Why your business needs a Google Business Profile

If you run a local business and you only do one marketing thing this month, do this one. A Google Business Profile is free, takes an afternoon to set up and often brings in more enquiries than the website itself.

What it actually is

It's the listing that appears on the right hand side when someone searches your business name, and in the little map of three businesses that shows up for searches like 'plumber near me'. That map block gets an enormous share of the clicks, and it sits above the normal results.

Why it works so well

People searching 'roofer in Rugby' aren't browsing. They've got a problem right now and they're picking someone in the next ten minutes. Being one of the three businesses they see is worth more than ranking tenth on a page they never scroll to. It's the same thinking behind all my local search work.

Setting it up properly

Pick the right primary category

This is the single biggest factor in what you show up for. Be specific. 'Roofing contractor' beats 'contractor'. You can add secondary categories afterwards, but get the primary one right.

Get your details identical everywhere

Your business name, address and phone number should match exactly across your profile, your website and any directories. Not 'Ltd' in one place and 'Limited' in another. Google uses that consistency to decide whether to trust the listing.

Service area or address

If customers come to you, use your address. If you travel to them, set a service area instead and hide the address. Don't invent an address in a town you don't operate from. It gets listings suspended.

Benny Dunks is set up the second way. I work from home in Rugby, so there's no public address on my profile. It lists the towns I actually cover instead, and the same phone number, 07516 124501, appears on the profile, the website and everywhere else. Boring, but that's the point.

Photos

Add real photos of your work, your van, your team, your shopfront. Listings with photos get noticeably more clicks. Add a few new ones every month.

Reviews are the whole game

Reviews affect both how high you appear and whether anyone picks you. Ask every happy customer. The best time is the moment they say thank you, not three weeks later by email.

Reply to all of them, good and bad. A calm, factual reply to a bad review does more for your reputation than ten five star ones. Never buy reviews. It's obvious and it gets you removed.

Mistakes that hold people back

• Setting it up once and never touching it again.
• Opening hours that are wrong, especially at Christmas.
• No link to the website, or a link to a page that no longer exists.
• Keyword stuffing the business name. Google will catch it.
• Duplicate listings from an old address, competing with the real one.

How it works with your website

The two feed each other. Your profile sends people to the site, and a clear site with your phone number and service areas on it backs up what the profile claims. Businesses that have both consistently outperform businesses with only one. If your profile is fine but the site itself never turns up, that's a different problem, and I've covered it in why isn't my website showing up on Google.

I set profiles up for clients as part of a build, or on their own for a fixed fee on the pricing page. If you've already got one and it isn't doing anything, send me the link and I'll tell you what's missing.