My stepdad ran a roofing business his whole life, and more often than not his work took him waaaay outside our home area of Southampton. This meant 5am-wake-ups, and 3 hour (or more) commutes in heavy traffic to worksites further up the country. After a long day of hard grafting, the last thing you want to do is sit in traffic for 150 miles (in all honesty, I'm surprised he never fell asleep at the wheel on some of those early mornings).

Some more local work for him could have meant another 2 hours in bed and getting home before 4PM instead of after 6.

Maybe your day doesn't look quite so bad, or maybe your services are more office-based — but even so, I bet you'd prefer to stand out more in your local market, right?

Well, one of the best ways to ensure that your business does that, is by optimising your Google Maps listing.

Most service businesses treat their Google Business Profile (GBP) like a one-time setup job and then wonder why they’re buried under competitors who look exactly like them (or worse).

Ranking consistently on Google Maps is all about signals: sending Google the right ones, and sending them often. Thankfully, you don’t need to spend hours every week doing this. A small set of simple, repeatable actions can keep you in the mix — and often outperform competitors who are asleep at the wheel.

Here’s what actually works:

1. Business details need to be the same everywhere

This is the easy one. Google looks for consistency — if your business name, address, phone number, website, or service areas jump around, it thinks something might be wrong. That uncertainty pushes you down the ranks.

Do this:

• Lock in your business name exactly as it appears publicly.
• Don’t keyword-stuff your business name.
• Keep your address or service area wording identical everywhere it appears online.
• Make sure your phone number and hours match your website and any other business directories you may be listed on (Yell, 192.com, Checkatrade, Thomson Local, Scoot etc.)

Small mismatch = lower trust = lower ranking.

2. Choose the right primary category

Your primary category is the main ranking signal for Maps. Pick wrongly and you’ll compete for the wrong searches. I once worked with a client who'd mistakenly set their mechanical engineering business up on Google as a "mechanic" and wondered why they were losing work to competitors with lower reviews than them.

Example:
A painter choosing “Home Improvement” will never outrank someone who picked “Painter.”

Do this:

• Pick the most specific primary category available.
• Add 3–5 secondary categories suited to your main services.
• Don’t go overboard — irrelevant categories dilute relevance instead of boosting it.

This takes two minutes but makes a huge difference.

3. Build reviews into your delivery process

Businesses disappear from Maps when their reviews go quiet. Google wants recent, regular feedback — not a burst from two years ago followed by silence.

You don’t need hundreds of reviews. You just need steady, good reviews. One or two a month is better than nothing.

The only things that actually matter are: review frequency, quality and relevance (i.e. people mentioning your service area and work).

A practical system you can use to make sure you're collecting enough positive reviews from customers is to add a "review request step" into your workflow after every job. You can use a templated message that makes the ask quick and natural.

Consistent reviews = consistent visibility. For more tips on this, you can read our post about how to get more reviews for your business here.

4. Post on your profile regularly

GBP posts don’t drive tons of clicks, but they do send freshness signals to Google. A dead profile looks like a dead business.

Posting weekly (or even fortnightly) keeps you in Google’s “active and trustworthy” category. We notice a decent uptick in GBP visits when the business posts even once every two months compared to when they don't. Things like recent job photos, small wins or milestones and staff announcements make your business stand out in a sea of silent service providers.

These don’t need to be polished. They just need to exist.

5. Add real photos — not stock images

Yep, sorry — you're going to have to be in the photos... Google knows stock photos when it sees them, and so does everyone else these days.

If you really hate taking photos of yourself (trust me, I get it — why do you think our website only has illustrations of me?), then photos of your finished work, tools or vehicles can be just as good. But c'mon, don't deprive your customers of that beautiful smile 😉

Photos affect engagement (people are more likely to click a listing with real images) and trust. Use team photos, vehicles and equipment, the outside of your workplace and job site images to fill out your GBP.

Fresh images increase both clickthrough and ranking potential.

6. Keep your service areas and service list clear

Service-based businesses often try to list 20 different service areas to “cast a wider net.” This usually backfires — I've seen this loads of times.

Google Maps doesn’t work like organic SEO. It uses proximity + relevance. If it was that easy to stuff your profile full of random service areas, then everyone and their mum's business would be global.

The best approach is to choose the areas where you actually work or want customers, ensure your services match what people search for, and add descriptions that reinforce what you do and where you do it.

This creates a tight, coherent profile that performs much better than a messy one.

7. Make your website support your GBP

Your Google Maps performance is tied to your website more than most people realise.

If your site is slow, vague, outdated, or missing key local signals, your GBP will struggle too because Google wants visitors to have a good experience from start to finish. They'll pick your competitor with the quick and tidy site over you if you're using a treacle-slow Wix template with the bare minimum info.

Try things to boost local relevance like a dedicated “Areas We Serve” page, job location examples in case studies and mentioning your service area naturally on your homepage and throughout your whole site.

Make sure you have a consistent NAP (name, address, phone) across every page and you're good to go.

Google connects the dots between your GBP and your website. Help it out.

8. Answer questions, messages and reviews fast

User engagement is a signal. The Q&A section and messages inside GBP contribute to your overall profile activity.

Add your own FAQs (yes, you can do that), respond to questions, messages and reviews quickly and keep your message response time high. Google shows this publicly, and if it looks like you'll get back to a customer quick, they're more likely to reach out.

Plus —fast responses = higher trust = stronger rankings.

9. Avoid the traps that tank visibility

Most drops in Google Maps rankings come from simple mistakes:

• Changing your business name too often
• Using a virtual office instead of a real address
• Having a suspended profile and ignoring the warning signs
• Duplicate listings
• Using overly-broad categories
• Long gaps with no reviews
• Incorrect opening hours

Fix the basics and you avoid 90% of the pitfalls.

The bottom line

Google Maps isn’t about tricks — it’s about consistency. If you show Google that your business is active, trustworthy, and genuinely serving customers in your area, you’ll appear more often. Most competitors won’t bother doing half of this, which is exactly why it works so well.

At Click Witted we make sure your Google Business Profile is solid as part of our web design process, so if you're in the market for a new website or you just want a little help with your GBP, let us know!

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