Search “electrician Motueka” or “café Nelson” and the first thing you see isn’t a list of websites — it’s the map pack, three business listings with a star rating, hours, and a “call” button, all sitting above every organic result. That’s Google Business Profile, and for a huge share of local searches, it’s genuinely the first (sometimes only) thing a potential customer sees. A great website behind a thin, unclaimed, or badly-filled-out profile is wasted effort — people never get far enough to see it.
It’s not “set and forget”
Most small business owners claim their profile once, add an address and phone number, and never touch it again. That’s better than nothing, but it leaves most of the value on the table. Google actively rewards profiles that look maintained — recent photos, replied-to reviews, accurate hours — over ones that look abandoned, even if the underlying business is identical.
Getting the setup actually right
Pick the right category. This is the single biggest lever most people get wrong. “Electrician” and “Electrical installation service” sound interchangeable but rank differently for different searches — Google uses your primary category as a strong signal for which searches you should show up for. If you offer several distinct services, add secondary categories rather than trying to cram everything into one.
Match your name, address, and phone exactly. Whatever’s on your profile should match your website and any directory listing (Yellow, Localist, industry associations) character-for-character. Inconsistent formatting — “St” versus “Street,” a slightly different phone number on an old directory — quietly erodes Google’s trust in which listing is authoritative.
Fill in every field, not just the required ones. Business description, service area, opening hours (including public holiday hours — Google flags these), and attributes (wheelchair accessible, appointment-only, and so on) all feed into which searches you match. A half-filled profile is a specific, common, and easy-to-fix reason a business doesn’t show up for searches it should.
Photos matter more than people expect
Profiles with recent, genuine photos get more clicks and more calls than ones with none — stock photos or none at all read as neglected. It doesn’t need to be professional photography: a builder posting phone photos of finished jobs, a café posting the specials board, a tradie in Richmond posting the van outside a job site. What matters is that it looks like a real, active business, updated more than once a year.
Reviews: ask, and actually respond
Reviews are one of the strongest signals Google uses for local ranking, and the honest way to get them is simply asking happy customers directly — after a job’s done, in a follow-up text or email, not a generic sign taped to the counter. A steady trickle of reviews over time reads better to Google than a burst of twenty in one week that trails off.
Responding matters as much as receiving. A short, genuine reply to both good and bad reviews shows Google (and anyone reading) that the business is actively managed. Ignoring a bad review looks worse than the review itself; a calm, professional reply often reads better to a future customer than five stars with no response at all.
The relationship between your profile and your website
They’re not competing for the same job. Your Google Business Profile answers the fast questions — are you open, where are you, what’s your number, what do other people say about you. Your website is where someone goes next, once they’ve decided you’re worth a proper look — to see your actual work, understand your pricing, or read something that convinces them you’re the right choice over the next listing down. A profile with no website behind it caps out fast; a great website that nobody finds because the profile’s thin never gets the click in the first place. They only work as a pair.
A few things to check right now
- Is your category the most specific accurate option, not just the closest guess?
- Do your name, address, and phone match your website exactly?
- Are your hours current, including the next public holiday?
- Have you added a photo in the last month?
- Have you replied to your last three reviews, good or bad?
The honest answer
Your Google Business Profile isn’t a formality you fill in once and forget — for most local searches, it’s doing more of the work than your website is. It costs nothing but a bit of ongoing attention, and it’s usually the fastest, cheapest fix available if you’re not showing up for searches you should be winning.