Signs it is time to revisit a Google Business Profile

It is rarely the thing that gets a project approved, and often the thing that decides how it goes. A few signals that a Google Business Profile is due some attention.

Search work compounds slowly, which is why it gets abandoned about two months before it would have paid off. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• For many local businesses it outperforms the website itself
• Photos and hours need keeping current

How we handle it

Answering reviews publicly signals an active business. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.

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

Pick the one that would hurt most if it failed, and start there.