Most businesses treat their Google Business Profile like a phone book entry. They fill in the name, address and phone number, add a logo, and never touch it again.
That is a mistake. For a local business, your profile is often the first thing a customer sees, and it does more heavy lifting than your homepage. Someone searching "emergency plumber near me" or "accountant in Bristol" sees a map with three listings before they see a single website link. If you are not in that pack, or your listing looks half-finished, you lose the job before the conversation starts.
The good news: Google Business Profile optimisation is free, and it is one of the highest-return jobs you can do this week.
Why the profile beats your website for local searches
When Google decides who appears in the local map pack, it weighs three things: relevance, distance and prominence. Your website matters, but your profile is where Google reads most of the direct signals for the first two.
Think about how people actually search on a phone. They tap the listing, see your reviews, opening hours and photos, and either call or tap directions. Many never visit your website at all. The profile is the conversion, not the stepping stone.
So if you have spent money on a new site but skipped the profile, you have polished the second thing people see and ignored the first.
The fields most businesses get wrong
Here is where we consistently find easy points on the table.
Primary category. This is the single most important field. Choose the most specific category that describes what you do, not a broad one. "Italian restaurant" beats "restaurant". "Employment solicitor" beats "solicitor". You can add secondary categories too, and you should, but the primary one carries the most weight.
Business name. Use your real, registered name. Do not stuff keywords into it like "Dave's Plumbing | Emergency Plumber Cardiff 24/7". Google penalises this, and competitors can report it. It is not worth the risk.
Services and products. Most profiles leave these blank. Fill them in with real descriptions. Each service you list gives Google another relevance signal and gives customers a clearer picture before they call.
Opening hours, including holidays. Wrong hours are worse than no hours. If someone drives to your closed shop because Google said you were open, that is a one-star review waiting to happen. Set special hours for bank holidays and Christmas in advance.
The description. You get 750 characters. Write for a human, describe what you do and where, and drop the keyword stuffing. The description does not directly affect ranking much, but it affects whether someone chooses you.
Reviews: the signal you cannot fake
Reviews influence both ranking and choice. A listing with 80 reviews at 4.7 stars will beat a listing with 6 reviews at 5 stars in most people's eyes, and often in Google's ranking too.
A few things that actually work:
- Ask at the right moment. The best time to request a review is right after you have delivered something the customer is happy about, not weeks later in a mass email.
- Make it one tap. Generate your review link from the profile and put it in a text message, an email signature and on your invoices. Every extra click loses you reviews.
- Reply to every one. Reply to the good ones briefly and the bad ones calmly. A measured reply to a negative review reassures the next 50 people who read it. Google also treats owner responses as a sign of an active, legitimate business.
Never buy reviews or offer discounts in exchange for them. Google is good at spotting fake review patterns, and a purge can wipe your rating overnight.
Photos and posts keep the profile alive
Profiles that get updated tend to perform better than ones that sit still. This does not mean daily posting. It means signs of life.
Add real photos: your premises, your team, your work, your products. Stock imagery reads as fake and does nothing for you. If you are a trade, before-and-after shots of jobs are gold. Update the exterior photo if your shopfront changes so people recognise you.
Use Google Posts for genuine updates: a seasonal offer, a new service, an event. They expire, so treat them as a noticeboard rather than a blog. A post every couple of weeks is plenty.
Wire the profile into your website
This is where the technical side earns its keep, and where a lot of businesses miss out.
Make sure your name, address and phone number match exactly across your website, your profile and any directories. Inconsistent details confuse Google and dilute your prominence. "Suite 4" on one and "Unit 4" on another is enough to cause a wobble.
Add LocalBusiness structured data to your website so Google can read your details in a machine-friendly format. Link the profile to the most relevant landing page, not just your homepage, so the traffic lands somewhere with a clear next step. If your site is slow or awkward on mobile, all that profile work leaks away when people tap through. This is exactly the kind of joined-up work we cover in our engineering practice.
The Q&A section nobody monitors
Google Business Profile has a public questions and answers section, and anyone can post there, including the public. That means a competitor or a confused customer can leave a question, and the top answer might not be yours.
Check it. Answer real questions honestly. You can even seed it yourself by posting the questions you get asked most and answering them, which doubles as useful content for people who never call.
Track what the profile actually does
The profile insights tell you how people found you, whether they searched your name or a category, and what they did next: called, requested directions or visited your site.
Watch the split between direct searches (people typing your name) and discovery searches (people finding you through a category or service). If discovery searches are low, your relevance signals need work: category, services and reviews. If people find you but do not act, your photos, reviews or hours are letting you down.
This is measurable, so treat it like any other channel. Small, consistent improvements compound.
Where this fits in a bigger plan
Google Business Profile optimisation is the fastest local SEO win because it is free, controllable and directly tied to enquiries. But it works best alongside a site that ranks and converts. If you are thinking about the wider picture, our guide on how to get found on Google in Cardiff covers the local search side in more depth.
Start with the basics this week: fix your category, correct your hours, and set up a one-tap review link. Then keep the profile alive with real photos and prompt replies. That alone puts you ahead of most of your competitors, who set theirs up once and forgot about it.
Lewis, Technical Director
