Getting started with a Google Business Profile
Most teams know this matters. Fewer have decided who owns it. A short on-ramp to a Google Business Profile for teams who have not touched it before.
Search work compounds slowly, which is why it gets abandoned about two months before it would have paid off. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.
Why this earns attention
For many local businesses it outperforms the website itself. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. Anything you cannot measure here, you are deciding by taste, which is fine as long as everyone knows it.
Your first week
- Find out what is already in place
- Photos and hours need keeping current
- Change one thing and measure it
Answering reviews publicly signals an active business. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.
What this looks like day to day
Technical fixes remove obstacles; content earns the position. Both are needed and they are not interchangeable. Three things worth confirming about a Google Business Profile before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Answering reviews publicly signals an active business — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
The point is not perfection, it is knowing which of these you have consciously chosen to skip.