Small, easy-to-miss problems that quietly cost real businesses real enquiries. All five take minutes to check yourself.
Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows up on Google Maps and in local search results. For most small businesses it drives more enquiries than the website does — and most of the problems with it are small, boring, and easy to fix once you know to look.
I check this on nearly every audit I do, and it’s wrong more often than you’d think — especially after clocks change or a business moves to different winter hours and forgets to update it. Google shows “Closed” or the wrong hours right at the point someone is deciding whether to ring you. Check it on your phone, right now, as a stranger would see it.
Your primary category decides a lot of what you show up for. A general “Marketing agency” label, for instance, is far broader than a specific one and can mean you're competing in a category you don't actually want. Pick the most specific accurate category, not the most impressive-sounding one.
Profiles with recent, real photos get noticeably more clicks than ones with none or with years-old stock images. It doesn’t need to be professional photography — a few honest phone photos of your premises, your work, or your team beat nothing every time.
Most happy customers won’t leave a review unprompted — not because they didn’t like the service, but because it simply doesn’t occur to them. A short, direct ask (a text, an email, a card with a link) after a job is finished is usually all it takes. Three or four genuine reviews outweigh a profile with none.
If you’re a trade or service business covering several towns, it’s tempting to list everywhere you’ll travel to. Listing towns you don’t genuinely serve, or getting the service-area setting wrong, can work against you rather than for you. Narrower and accurate beats wide and vague.
Search your own business name on Google right now, on your phone. Is everything correct? Would a stranger trust what they see? If something’s off, it’s a five-minute fix in your Business Profile dashboard — not a redesign, not a developer, just the dashboard.
Wrong or out-of-date opening hours, the wrong main business category, no recent photos, having no reviews because nobody was ever asked, and a service-area setting that lists towns the business doesn’t genuinely serve.
Ask directly after a job is finished, by text or email with a direct link to leave a review, rather than a vague general request. Ask customers you know were happy, and never offer a discount or incentive for a review, which breaches Google’s policies.
The free audit covers your Google Business Profile alongside your site — a second pair of eyes, with no obligation.