Fix your Google Business Profile in an hour
When somebody searches for what you do, Google shows a box before it shows a single website: your name, your hours, your photos, your reviews, a button to call. That box is your Google Business Profile, and for most small businesses it gets more looks than the homepage. It is also the thing most owners set up once, years ago, and never open again.
I've audited hundreds of these. The same five problems show up over and over, and all five are fixable in about an hour with a cup of coffee.
1. The hours are wrong
Open your profile the way a customer would: search your business name on your phone, not on the dashboard. Are the hours right? Holiday hours set? If you closed early on Saturdays last year and never updated it, Google has been telling people you're open when you're not. Every one of those is a wasted drive and a one-star review waiting to happen.
2. The photos are from another decade
Google favors profiles with recent photos, and so do customers. Ten photos from this year beat fifty from 2019. Storefront, inside, the team, the work, the parking. Shot on a phone in daylight is fine. Stock photos are not; people can tell, and Google can too.
3. The category is vague
Your primary category decides which searches you show up for. "Contractor" loses to "Kitchen remodeler." "Restaurant" loses to "Mexican restaurant." Pick the most specific primary category that's true, then add the secondary ones.
4. Reviews are sitting there unanswered
Reply to every review, good and bad, in a sentence or two, as yourself. A thank-you on the five-stars. A calm, specific reply on the two-star, aimed at the next reader, not the reviewer. Unanswered reviews tell a prospect nobody's home.
5. You've never posted
Profiles have a Posts feature almost nobody uses. One a week, a photo and two sentences: this week's special, a job you finished, a reminder about hours. It signals to Google that the business is alive, and it's free.
The hour, in order
- Ten minutes: fix hours, phone, website link, service area.
- Fifteen minutes: pick the specific primary category, add secondaries, fill in services and attributes.
- Fifteen minutes: upload ten photos from this year.
- Fifteen minutes: reply to every review from the last six months.
- Five minutes: publish one post and put a weekly reminder on your calendar.
If you want to see how your profile scores against the other eight things that decide whether you get found, the Growth Score checks it free in five minutes.