Google Business Profile

The usual arrangement, and why it goes wrong

Google builds a listing for a business whether anybody asked or not. It guesses the category, pulls hours from somewhere, and waits for the owner to claim it. Most never do — so the listing sits there miscategorised, with the wrong hours and no website attached, and the phone number is the only thing on it that's right.

That listing is what shows up on the map when somebody nearby searches. If it says you're closed, or files you under the wrong trade, the search goes to the next business — and you never see it happen.

What I handle

• Claiming and verifying the profile, or setting one up if there genuinely isn't one
• The primary category and the secondary ones — the single thing that decides which searches you appear in
• Service area, hours, holiday hours, phone, and the website link
• Photos of the real business — the truck, the shop, the work — not stock
• Services and a description written the way people search, not the way the form suggests
• Keeping it current: new hours, a new service, and answering the questions people post on it

What I can honestly say about this

I manage my own profile, and I've found and fixed a miscategorised one for a customer — a business filed under a category that didn't match what it does, which is the most common fault I see. That's the extent of the track record, and I'd rather say so than dress it up.

What I can also say is that the fix is mostly attention and patience: reading what Google has guessed, correcting it line by line, getting the verification through, and then not forgetting about it. That's the job.