Google Business Profile, formerly GMB
The listing that rings your phone not the one that looks tidy.
Most GMB work stops at filling in fields. We optimise for the three things Google actually ranks on, then measure it with a geo-grid so you can see visibility across your whole service area rather than from wherever you happen to be standing.
Free geo-grid report
We run a 7 by 7 grid across your service area and send you a map showing where you rank, where you disappear, and who is beating you in each square.
Managing profiles for
What we usually find
Four reasons a profile looks fine and still produces nothing.
All four show up in the free grid report, and usually more than one at a time.
You rank at your own address and nowhere else
Search from the office and you are position one. Drive two miles and you vanish. Without a grid nobody notices, because everyone checks from the same place.
Wrong primary category
The single highest leverage field on the profile, and the one most often set to something vaguely related rather than the term people actually search.
Reviews have stalled
Forty reviews from three years ago reads as a business that stopped. Recency and velocity matter, not just the total and the star average.
Fake competitors in your map pack
Virtual offices, keyword stuffed names and lead generation listings taking positions that should be yours. They can be reported and removed.
What we do
Twelve things, split into setup and the part that never stops.
The foundations are a one time job done properly. Everything in the second group is the ongoing work that actually moves you up the grid.
Foundations, done once and done right
Claim, verify and secure
Getting ownership back where it has been lost, verified where it never was, and locked down so an ex employee or old agency cannot edit it.
- Ownership recovery and transfer
- Video or postcard verification handled
- Duplicate listings merged or removed
- Access audited and cleaned up
Categories and services
Primary category researched against what actually ranks for your money terms, not what sounds closest. Secondary categories chosen to widen reach without diluting relevance.
- Competitor category analysis
- Primary and secondary category set
- Every service listed with descriptions
- Products populated where relevant
Hours, attributes and details
Opening hours including special and holiday hours, service area definition, and every attribute Google offers for your category filled in.
- Regular, special and holiday hours
- Service area or address strategy
- All available attributes completed
- Business description written for search
Photos and video
Geotagged, correctly named, covering the categories Google surfaces: exterior, interior, team, work in progress and completed jobs.
- Photo audit and gap analysis
- Shot list for you to capture
- Correct naming and metadata
- Ongoing monthly uploads
NAP consistency and citations
Name, address and phone matched across every directory that mentions you. Inconsistency is a trust problem Google notices even when customers do not.
- Citation audit across major directories
- Inconsistencies corrected at source
- Core citations built where missing
- Data aggregator submissions
Local landing pages and schema
A real page on your site for each location or service area, with LocalBusiness schema matching your profile exactly. The profile and the site have to agree.
- Location or service area pages built
- LocalBusiness and Service schema
- Embedded map and consistent NAP
- Internal linking from service pages
Ongoing, because the map pack rewards activity
Review generation
A workflow that actually gets used, built into how your team already works rather than a link nobody sends. Volume and recency both matter.
- Request workflow via SMS or email
- QR codes and in person prompts
- Target velocity set per month
- Reporting on requests versus reviews
Review responses
Every review answered, including the bad ones, within a day. Responses are public and prospects read them more carefully than the reviews themselves.
- All reviews answered within 24 hours
- Negative review response strategy
- Fake review reporting and removal
- Sentiment themes fed back to you
Posts and offers
Weekly posts tied to what you actually want to sell, with tracked links so you can see which ones produced anything.
- Weekly post schedule
- Offers, events and product posts
- UTM tagged links throughout
- Performance reviewed monthly
Questions and answers
The most ignored section on the profile. We seed the questions customers actually ask, answer them properly, and monitor for anyone else answering wrongly.
- Question set seeded from real enquiries
- Answers written and upvoted
- Monitoring for competitor interference
- Monthly review of new questions
Calls, messaging and booking
Call tracking that does not break your NAP consistency, messaging enabled and monitored, and booking links wired to your actual calendar.
- Call tracking with correct configuration
- Messaging enabled and response monitored
- Booking and appointment links
- Call recording and quality review
Spam fighting
Reporting fake listings, virtual offices, keyword stuffed business names and lead generation companies occupying positions that belong to real businesses.
- Competitor listing audit
- Redressal forms filed and tracked
- Keyword stuffed names reported
- Escalation where reports are ignored
See where you actually rank, not where you think you do.
Searching your own keyword from your own office tells you almost nothing. We run a 7 by 7 grid across your service area and send you the map: where you hold the top three, where you fall off entirely, and which competitor owns each square you are losing.
Geo-grid tracking
Local ranking is not one position. It is a map.
Your visibility decays with distance from your pin. A geo-grid searches your keyword from 49 separate points across your service area and records where you rank at each one. It is the only honest way to measure local SEO, and it makes the work visible to whoever is paying for it.
Illustrative of a typical result. The pattern is what matters: before, the business ranked reasonably at its own pin and disappeared past two miles. After, the top three extends across the centre of the service area and the edges hold single figure positions. That expansion is where the extra calls come from.
Points per scan
A 7 by 7 grid across your service area, run on your primary keyword. Bigger grids and additional keywords on request.
Radius set to match how far you actually travel
Re-scanned on schedule
Same grid, same keyword, same radius every month, so movement is comparable rather than anecdotal.
Included in every retainer
Competitor named
Where you are losing a square we tell you who is winning it, which usually explains what to fix next.
Often reveals spam listings worth reporting
Geo-fencing
Two different things people call geo-fencing.
Worth separating, because one is free measurement and the other is paid media. Agencies routinely sell the second while describing the first.
Geo-grid tracking
Measuring where your profile ranks across a mapped area. Costs nothing to act on beyond the optimisation work itself, and it is how we prove the retainer is working.
- What it does — Shows visibility decay by distance from your pin
- What it costs — Included in every plan, no media spend
- What it fixes — Tells you which areas to build citations, content and reviews for
- Who it suits — Every local business, without exception
Geo-fenced advertising
Drawing a boundary on a map and only showing ads to people inside it. A radius around your locations, a custom polygon around a neighbourhood, or an area around a competitor or venue.
- What it does — Restricts ad delivery to defined areas and excludes the rest
- What it costs — Media spend, billed to your own ad account
- What it fixes — Wasted budget outside the area you actually serve
- Who it suits — Multi location, footfall driven, and event or seasonal campaigns
Radius and polygon
Circles rarely match a real service area. We draw polygons around the postcodes and neighbourhoods you actually want, and exclude the ones that generate enquiries you cannot service.
Cuts waste before it improves anything else
Competitor and venue
Targeting a boundary around a competitor's location, a trade show, a retail park or a stadium. Effective for footfall businesses, and worth knowing the limits before you plan around it.
Not permitted around sensitive locations
Bid adjustment by area
The version most businesses should actually use. Rather than excluding areas outright, bid more where your close rate is higher and less where jobs are marginal.
Usually beats hard exclusion on lead volume