Most businesses have a Google Business Profile. However you’re likely going to admit that you set it up a long time ago, filled in the basics, and haven’t touched it since.
That’s a significant problem, particularly if you’re a business that serves local customers, as your Google Business Profile isn’t just an online listing. It’s often the very first thing a potential customer sees when they search for you, before they visit your website, and before they decide whether to call you or call someone else.
Key Takeaways
Pushed for time? These are the quick takeaways from this article.
- 86% of Google Business Profile views come from people who didn’t already know your name. They searched for a service and your profile either showed up or it didn’t
- Profiles with complete, accurate information get 7x more clicks than incomplete ones
- Google now uses your profile to answer searches directly, so an out-of-date profile means you won’t appear at all
- Setting it up once isn’t enough. It rewards consistent attention
- As part of a wider marketing strategy for Home Instead, keeping their Google Business Profiles properly maintained helped grow the number of first-page Google search results by 600% across the Ascot office in six months
What Is a Google Business Profile, and What Are The Benefits for My Business?
A Google Business Profile is a free tool from Google that lets you control how your business appears in Google Search and Google Maps. You may know it by its old name, Google My Business, which Google rebranded in 2021, but it’s exactly the same thing. If you see either name, they’re referring to the same profile.
It’s completely free to set up and manage.
When someone searches for a service near them such as “plumber in Guildford”, “hair salon Farnborough”, “dog groomer near me”, Google doesn’t just show a list of websites. It shows a map with a short list of local businesses it thinks are most relevant. This is known as the local map pack. That small panel of results, usually showing three businesses, sits right at the top of the page before anything else.
If your business is in that list, you’re visible at exactly the moment someone is actively looking for what you offer. If you’re not there, you’re largely invisible, regardless of how good your website is or how long you’ve been in business.
This applies even if you don’t have a physical premises. If you’re a mobile business, a tradesperson, or anyone who goes to customers rather than having them come to you, you can still have a Google Business Profile. You simply set it up as a service-area business, listing the areas you cover rather than a specific address.
The reach of this is bigger than most business owners expect. Research from Birdeye found that 86% of people who view a Google Business Profile found that business through a general search, not by searching for the business by name. Most of the people finding you through Google had no idea you existed when they started. They typed in a service and a location, and you either appeared or you didn’t.
And it’s becoming even more important now, as Google now generates AI-written summaries that appear at the very top of search results, answering questions directly rather than just showing links. These summaries pull information directly from sources including your business profile. So if yours is incomplete or out of date, you are reducing your chances of appearing in those answers either.
If you want to understand how AI search is changing the way customers find local businesses more broadly, we’ve written about it in our guide to marketing in a zero-click world.
Why Setting Up Your Profile Once Isn’t Enough
In my experience of supporting clients with optimisation of their Google Business Profiles, the most common mistake isn’t that local businesses don’t have a Google Business Profile, it’s that they treat it as a one-time job rather than an ongoing part of their marketing.
If you think about it from a customer’s perspective, you search for a local service and two businesses come up side by side. One has recent photos, several reviews from the past few months, accurate opening hours, and a short update posted last week. The other has a profile photo from four years ago, two reviews (the most recent from 2022), and nothing to suggest they’re still trading.
Which one do you call?
Google is making the same judgment. Profiles that are kept up to date, regularly posted to, and consistently reviewed tend to rank higher than those that aren’t. And the gap matters, where profiles with complete, accurate information get seven times more clicks than incomplete ones.
How to Optimise Your Google Business Profile
A complete, well-maintained profile can actively influence whether potential customers choose you. There are a few elements that can make all the difference:
Choose the right category for your business.
When you set up your profile, you’re asked to select a category that describes what you do. This is one of the most important choices you’ll make, because it directly influences which searches your business appears in. The more specific and accurate your category, the more likely you are to show up for the searches your ideal customers are actually making.
Post updates regularly.
Your Google Business Profile lets you share updates, news, offers and events, much like a social media post, but appearing directly on Google. Businesses that post regularly are showing Google that their profile is active and worth putting in front of people searching nearby.
It doesn’t need to be complicated, it can simply be a recent job, a seasonal offer, or a useful piece of advice, all work well, and unlike posts on social media, which disappear in feeds within hours, updates on your GBP stay visible on your profile for anyone searching to see. If you’re trying to decide where to focus your online presence, our guide to Google vs LinkedIn vs Meta for business breaks down the differences.
Use real photos.
Real photos of your team, your work and your premises do something stock images can’t, to show people exactly who they’re dealing with before they make contact. For a local business asking someone to invite you into their home or trust you with their business, that visibility builds confidence in a way nothing else quite matches.
Build a consistent stream of reviews.
Reviews are one of the main signals Google uses to decide which local businesses to show, and how prominently. Actively asking happy customers to leave a review, and responding to every one you receive, means your profile stays fresh and relevant. Recent reviews carry more weight than old ones, so consistency matters more than a single burst of activity.
Keep your details consistent everywhere.
Your business name, address and phone number should be identical across your website, your Google Business Profile and anywhere else your business appears online. Getting this right is a small thing that quietly works in your favour over time.
How Google Business Profile Optimisation Helped Home Instead Get Found Locally
When I started working with the Home Instead home care franchise offices in Farnborough, Ascot and Watford, their online presence wasn’t reflecting the quality of the care they were providing. Local competitors were appearing above them for the searches that mattered most, from families looking for help caring for an older loved one.
Managing and maintaining their Google Business Profiles was one part of a wider marketing strategy. This meant making sure each office had complete, accurate and locally relevant information; posting regular updates tied to community topics and care advice; and putting a genuine process in place for gathering and responding to reviews in a way that felt personal rather than automated.
Combined with wider work on their website and content, the results for the Ascot, Camberley and Wokingham office were significant within six months: the number of search terms they appeared on page one of Google for grew from 2 to 14, the total number of searches they ranked for increased from 12 to 29, and the share of searches where they appeared in the top position moved from 8% to 21%.
A well-managed Google Business Profile won’t achieve that on its own, but it’s difficult to achieve it without one.
Read the full Home Instead case study here.
How to Know If Your Google Business Profile Is Supporting Your Business
A quick test is to simply search Google for the service you offer, in the area you serve. Do you appear? How high up? What does your profile look like compared to the businesses above you?
If what you see doesn’t reflect the quality of what you deliver, that’s worth addressing.
You can absolutely do this yourself.
Log into your profile at business.google.com, work through every section, fill everything in, upload real photos of your work and your team, and commit to posting updates and responding to reviews regularly. It’s free, and with consistent effort the results follow.
If you’d rather get it right quickly.
Well this is exactly the kind of work I do. It means looking at what’s already there, getting the profile properly set up, and putting a simple plan in place for keeping it active.
If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your Google Business Profile, get in touch.
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