Google Business Profile optimization
Your profile is what people see in the map before they ever reach your site. We set it up the way Google reads it and keep it active.
Why the profile comes first
When someone searches for a local trade, Google usually shows a map with three businesses before any website. Those three come from Google Business Profiles. For many local businesses the profile brings more calls than the website does, and the call often happens without the customer ever visiting the site.
That makes the profile the first thing to get right. It is also where most of the quick fixes are. A wrong primary category, missing services, an old phone number or a service area that does not match where you work can hold a business back for years without anyone noticing.
What we optimize
- Categories. The primary category that matches your main job, and secondary categories only for work you really do.
- Services and products. Listed with the names customers use, so the profile matches more of their searches.
- Name, address, phone and hours. Accurate, consistent with your site and directories, and with no keyword stuffing.
- Service area. Set to where you actually go, for businesses that travel to the customer.
- Photos. Real jobs, real crew, real vehicles. Customers look at them, and stock photos tell them nothing.
- Reviews and replies. A steady way to ask for reviews and a reply to each one. How to get more reviews inside Google's rules.
- Posts and questions. Updates on a schedule and clear answers to the questions customers ask.
Want to do it yourself? Our Google Business Profile optimization checklist covers every item above.
What we will not do
We do not buy reviews, write fake ones, hide unhappy customers from the review request, or use a fake address to appear in a city where you have no presence. Each of those can get a profile suspended, and a suspended profile brings no calls at all. Profile work is part of our wider local SEO services.
How we work on a profile
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Check what is there
Categories, services, hours, service area, photos, reviews and replies, and whether the profile matches your site and your listings.
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Fix the facts
The right primary category, the services you sell, your real hours and service area, and one name, address and phone everywhere.
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Fill it with proof
Photos of your real work, crew and trucks, a short description in plain words, and products or services with clear names.
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Keep it active
Posts, new photos, answers to questions and a reply to every review, done on a schedule so the profile never goes quiet.
Common questions
What matters most on a Google Business Profile?
The primary category comes first. It tells Google what you are. After that: services, reviews and replies, real photos, and a business name that is your real name, with no keywords stuffed into it.
Can I put keywords in my business name?
Not unless they are part of your real, legal business name. Google's guidelines forbid it and it can get a profile suspended. It is one of the first things we check.
Do posts and photos help?
They show Google and customers that the business is open and active, and photos of real jobs help people choose you. They do not replace categories and reviews, which carry more weight.
My profile is suspended. Can you help?
Yes. A suspension is fixed through Google's reinstatement process with proof that the business is real at its address or service area. We start there before anything else.
Get a free local SEO review
Send us your business name, trade and city. We will look at your profile next to the ones showing above you and tell you what we would change first.
Rather talk it through? Book a call with Nathan's team