Your Google Business Profile is doing more damage than your website

For a local business, the profile is the shopfront. It decides whether you appear in the map pack when someone in Sketty searches for what you do, and most of the ones I look at in Swansea have something plainly wrong with them.

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What actually goes wrong

These are the faults I find most often, in rough order of how much they cost the business.

Unverified, or claimed by someone else

An unverified profile loses map pack visibility, and you often cannot tell from the outside. Worse is a profile someone else controls: a previous web designer, an agency you left, or a listing Google generated on its own that you never claimed. You end up competing against your own listing.

The wrong primary category

The primary category does more work than any other field. A plumber filed under "handyman" is invisible for plumbing searches, and the difference between "electrician" and "electrical installation service" is not cosmetic. Categories are also the field most often set once, at setup, by someone guessing.

Service areas set as a radius, not as places

If you travel to customers rather than seeing them at a premises, how the service area is configured changes where you appear. A radius drawn round Swansea city centre will not get you found in Gorseinon.

Hours, holidays and the details Google trusts

Opening hours that go stale, no holiday hours, no services listed, no products, no Q&A, three photographs from 2019. None of these is dramatic on its own. Together they tell Google the listing is neglected, and it ranks accordingly.

NAP that does not match

Name, address and phone number appearing differently across Yell, Checkatrade, Facebook and your own site. Google corroborates your listing against the rest of the web, and inconsistency weakens it.

What I do about it

A one-off piece of work, priced up front, that leaves the profile correct and you holding the keys.

The work

Claim and verify the profile, in your ownership, not mine
Primary and secondary categories chosen against what competitors actually rank with
Services, products and business description written properly
Service areas configured to match where you genuinely work
Hours, holiday hours, attributes and booking or contact links
Photographs sorted, geotagged and captioned
NAP audited across the directories that matter locally, and corrected
A written handover of what changed and why

What it costs

£450 to £750

One-off. The range depends on how many directories need correcting and whether the profile needs recovering from someone else's control, which is the slow part.

You keep ownership throughout. If you stop working with me, nothing needs handing back, because it was never mine.

Ask for a free check first and I will tell you which of the faults above you actually have before you spend anything.

Questions people actually ask

Can I not just do this myself?

Yes, and if you have the time you should. Claiming and optimising a profile is a few hours of work and Google charges nothing for it. People pay me because they have not got round to it in three years, or because the profile is stuck in someone else's account and getting it back is fiddly.

How long before it makes a difference?

Category and service area changes can move things within a couple of weeks. Anything involving reviews or citation consistency takes months. Anyone promising you the map pack in thirty days is guessing.

What if my profile is fine?

Then I tell you that and we stop. It happens, and it is a better outcome for both of us than selling you work you do not need.

Do you need access to my Google account?

I ask to be added as a manager on the profile, which does not give me access to your Google account, your email or anything else. You can remove me in two clicks, at any time, without asking me.

Do you work outside Swansea?

Across south west Wales: Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire, so Neath, Port Talbot, Llanelli, Gorseinon, Pontardawe and the Gower. Further afield the local knowledge stops being worth paying for.

Start with the free check

I look at the profile and tell you what is wrong with it. If you want me to fix it, the price is above. If you do not, you still have the findings.

Get a free profile check Or read about the ongoing work