Your Google Business Profile Is Free. So Why Are You Ignoring It?

If you’re a local service business and you haven’t properly sorted your Google Business Profile, you’ve got a shop on the busiest street in town with the shutters down.

People are searching for what you do, in your area, right now.

Google is deciding who to show them.

And if your profile is half-finished, out of date or empty, they walk straight past you to the business next door.

The mad thing?

It costs nothing.

What it actually is

When you Google something like “heating engineer in Wigan” or “boiler service near me”, you usually get a map with a few businesses listed under it.

That’s often called the map pack, and those listings come from Google Business Profiles.

For a local service business, being in that map pack is worth more than almost any other marketing you could do.

Why?

Because people who search like that aren’t browsing, they’ve got a cold house and a boiler making a funny noise and they’re looking for someone to ring, today.

Why it matters more than you think

Say you run a heating firm.

Someone’s boiler packs in on a Sunday night.

They don’t go hunting for your website, they don’t scroll back through your Facebook page, they grab their phone and search.

What they see first is the map, your star rating, your photos, whether you’re open and a big button that says “Call”.

That’s your shop window, and for a lot of people it’s the only bit of your business they’ll look at before they decide whether to ring you or someone else.

Google’s own help pages say customers are 2.7 times more likely to see a business as reputable if they find a complete profile (Google).

So if your profile has two photos from 2019, no reviews in a year and opening hours that are wrong, you’ve lost them before they’ve even seen your website.

What most businesses get wrong

They set it up once and forget about it.

The profile goes live with a phone number, an address, maybe a logo.

Then nothing.

No posts, no new photos, no replies to reviews, for months (sometimes years).

To anyone looking, a profile like that looks like the shutters are down, and fair or not, people assume the business is quiet or not that bothered.

What to do about it

The good news is it doesn’t take long to get the shutters back up.

Fill in everything. Every box Google gives you: services, the areas you cover, opening hours, your website and a proper description of what you do.

Add real photos. Your work, your team, your van, finished jobs. No stock photos.

Ask for reviews, and reply to them. Every happy customer gets asked, and every review gets a reply, good or bad. In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of US consumers, 80% said they’re likely to use a business that responds to all of its reviews (BrightLocal).

Post now and then. You can post updates straight onto your profile, like a mini social feed, and most businesses never do.

I’ve put the step-by-step version in the 30-minute Google Business Profile tune-up, so you can work through it with a brew.

Your job today

Search your own business name on Google, on your phone, the way a customer would.

Look at your profile with fresh eyes and ask one question: would I ring me?

If the answer’s “probably not”, book 30 minutes in your diary this week and do the tune-up.

Want to see where you stand?

Your Google profile is one of the 27 things I check in Your Web Review, along with your website, reviews and socials. You get a video of me going through it all and the three things I’d fix first.

No big sales pitch.

Get your free Web Review

And if you’d like one short email every Sunday on making your marketing easier, get the Marketing Memo. It’s free.