Why Google shows your profile before your website
Search "dentist near me" or "salon downtown" and you'll see Google's map pack before the regular website results. Your Google Business Profile is the listing people see in that map pack. It costs nothing and takes half an hour to set up properly. Most of your competitors filled out a third of theirs years ago and haven't touched it since.
The checklist
1. Categories. Your primary category is the strongest signal you control. Be specific: "Hair salon", not "Beauty". Add every secondary category that honestly applies.
2. Services with descriptions. List each service with a sentence and a price range. This helps your profile show up for the searches people actually make.
3. Hours, including holidays. "Might be closed" kills a visit. Update holiday hours before every long weekend.
4. Photos, monthly. Real photos of the space, the team and the work — not stock. Profiles with fresh photos get more calls and direction requests. Ten good phone photos beat one professional shoot from 2021.
5. The description. Use the 750 characters to say what you do, who you serve and which neighbourhoods you cover. Write it like you'd explain it to a customer.
6. Q&A. Anyone can ask — and anyone can answer, including strangers. Add five questions people ask by phone (parking, insurance, walk-ins), then answer them as the owner.
7. Reviews and replies. Keep new reviews coming in, and reply to them. Full playbook: how to get more Google reviews.
8. Posts. Weekly updates — an offer, a new service, a photo — signal an active business. Posts expire, so add a new one each week.
What moves rankings the most
Start with a complete profile and a precise primary category. Reviews that include relevant keywords help too. Google's own guidance says complete profiles rank better in local results. Fill in every field you can and answer the questions customers are likely to have.
The maintenance problem
Doing all of this once is the easy part. The hard part is coming back every month to add photos and posts, answer Q&A and reply to reviews. Owners put it off because the profile has no deadline, while the rest of the business does. It's part of what we maintain on every Sundayable plan: the profile stays fresh without you opening it.
Get it handled
Book a free consultation and we'll review your profile together on the call. You'll get a list of what needs fixing, even if you don't hire us.