Your visibility, measured on a schedule
Sure Shot Systems tracks where your business shows up when local customers search for your services. Two reports arrive each reporting period (weekly for most clients, monthly for others): the Local Rank Report and the Map Pack Grid Report. Your report email also includes Top 3 recommended actions, and your dashboard page keeps every report plus long-term trends in one place. This guide explains what each piece means and what to do with it.
1. The Local Rank Report
This report answers: when someone searches "your service + city", where does your website appear in Google's regular results?
- Tabs across the top - one per service you offer. Click to switch.
- The map shows every city we track, color-coded by your position.
- The table lists each city with your exact rank and the change since the last report (▲ up, ▼ down, NEW for first-time rankings).
Color scale (organic)
Below the ranking tabs you will also find two newer sections: Trends (section 3 of this guide) and Google AI Overview citations (section 4).
2. The Map Pack Grid Report
The Map Pack is the block of three businesses with a map that Google shows above the regular results for local searches. It gets a large share of the clicks and calls. This report answers: from which exact locations does your business appear in that 3-pack?
We run real Google searches from a grid of points across each region you serve - every pin on the map is one real search made from that spot.
Color scale (Map Pack positions)
Change rings (report over report)
Click any pin for the details: the exact position at that spot and what it was in the previous report. Under each map, the region table totals your Map Pack points per region with the change.
A gray pin does not always mean a competitor beat you - in smaller towns Google sometimes shows no Map Pack at all for a search. Position 4–10 (orange) means you are one push away from the pack: reviews, photos, and service-area signals move exactly these.
3. Trends - your progress over time
Both reports and your dashboard page include Trends charts built from every collection we have run for you. They answer the question a single report cannot: is this working?
- Organic rankings over time - three lines: visible (pages ranking anywhere), top 10 (page one), and top 3. You want all three climbing; top 3 is the one that produces calls.
- Map Pack over time - two lines: visible (grid points where your business appears at any position) and in Map Pack (points where you are in the top 3).
- Sparkline cards - one small chart per service (organic) or per region (map pack), so you can spot which service or area is moving.
Trends need at least two collection dates to draw a line, so a brand-new tracker shows this section from its second report onward. Single-week dips are usually Google noise; judge direction over 3-4 data points.
4. Google AI Overview citations - the new position zero
For a growing share of searches, Google shows an AI Overview: an AI-written answer above all regular results. When that answer cites a website as a source, that site gets visibility before any ranking does. We check every tracked search and report four numbers:
- Searches checked - every service + city search we ran this period.
- Show an AI Overview - how many of those searches triggered an AI answer.
- Cite you - how many AI answers used your website as a source.
- Citation share - cite you divided by show an AI Overview.
When citations exist, the report also lists which of your pages get cited and which competitor domains the AI cites most - that list is your content roadmap.
Zeros are normal today for many local trades - Google shows AI Overviews for a minority of local service searches so far. That is exactly why we track it now: when AI answers arrive for your keywords, you will see it the same week, and the recommendations will tell you what to do about it.
5. Top 3 recommended actions - in your report email
Every report email ends with up to three specific actions, generated from your own data in priority order:
- Organic quick win - a page ranking 4-10 where one improvement can reach page-one top 3, with the exact URL and the task.
- Map Pack push - the region and keyword with the most orange (4-10) grid points, with the review/profile tasks that move them.
- AI Overview gap - searches where an AI answer appears but does not cite you, with the competitor domains it cites instead.
These are written to be handed directly to a VA or web developer - each one names the page or profile and the change to make. Do the three actions, and the next reports measure whether they worked.
6. Your dashboard page - bookmark this one
Every client has a single page at reports.sureshotsystems.com/<your-business>/ with:
- a short version of this guide,
- the Trends charts across all your reports,
- your current AI Overview citation share,
- and every report ever generated, newest first.
If you only save one link, save that one.
7. What to look at each period
- The summary bar at the top of each report - the headline numbers with change arrows.
- The Trends lines - direction beats any single number.
- Green rings - where the work is paying off. Red rings - where a competitor moved or Google reshuffled; one period is noise, two is a pattern.
- Orange zones on the grid - your best near-term wins.
- The Top 3 actions in the email - assign them, then watch the next report for the result.
8. Versions and links
| Link | What it is |
|---|---|
| index.html (your dashboard) | Guide summary, trends, AI citation share, and the full archive of reports, newest first. |
| YYYY-MM-DD.html | The archived Local Rank Report for that date - these never change. |
| latest-mappack.html | Always the newest Map Pack report. |
| YYYY-MM-DD-mappack.html | The archived Map Pack report for that date. |
| mappack-reports.html | The Map Pack archive listing. |
Questions about anything in your reports? Reply to the report email - a human reads it.