Handbook / Marketing a small business

Google Business Profile for a one-person business, set up by the rules

For businesses that serve a local area, such as cleaners, tutors, repair technicians, gardeners and pet sitters, a Google Business Profile is often the most important single piece of online presence. It can put you on the map results that appear when someone nearby searches for what you do. It is free. It also has rules, and breaking them can get the profile suspended. This guide covers setting one up correctly as a one-person business.

Are you eligible?

Business Profiles are for businesses that make in-person contact with customers. Google's guidelines describe two main patterns:

• Customers visit you at a location with signage or an address where you serve them during stated hours.
• You visit customers at their locations. Google calls these service-area businesses and says they should have one profile for the central office or location, with a designated service area.

Some businesses do both. Google gives the example of an auto repair shop that also offers roadside service.

Purely online businesses that never meet customers face to face generally do not fit the model.

Address: precise, real and private if needed

Google's guidelines ask for a precise, accurate address and/or service area, for your actual, real-world location. They say:

• P.O. boxes or mailboxes at remote locations aren't acceptable.
• Service-area businesses can't list a virtual office unless that office is staffed during business hours.
• A co-working space qualifies only with clear signage, customers received there during business hours, and your staff present.
• Don't put URLs or keywords in address lines.
• Don't create more than one profile for each location.

If you work from home and customers do not visit, Google's guidelines say a service-area business should hide its business address from customers. Their example is a plumber who runs the business from a residential address and clears the address from the profile. You set a service area instead, which keeps your home address private while letting the profile appear for nearby searches.

Name: exactly as you use it

Google's guidelines say your name should reflect your business's real-world name, as used consistently on storefront, website, stationery and as known to customers. Including unnecessary information, such as keywords, locations or taglines, isn't permitted and could lead to suspension. "Riverside Lawn Care" is fine if that is your business name. "Riverside Lawn Care Best Cheap Mowing Springfield" is not.

If you trade under your own name, use it. If you trade under a business name, use that consistently everywhere, including invoices and your website.

Categories, hours and description

• Primary category: choose the most specific category that describes your main service.
• Additional categories: add a few that genuinely apply.
• Hours: list real hours you answer enquiries or serve customers, and update holiday hours.
• Description: a short, factual paragraph about what you do, where, and for whom.
• Services: list your main services, with prices if you choose to show them.

Google's ranking tips say complete and detailed business information helps Google match your profile to relevant searches.

What Google says about local ranking

Google states that local results are mainly based on three factors:

• Relevance: how well your profile matches what someone searched for.
• Distance: how far the business is from the searcher or the location in the search.
• Prominence: how well known the business is, based partly on information like links to your business from other websites and how many reviews you have. Google notes that more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking.

Google also states there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. You influence relevance with accurate information, and prominence with genuine reviews and a real presence on the web. Distance is up to geography.

Reviews

Reviews influence both ranking and customers' decisions. A sound approach:

• Ask every satisfied customer for an honest review soon after the work, with a direct link.
• Reply to reviews professionally, thanking positive reviewers and responding calmly and helpfully to complaints.
• Never write reviews yourself, have friends post fake ones, or buy them. The FTC's rule on consumer reviews prohibits fake reviews and buying reviews, and Google's own policies prohibit them too.

A steady flow of genuine reviews matters more than a burst.

Photos

Add photos of your work, with permission where people or homes are identifiable, your equipment or vehicle if branded, and yourself if you are comfortable doing so. For service businesses, before-and-after photos show results better than words.

Keep it current

Update the profile when hours, services or service areas change. Answer questions customers post. Check it monthly. An accurate, active profile tells both customers and Google that the business is real and open.

Be eligible, be accurate, keep your name clean, collect genuine reviews and keep the profile current. There is no paid shortcut.