Your Google Business Profile is the listing that appears in the map results with your stars, your phone number and directions, and for most local searches it brings in more calls than your website does. Seven parts of it decide whether it shows up and gets tapped: the primary category, your address or service area, your hours, your phone number, photos of your own work, reviews, and a website link that agrees with all of the above. Get those right before spending anything on the website.
This sits underneath reason 1 in why your website isn't generating leads: if nobody finds you, the listing is usually why.
1. Claim and verify it
Search for your business name on Google Maps. If a listing exists, claim it; if not, create one at business.google.com. Verification is by post, phone, email or video depending on the business, and nothing else on this list works until it is done.
2. The primary category
This is the single most important setting. It should describe what most of your work actually is: "Roofing contractor", "Dentist", "General contractor", "Electrician". Not the broadest category, and not the one a competitor uses. Add secondary categories only for real services you want to be found for.
3. Address or service area
If customers come to you, show your address, and make sure it matches the one on your website exactly, suite number included. If you go to them, set a service area of the towns you actually drive to and hide the street address. A contractor covering a county should list the towns, not a single pin.
4. Hours and phone
Real hours, including when you do not answer. A listing showing "Open" when nobody picks up costs you the call and a review. The phone number must be the same one on your website and your van; Google compares them.
5. Photos of your own work
Upload photos regularly: finished jobs, the team, the van, the office or practice. Real photos are the strongest thing on the listing after reviews. Stock photos and logo-only listings look like a business that might not exist. For a dental practice, the reception and the rooms; for a roofer, finished roofs from the street.
6. Reviews
The steady flow matters more than the total. Ask every customer on the day the job ends, with the review link ready to send by text. Reply to every review in a sentence or two, and to the critical ones calmly and specifically. Never write, buy or filter reviews; it breaks Google's rules and, under the FTC's rule on consumer reviews, can break the law.
7. The website link, and the website agreeing
The listing links to your website, and the website should confirm everything the listing says: the same business name, the same phone, the same towns, the same services. When the two disagree, Google trusts both less. The website's job is to convince the people who click through, which is where the homepage checklist comes in.
If the listing does not show up
- Search the exact business name. If it does not appear, it is not verified or has been suspended.
- Check the category. A wrong primary category hides you from the searches you want.
- Check the distance. The map pack favours businesses close to the searcher; you will not appear for a town far outside your area however good the listing is.
- Give it time after changes. Edits can take days to show.
Check the website half
The listing and the site work as a pair. The free website audit checks whether your website carries the business details Google can read, whether Google can index it at all, and whether visitors can call from it. Check the listing against the site yourself: the same name, phone, hours and towns on both. If your site is the half that is not showing up, why isn't my website showing up on Google is the next read.