Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile Setup & Optimisation
For most local businesses the Google listing brings in more calls than the website does. It’s the box with your name, your stars and a Call button that appears before any search result — and it’s the single most neglected thing in local marketing.
This is the bit that gets the call
Somebody standing in their kitchen with a leak types four words into a phone. Before a single website appears, they get this: a map, three businesses, and a Call button.
Most of them never scroll past it. Which is why a complete listing often does more for a local business than anything else on this site — and why it’s worth getting right before you spend a penny on anything clever.
- WebsiteLive, and quick on a phone
- Google listingClaimed, complete, correct hours
- PhotosOf the real place, not stock
- ReviewsEvery one answered within a day
What’s included
What you actually get.
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Claimed and verified
If someone else set it up years ago, or it appeared on its own, I’ll get it back under your control.
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Categories set properly
The primary category is the biggest lever on the whole profile and almost everyone picks it badly.
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Services and areas filled in
Every service you offer, every area you cover, written out so Google can match you to searches.
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Real photos, added properly
Listings with genuine photos of the premises get meaningfully more clicks than ones with a logo and nothing else.
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Reviews answered
A reply to every review, good or bad. It changes how you read to a stranger deciding between you and the next result.
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Kept current
Hours over Christmas, bank holidays, a new service. A listing that’s wrong once costs you the customer for good.
Why it matters more than people think
Search for almost any trade with “near me” on your phone. Before a single website appears, you get a map and three businesses. That block is where local work gets won, and getting into it has almost nothing to do with how nice your website is.
It has to do with how complete and consistent your listing is, how close you are to the person searching, and what your reviews say. Two of those three you can actually influence.
The things that actually move it
Your primary category. “Plumber” and “Heating contractor” put you in different results. Most listings are on the wrong one and nobody ever checks.
Completeness. Every empty field is a reason for Google to prefer the business that filled it in. Services, attributes, hours, description, the lot.
Reviews, and replies to them. The number matters. So does recency, and so does whether anyone from the business ever responds.
Consistency with everything else. Your name, address and phone number need to match across your website and every directory that mentions you.
What you get from me
I’ll set the profile up or take over the one you’ve got, fix everything above, and show you the simple monthly habit that keeps it working — which is mostly photos and replies, and takes about ten minutes.
Questions
About this service.
Usually, yes. There’s a formal process for claiming a profile someone else controls. It takes a bit of patience but it almost always resolves.
Only if it breaks Google’s rules — genuine reviews can’t be removed. What works far better is replying well. A calm, specific reply to a bad review often reads better to a new customer than the complaint itself.
No. If you travel to customers you can set a service area instead of a street address, and hide the address entirely.
Also available
The rest of what I do.
Websites
Hand-built websites for local businesses. Fast on a phone, easy to update, and built to turn a search into a phone call.
Read moreGetting found on Google
Showing up when someone nearby searches for what you do. The same work I do full-time for national brands.
Read moreGoogle Ads
Paid search for when you need the phone ringing this month, set up so you can see what every enquiry cost.
Read morePhotography & video
Your actual premises, your staff, your product — for your website, your Google listing and your socials.
Read moreLeaflets, posters & cards
The offline half, designed to match the online half, so you look like one business everywhere.
Read moreWant to know if this is what you need?
The free presence check tells you which two or three things are actually worth doing for your business. Sometimes this service isn’t one of them, and I’ll say so.