Why the map pack matters more than your homepage
Search almost any local service and Google shows you a map with three businesses pinned to it before it shows a single ordinary result. That block is called the map pack, and for trades, salons, garages, takeaways and most local services it is where the phone calls come from.
It is also the one part of Google you can influence for free, in an afternoon, without touching your website. If you do nothing else from this guide, do this.
Claim your Google Business Profile, get it verified, fill in every field properly, add real photos, and ask customers for reviews. That is roughly ninety percent of local search.
Setting it up, step by step
- Search for your business name on Google first. There may already be a listing someone created years ago, or that Google generated automatically. Claiming an existing one is far better than creating a duplicate.
- Go to google.com/business and sign in with the Google account you want to own this permanently. Use a business account, not a personal one you might lose access to.
- Enter your business name exactly as it appears on your signage and invoices. Do not add keywords. "Smith Plumbing" not "Smith Plumbing Oldham Emergency Plumber 24hr". Google actively penalises name stuffing and competitors can report it.
- Choose your primary category carefully. This is the single most important field in the whole profile. "Plumber" and "Heating contractor" surface for different searches. Pick the one that matches what you most want to be called about, then add secondary categories.
- Set a service area if you travel to customers. If you work at their premises rather than yours, hide your address and list the towns you cover. Do not list thirty towns you would never actually drive to.
- Verify the listing. Usually a postcard to your address, sometimes a phone call or video. Nothing shows publicly until this is done, so do not skip it and wonder why nothing happened.
Filling it in so it actually ranks
Most listings are half finished, which is good news for you. Completeness is a ranking factor and a trust signal at once.
- Opening hours, including bank holidays. Wrong hours generate one star reviews from people who turned up to a locked door.
- Phone number, the one you actually answer. A missed call is a lost job.
- Website link pointing to a relevant page, not always the homepage. A salon can link straight to bookings.
- Services, listed individually with short descriptions. This is free space to describe what you do in the words customers use.
- Photos, real ones, taken on a phone. Your van, your shopfront, your finished work, your team. Stock images are obvious and they do not help.
- Products or a price list where it makes sense. People filter on price whether you like it or not.
Getting reviews without being annoying
Reviews influence both where you appear and whether anyone picks you. A four point six average with forty reviews will beat a perfect five with three, every time.
The method that works is unglamorous: ask, at the right moment, and make it one tap.
- Ask when the customer is happiest, which is usually the moment the job is finished and they can see the result
- Send your review link by text rather than explaining where to click
- Get your short link from your Business Profile, it looks like g.page/r/... and drops people straight into the review box
- Reply to every review, good and bad. Google likes it and prospective customers read the replies more closely than the reviews
- Never buy reviews or write them yourself. It breaches Google's policies and UK advertising rules, and it is easier to spot than people think
Five reviews a month for a year beats sixty in one week. Sudden bursts look manufactured and Google treats them accordingly.
Common mistakes that quietly cost you
- Keyword stuffing the business name. Tempting, against the rules, and reportable by any competitor who notices.
- Inconsistent details. Your name, address and phone number should match exactly everywhere they appear online. "Street" on one and "St" on another is the sort of thing that dilutes trust signals.
- A dead listing. No posts, no new photos, hours never updated. Activity is a signal, and an abandoned profile looks like an abandoned business.
- Duplicate listings. Common if you have moved premises. Find them and ask Google to merge them, because they compete with each other.
- Ignoring the questions section. Anyone can answer a question about your business, including a competitor. Ask and answer the obvious ones yourself.
- Listing a home address you did not want public. If you travel to customers, use a service area and hide the address instead.
Where the website actually comes in
Your Business Profile gets you into the map pack. What happens next is where most local businesses lose the job.
Someone taps through to your website to check you look legitimate before ringing. If that page takes five seconds to load on mobile data, or does not clearly say you cover their town, or hides the phone number in a footer, they go back and tap the next pin. You paid nothing for the click and lost the job anyway.
The two work together. The profile wins the visibility, the site wins the decision. If you are local to us, we cover this on our Manchester, Oldham and Bury pages too. Google also reads your website to corroborate what your profile claims, so consistent services, areas and contact details across both genuinely helps.
If you want a hand with either side of that, our SEO service covers profile setup and the on page work, and every site we build is designed to load fast and make contacting you obvious. Or just work through this guide yourself. It is free, it takes an afternoon, and it is the highest return thing most local businesses can do this month.