Your Google listing

What gets read

• Whether it is claimed and verified at all
• The category it sits in, and whether that is the one homeowners search
• Hours, service area, and whether either is still true
• Photos, posts, questions, and how long since anything moved

What is a Google Business Profile?

It is the panel that appears beside search results and on the map when somebody looks for your trade near where they live. You do not build it and you do not host it. Google creates it from what it can find, and you either claim it and control what it says, or you leave it saying whatever it worked out on its own. A surprising number of established businesses have never claimed theirs.

Why am I not in the map results?

The three names shown on the map are chosen mostly on relevance, distance and how well-known the business is. Distance you cannot change. The other two you can. The common causes are dull: the listing sits in the wrong category, the service area was never set, the hours are wrong, or nothing has been touched in two years and it reads as dormant.

Do the photos actually matter?

More than almost anything else on the page, and they are the part most often left to whatever a customer happened to upload. The homeowner is trying to work out whether you do work like theirs, on houses like theirs. Finished work they recognize answers that in about two seconds. A logo and a van do not answer it at all.

How often should I post on it?

Enough that the page never looks abandoned. There is no schedule that is correct, and chasing one turns a useful signal into a chore you will drop by March. The thing to avoid is the long silence, because a listing where nothing has moved since 2024 tells a homeowner something about the business that you would not say out loud.