Google Business management
Show up on the map, and get reviews on a system
Your Google Business Profile is the single strongest local signal you own, it is free, and for most businesses it is half empty. Reviews are the part everyone knows they need and nobody has a system for, so it happens twice a year when someone remembers to ask. We build the profile properly, keep it alive every week, and wire the review request to fire at the moment your work lands instead of on a random Tuesday.
Why does a competitor with a worse website show up above me?
Because the map results are not ranked off your website. They come off the profile itself, how close you are to the person searching, and what other people have said about you. A dated site attached to a complete, active, well reviewed profile beats a beautiful site attached to a listing nobody has touched since the day it was claimed.
That is good news if you are the one behind. The profile is free, and it is the part you can fix in weeks rather than months.
What we actually do
- 1Claim or create the profile in your own Google account, never ours. You own it while we work together and you own it if you leave.
- 2Set it up as a service area business if you work from home, so you get map coverage for the towns you actually serve and your home address stays off the internet.
- 3Pick the exact primary category, plus two to four secondary ones. The primary category does more for what you show up for locally than almost anything else on the profile.
- 4Fill in every service as its own item with its own description, rather than one paragraph describing the business.
- 5Add the logo, the cover, a real photo of you, and a handful of images that show the work.
- 6Post one short update a week, around a hundred and fifty words, linking back to the site.
- 7Pull your direct review link the moment Google verifies you. It opens the star rating straight away instead of dropping people on a profile page to hunt for a button, and that difference alone is most of the drop-off.
- 8Wire the ask into your CRM so it fires at the peak moment, the hour the job lands, the placement is made, the thank-you email arrives. Not a random Tuesday.
- 9Ask by text, in two sentences, and tell them what to mention. Blank-page paralysis is why people who meant to review you never do. One polite nudge two or three days later, then we stop.
- 10Reply to every review, answer the questions on your listing before a stranger answers them for you, and keep your name, address and phone matching everywhere else you appear.
Three things we will not do
We will not gate reviews by asking are you happy first and only sending the happy ones to Google. We will not offer anyone a discount or a gift for a review. We will not blast your whole list at once.
All three are against Google's rules, all three are detectable, and the penalty lands on your profile, not on us. Plenty of people sell you the first one with a friendly name. It is still the thing that gets your reviews stripped.
How would I know if it worked?
The profile reports its own numbers: calls, direction requests, clicks through to the site, and the searches you were found for. We take a baseline before anything is touched and report against that baseline instead of against a feeling.
Two honest limits. Google will not tell you which individual search produced which phone call, and your position on the map changes with where the searcher is standing, so nobody can hand you one fixed ranking number and be telling the truth. We report the direction of travel, and a spot check gets labelled as a spot check.
The honest bit
Verification takes Google one to five days and nobody can speed it up. Until it clears there is no review link and no review automation. That is a Google gate, not us being slow, and anyone who promises you a review flow before verification has not read the rules.
The weekly profile posts also do not rank like blog articles. They are a freshness signal and a sign of life to someone reading your card. Worth the ten minutes, not worth mistaking for content. Real search traffic still comes from long-form writing on your own domain.
What we check first, and what we usually find
| What we check | Why it matters | What we usually find on a small business profile |
|---|---|---|
| Is it claimed and verified at all | Nothing downstream exists until it is, including the review link | Claimed once years ago, or never |
| Primary category | The heaviest single signal for which local searches you are eligible for | Too broad, set once, never revisited |
| Services listed individually | It is how the profile matches the exact thing someone typed | Usually blank, or one paragraph |
| Posts in the last month | An active profile reads as an open business to Google and to the customer | Nothing since it was claimed |
| Reviews arriving recently | Recent matters more than the lifetime total, and a stale profile looks closed | A handful, all from the same fortnight |
| A direct review link in use | Sending people to the profile to hunt for the button is where most of them quit | No link, asked by hand or not at all |
| Replies to reviews | The reply is written for the next customer reading it, not for the reviewer | Replies on the good ones, silence on the bad |
| Name, address and phone consistency | Conflicting details across the web undercut the whole listing | An old number or a former address still live somewhere |
Questions people ask
How long before anything happens?
Google verifies a new profile in one to five days and nobody can speed that up. Until it clears there is no review link and no review automation, which is a Google gate rather than a scheduling choice. Once it clears, the profile work lands immediately, and the review flow starts firing on your next delivered job.
Can you guarantee I show up first on the map?
No, and neither can anyone else. Where you appear moves with where the person searching is standing, so there is no single position to guarantee in the first place. What we control is everything that decides it: the right primary category, a profile that is actually filled in, reviews arriving steadily, and details that match everywhere else you appear.
I work from home. Does my address go public?
No. We set you up as a service area business, which gives you map coverage for the towns you actually serve while keeping your home address off the internet. Most of the people we work with are set up this way.
Whose Google account does the profile live in?
Yours, never ours. We claim or create it inside your own account, so you own it while we work together and you still own it if you leave. An agency that holds your profile hostage has leverage over you, and that is not a relationship we want to be in.
Will you write reviews for me or offer people something for one?
No. We will not gate reviews by asking are you happy first and only sending the happy ones to Google, we will not offer anyone a discount or a gift, and we will not blast your whole list at once. All three are against Google's rules, all three are detectable, and the penalty lands on your profile rather than on us.
What happens to a bad review?
Unless it breaks a specific Google policy it does not come down, and anyone promising to delete it is selling you something. What works is a calm public reply, which is read by the next customer far more than by the person who wrote it, and enough newer reviews arriving that the bad one stops being the headline.
Find out what your profile is costing you.
Give us your business name and the towns you serve. We will look at your listing the way Google reads it and tell you what is missing and what is worth fixing first.
20 minutes. Straight answer, no pitch.