. bakery Brooklyn Heights .…
A friend who operates a web design studio sought to compile a list of local businesses, specifically bakeries and cafes, in two neighborhoods for outreach purposes. The objective was straightforward: create a spreadsheet containing the phone number, website, and rating for each selected establishment. Initially, the reporter attempted to manually copy data from Google Maps, but this method proved inefficient for larger datasets.
The solution lay in employing a browser extension to export public listing data from Google Maps. The reporter utilized a tool called GMB Scraper, which extracts key fields from Google Business Profile listings, such as name, phone number, website, operating hours, and rating, and saves them in CSV or XLSX formats. The free version of GMB Scraper was sufficient for the current project.
After exporting the data, the reporter proceeded to refine the spreadsheet. Duplicate entries were removed to ensure a unique list. Places without a website were flagged as these listings were deemed the most promising leads for the web design studio, as they presented an opportunity to offer web development services. Finally, the data was sorted based on the review count, providing a clear indication of which businesses were most popular within the targeted neighborhoods.
The reporter's experience highlighted several key takeaways. Conducting smaller, focused searches yielded cleaner and more accurate data compared to a single, extensive search. The "no website" filter emerged as the most valuable attribute for this particular use case, allowing the reporter to quickly identify potential clients who could benefit from web design services.
Lastly, it was emphasized that outreach should be limited to publicly available information and conducted with politeness and respect, as these principles are crucial for maintaining positive business relationships.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
