Your Google Business Profile is often the first thing a customer sees, before your website. Work through these in order.
- Use your real business name. Don't add keywords or cities to it. Google suspends profiles that do.
- Pick the most specific main category. “Roofing contractor”, not “Contractor”. Add secondary categories for your other services.
- Set your service area or address accurately. If you go to customers, list the towns you serve and hide your home address.
- Keep hours current, including holiday hours. Wrong hours cost you calls and trust.
- List every service you offer, each with a short description in plain words.
- Upload real photos. Your team, your trucks, jobs in progress, before-and-after. Add a few new ones every month.
- Write a clear description. What you do, where you do it, and why customers choose you. No links or phone numbers in it.
- Add your website and a booking or quote link so people can act without leaving Google.
- Post at least twice a month: a finished job, a seasonal offer or a quick tip. Active profiles look trustworthy.
- Keep your name, address and phone identical everywhere online: your site, Facebook, Yelp and directories. Mismatches confuse Google.
The habit that matters most: reviews. See our reviews playbook for the routine.
Most small-business sites get enough visitors. They just don't turn them into calls. These fixes are listed in order of impact.
- Put your phone number top right, and make it tap-to-call. On a phone, one tap should dial you.
- Say what you do and where in the first line. “Roof repair in Denver” beats “Welcome to our website”.
- Add one clear button near the top: “Get a free quote” or “Book online”. Repeat it down the page.
- Make it fast on phones. Compress photos and remove plugins you don't use. Aim to load in under three seconds.
- Show proof next to your buttons: star rating, a short review, photos of real jobs, licensed and insured.
- Give each main service its own page, and each main town you serve if you cover several. That's how you rank for them.
- Offer a short form and an after-hours option such as online booking or chat, so late-night visitors still reach you.
Bonus: install Google Analytics and call tracking, so you know which pages and ads actually bring customers.
More recent 5-star reviews means more trust and better rankings on Google Maps. Here's a routine that works and stays within Google's rules.
- Ask at the happiest moment: right after the job is done or the problem is solved.
- Make it one tap. Text your direct Google review link. You'll find it in your Business Profile under “Ask for reviews”.
- Ask every customer, not just the happy ones. Picking who to ask based on how they'll rate you breaks Google's policy.
- Never offer discounts or gifts for reviews. Google removes incentivized reviews and can penalize your profile.
- Follow up once, two or three days later, if they haven't left one yet.
- Reply to every review within a few days. Thank good reviews by name. Answer bad ones calmly and offer to make it right offline.
- Show your best reviews on your website, in quotes and in your social posts.
- Make it automatic: add the review request to your job-completion checklist, or have it sent by text when a job closes.
Rule of thumb: a steady trickle of new reviews beats a big burst once a year.
