Five Things Your Google Business Profile Is Probably Missing

For a local trade, your Google Business Profile is often the first thing a customer sees, before your website and before they hear your voice. It's free, and most of them are half-finished.

These are the five gaps I see most often when I look at a trade's listing.

1. The Wrong Main Category

Your primary category is the single biggest signal Google uses to decide which searches you show up for. A lot of trades pick something close but not quite right, like "Contractor" when they're really a roofer, or "Plumber" when most of their work is drain cleaning.

Pick the category that matches the work you most want more of. Then add secondary categories for the other things you genuinely do. Don't add ones you don't, because it confuses Google and the customer.

2. A Service Area That's Just a Circle

Google lets you set a service area by listing towns and areas. Many listings are left with a default radius, or with one town. If you work in five communities, name all five. It helps you show up when someone in the next town over searches, and it tells the customer straight away whether you'll come to them.

3. Services Left Blank

There's a Services section on your profile where you can list exactly what you do. Most trades never fill it in. It's worth ten minutes: list your main services in plain words, the way a homeowner would search for them. "Furnace repair", not "HVAC solutions".

4. Hours That Aren't True

If your listing says you're open and someone calls at 4:30 to no answer, that's a bad first impression. If it says you're closed on Saturdays and you actually work most Saturdays, you're missing calls you'd have taken.

Set real hours, and remember holiday hours. Google asks you about them before every long weekend, and most people ignore the prompt.

5. No Recent Photos and No Recent Reviews

Google favours listings that look alive. Photos of real jobs, your van, your crew, before and after shots, added every so often, tell both Google and the customer you're active.

Reviews matter even more. A listing whose newest review is eight months old reads as a business that might have slowed down. The fix isn't to chase reviews in a burst. It's to ask every customer, every time, so they keep arriving on their own.

A Note on What Not to Do

Don't stuff your business name with keywords ("Dave's Plumbing Surrey Best Plumber"). It breaks Google's guidelines and can get your listing suspended. Don't buy reviews, and don't only ask the customers you think are happy. Google treats both as manipulation, and a suspended listing is far worse than a few honest four-star reviews.

Fixing It Once, Then Keeping It Current

None of this is complicated, but it's the kind of thing that never quite makes it to the top of the list when you're busy. Setting up and keeping your Google Business Profile current is one of the things included in what I do for every client, so it's done properly once and then kept up to date whenever something changes.