Local SEO
Google Business Profile Optimization
Google Business Profile optimization is making the listing you already have accurate, complete, and consistent with the website — not inventing a storefront, stuffing the name with keywords, or posting every week so a calendar looks fed. For many local-intent searches, the Maps card is the first thing a person sees. The job is a profile they can trust and a site that can take the enquiry when they tap through.
Creating or claiming the listing is how to get your business on Google. The wider local picture — NAP, reviews, service-area pages — is the local SEO guide. Appearing is only half of getting more customers from Google; the page still has to convert. If you run a small company, keep this next to SEO for small businesses rather than an enterprise checklist you will never staff.
Change the durable fields first
Start with categories that match the work you actually do, hours you honour, the primary website URL, and photos of real work or a real place. Those fields last. Keyword-stuffed names are a bad idea. Google’s guidelines expect the business name customers know, not a sentence of cities and services.
Pick one primary category that describes the main work. Add secondary categories only when they are true. Do not select every nearby trade you wish you ranked for. Set hours for the days you answer, including holidays when you close. Link the website to the HTTPS page that explains the offer — usually a service URL or a clear home page, not a pile of campaign parameters. If Search Console already shows impressions on a service page, that is often the better destination than a new lookalike landing page built only for Maps.
- Name as customers look it up, not as a keyword sentence.
- Phone you answer, written the same way as on the site and on invoices.
- Hours you will still honour when someone drives over after work.
- Photos of the real place, the real van, or real completed work — not a stock handshake.
Name, address, phone, and the login
NAP is name, address, and phone. Those three should match the website and the directories customers already use. Small mismatches confuse people and systems. Pick one written form and copy it. If you have no public storefront, do not invent a suite so the pin looks downtown. Follow Google’s current service-area guidelines: hide a residential address when that is the correct setup, and show the areas you actually serve.
Scriplit is a Wyoming LLC founded on 9 October 2024 by Adnan Sami. The public paths are (901) 401-0039 and contact@scriplit.com. It does not invent a public counter it does not operate. That is the standard: publish what is true, omit what you would have to fake. Own the Google account. A profile on a contractor’s personal login is a listing you can lose. Recover it through Google’s process rather than opening a second profile “just in case.”
Services, products, and attributes that stay useful
Fill services and products you still offer. Remove the ones you do not. A stale menu trains the wrong calls. Descriptions should read like a person who does the work, not like a paragraph of synonyms. Price ranges are optional; only add them if you will keep them current. Attributes — women-led, wheelchair accessible, appointment required — only if they are true. A lie in a checkbox is still a lie when a customer arrives.
The profile will not hold a scoped explanation. That belongs on the website. One honest service page plus a clear service-area statement beats a tree of thin city URLs. If Search Console already shows queries on a live service page, improve that page instead of publishing a Maps-only twin. Extra location templates with the city name swapped are the doorway pattern Google’s spam documentation warns against.
| Field | Why it comes early | How it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Categories | They decide which searches you are even eligible for | Every adjacent trade selected “for coverage” |
| Hours and phone | They decide whether the visit or the call is possible | Open hours on a door that is locked |
| Website URL | They decide where the tap goes | A campaign link, or a page that contradicts the profile |
| Photos | They decide whether the place looks real | Stock images, or pictures from a different shop |
Posts expire; the profile does not
Google posts can announce a true change: a temporary hour, a service you actually added, a photo from a job you finished. They expire. Useful hours, services, and photos last longer. Post when you have something true, not to feed a calendar. A weekly post with nothing in it is the Maps version of a thin blog: activity for its own sake. Empty weeks are fine.
Do not treat posts as a ranking subscription. Nobody can sell you a guaranteed share of the local pack, and a vendor who quotes a made-up visibility percentage is selling a story. Relevance, distance, and prominence are Google’s local framing. You influence them by being accurate, being where you claim, and being a business other people treat as real. You do not influence them by stuffing the description with the same phrase twelve times.
- Correct categories, hours, phone, and website before you write a post.
- Upload photos you took, then delete pictures that no longer match the place.
- Post only when the news is still true on the day it expires.
- Answer questions and reviews as a named person who did the work.
One profile, one shop, one story on the site
Follow Google’s current guidelines. Duplicate listings for the same location usually confuse people and systems. One accurate profile is the job. Two profiles for one shop split reviews, hours, and photos. If an old listing already exists, claim it. If a former vendor created a lookalike, request removal or support through Google’s process. Do not keep both “so one can rank.”
The website must agree with the card: same name, same phone, same address if you have one, same service area if you do not. A Maps call you never answer is not a win. Put the number in a tap-to-call control. Put the enquiry form on the URL the profile opens. Use Search Console for the website — the profile will not tell you which queries your pages already earn. When you want the listing and those pages aligned, see SEO services. Send the profile URL, the site, and the areas you actually serve through the SEO contact form. We will not manufacture a second pin or a keyword name.
Frequently asked questions
What should I change first?
Categories that match the work, hours you honour, the primary website URL, and photos of real work or a real place. Keyword-stuffed names are a bad idea.
Do I need a post every week?
Posts expire. Useful hours, services, and photos last longer. Post when you have something true, not to feed a calendar.
Can I have two profiles for one shop?
Follow Google’s current guidelines. Duplicate listings for the same location usually confuse people and systems. One accurate profile is the job.