Most tradespeople we meet have a Google Business Profile, but they filled it in once three years ago and never went back. That is a shame: for a local business, it is often the first point of contact with a customer, before the website even comes into it. And unlike ads, it costs nothing.
Here are the things that actually matter, in the order they make a difference.
01 Fill in everything, and we mean everything
A precise primary category, secondary categories, service area, hours, a local phone number, a link to your site, a full description. Google rewards complete profiles by showing them more often. A half-filled profile is an invisible one.
A complete, active profile can bring in more enquiries than a paid campaign — and it does not stop the day you cut the budget.
02 Reviews are your strongest lever
The number of reviews, how recent they are and your replies weigh heavily on local rankings. Ask every satisfied customer for a review systematically, by text, the same day the job wraps up — that is when satisfaction is at its peak.
03 Photos sell on your behalf
Profiles with regular, good-quality photos get noticeably more clicks and direction requests. Add before-and-afters from your jobs, your crew, your vehicles. Aim for a few new photos every month — consistency tells Google the profile is alive.
04 Publish posts (yes, like a social network)
Few tradespeople know this: you can publish posts directly on your profile — a finished job, a seasonal offer, a piece of advice. Those posts show up in search results and keep the profile active. One post every two weeks is enough.
05 Watch what Google lets other people change
Anyone can suggest an edit to your hours or your address, and Google can apply it without telling you. Check your profile once a month to make sure no wrong information has slipped in.
Where to start this week
If you only do one thing: set up a review request routine after every job. It is the best effort-to-result lever there is, and it is what opens a gap on competitors who never think about it. The rest — photos, posts, completeness — gets built afterwards, a little each month.
And if you want us to look at your profile together to spot the quick wins, that is exactly what we do during the diagnostic call.