Your profile is often the first thing they see.
For a lot of local searches, customers never reach your website. They see your profile on the map, glance at the photos, read two or three reviews, and tap call or directions. Whatever your profile says in that moment is your pitch.
Most profiles I look at were set up in ten minutes years ago and left alone: a vague primary category, half the services missing, a stock photo, reviews with no reply, and a website link that GA4 can't tell apart from anything else. None of that is hard to fix. It just needs someone to do it properly and then keep it up.
Every field on the profile, filled in with intent.
Categories & Services
The primary category matters most, so I check what the businesses beating you use, choose the most accurate one, then list every service you offer in plain language.
Products & Booking Links
Products, menus or treatment lists with prices where it makes sense, and booking or appointment links that land on the right page rather than your homepage.
Photos & Posts
Real photos of your premises, people and work instead of stock images, and regular posts for offers, events and news so the profile never looks abandoned.
Review Responses
A reply to every review, good or bad, written for the next person reading it. Reviews that break Google's policies are reported through Google's own process.
Q&A & Business Details
Hours, holiday hours, attributes and accessibility kept accurate, plus questions and answers where your profile still shows them, so customers get the right answer first time.
Performance Tracking
Calls, direction requests, website clicks and bookings from the profile's Performance report, joined up with GA4 data from UTM-tagged links.
Ownership, Verification & Suspensions
Plenty of profiles are still owned by a former employee or a previous supplier. I help you recover ownership, get through verification, and handle suspensions by fixing the underlying cause before appealing, rather than appealing and hoping.
Storefront, service-area or both: pick the one that's true.
Getting this wrong is one of the most common reasons London profiles get suspended. The right choice depends on where you actually meet customers.
| Storefront | Service-area | Hybrid | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suits | Customers come to you: clinics, salons, cafés, shops | You go to customers: trades, cleaners, mobile therapists | Both: a florist that delivers, a garage that collects |
| Address on Google | Shown | Hidden | Shown |
| Service areas | Not needed | Required | Listed alongside the address |
| What must be true | The address is staffed during your stated hours | A real address for verification, even though customers never see it | Customers are genuinely served at the address |
| Map pack reach | Strongest near the premises | Strongest near the hidden address | Strongest near the premises |
The honest answer on addresses
Google's guidelines say a Business Profile is for a business that deals with customers in person, either at a real address or by travelling to them. Listing an address you don't operate from is one of the most common routes to a suspension. I won't set up a profile at an address you don't use, and if you work from home, a service-area profile with the address hidden is the correct set-up.
- A staffed premises, or a real base you travel out from
- One profile per genuine location, not one per borough
- Your real trading name, without added keywords
- Not unstaffed virtual offices, PO boxes or mail-forwarding addresses
This is my reading of Google's published guidelines, which change from time to time; check the current version if you're unsure, and remember that how Google treats any individual profile is Google's decision.
From a neglected listing to a profile that earns calls.
Access & Ownership
You add me as a manager, so you stay the owner. I check who else has access and look for duplicate or unclaimed listings for your business.
Competitor Comparison
Every field compared with the profiles that appear above yours for your main searches, in your part of London.
Profile Rebuild
Categories, services, products, description, attributes and booking links corrected or rewritten in full, and the website link tagged for GA4.
Photos & First Posts
A simple shot list so you can photograph what customers want to see, then the first posts published and a posting rhythm agreed.
Reviews & Replies
A way to ask every customer for a review, and replies to each one that are specific, calm and useful to the next reader.
Edits Watch & Report
Anyone can suggest edits to a profile, and Google sometimes applies them. I check for unwanted changes and report calls, directions and bookings.
Measurement is where my career started.
My first web analytics role was in 2006, for Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks. Since then I've rolled out Google Analytics across seven markets for CPP Group and led River Island's analytics migration across nine international domains. That's why every profile I work on is judged by the calls and enquiries it produces, not by how many people viewed it.
See my experienceGoogle Business Profile optimisation in London, done by the rules.
Your Google Business Profile, still called Google My Business by many people, is free, and that is exactly why it gets neglected. Yet for a London clinic, salon, restaurant or trade, it is often the busiest front door the business has. People compare profiles side by side on the map, and they choose on details: the right category, clear services, recent photos, a reply to the one bad review, and opening hours they can trust over a bank holiday.
Good optimisation is mostly accuracy and upkeep. Keyword-stuffed business names, fake addresses and bought reviews can work briefly, and then the profile disappears. I set profiles up the way Google's guidelines describe, so the gains last, and I keep an eye on edits that Google or members of the public make without asking you. Nothing I do involves shortcuts that could put your listing at risk.
A profile works best as part of wider local SEO in London, where your website, listings and reviews all tell Google the same story. If you run more than one site, each branch needs its own profile and page, which I cover under multi-location SEO. To see how your website and profile are tracked together, have a look at my GA4 and analytics work.
I work remotely with businesses across London, with manager access to your profile so you always remain the owner. Profile work is normally included in ongoing local SEO; the typical monthly ranges are on my SEO pricing page, and a free SEO audit is a good first step if you're not sure what needs fixing.
Business Profile questions.
What's included, addresses, suspensions, cost and tracking.
It covers choosing the right primary and secondary categories, listing every service and product, writing an accurate description, adding real photos, setting up booking links, replying to reviews and posting updates. I also check who owns the profile, correct wrong details and tag your website link so visits from the profile show up in GA4.
Yes, if you visit or deliver to customers. Google's guidelines allow a service-area profile, where your address is hidden and you list the areas you cover instead. What you cannot do is list an address you don't operate from, such as an unstaffed virtual office, a PO box or a friend's flat.
Common causes are an address Google doesn't accept, keywords added to the business name, duplicate profiles, or edits to key details that triggered a review. I work out the likely cause, correct the profile against Google's guidelines, gather evidence and appeal through Google's official process. Reinstatement is Google's decision, so no one can promise it.
It is usually part of ongoing local SEO, which typically runs £499 to £2,499 a month depending on competition and the number of locations. If you only need a one-off clean-up of an existing profile, I scope it after a free check and confirm the price in writing before any work starts.
Weekly is a sensible rhythm for most London businesses, and fortnightly is fine if that is what you can keep up. Posts show customers the profile is looked after and give them a reason to act: an offer, an event, a new service or a recent job. Fresh photos of real work help too.
The profile's Performance report shows calls, direction requests, website clicks and, where supported, bookings. For your website, I add UTM tags to the profile links so GA4 reports those visits separately, then record forms, click-to-call and booking steps as conversions. Together they show what the profile actually produces for you.
