The listing most businesses half finish.
Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that decides whether you appear on Maps and in the results above the search page. For a business with a front door it is the single biggest lever available, and most are left half built: two categories where there should be five, photographs from the year it opened, hours that go stale over Christmas, and questions nobody has answered. We finish it, then keep it active.
What does a complete profile actually look like?
Complete is a low bar that surprisingly few clear. Google gives the listing more room, and more searches to appear in, as it becomes more certain what the business is.
- The primary category exactly right, plus every secondary category that genuinely applies
- Services and products listed individually rather than described in one paragraph
- Photographs added regularly, taken this year, of the room and the work rather than the logo
- Opening hours that are correct, including the bank holidays and the odd early close
- Questions answered by the business, not left to whoever answers first
- Every review replied to, including the poor ones, in a voice that sounds like a person
Do Google posts do anything?
They will not move you up the Map results on their own. What they do is fill the space a customer sees once they have found you, which is the moment a decision gets made, and they are one of the few parts of the listing you fully control. A profile posting weekly reads as a business that is open and busy. One whose last post was eighteen months ago reads as a business that might not be.
How do I get more reviews without annoying people?
Ask at the moment somebody is most pleased, which is almost never by email a week later. For a salon it is at the chair with the mirror still up. For a trade it is standing in front of the finished work. For a restaurant it is the card at the table rather than the follow-up. What we set up is the habit and the short link, and then we answer what comes in. Never buy reviews, and never offer a discount for one, which breaks Google policy and is worth understanding properly.
My profile is suspended. Can it be recovered?
Usually, and the reinstatement process is more about evidence than argument. Suspensions tend to follow a change of address, a change of name, a service-area setting that does not match the business, or a category that implies something the business cannot support. We work out which of those triggered it, correct it, then submit the evidence Google asks for. It is worth doing carefully rather than quickly, because a rejected appeal is harder to reopen than a first one.
What does it cost?
Profile management is part of every monthly plan rather than a separate line, from £850 a month, because it is the part of local search that needs doing continuously rather than once. If you only want to know what state your profile is in, the free audit covers it and comes back within two working days.
We look at how the business appears across Google, Maps and AI assistants, and send one written report. No cost, and a reply within two working days.