Google Business Profile for Tradies
Your Google Business Profile is what shows up when someone searches your trade and their suburb. It's free, it takes an afternoon, and for most trade businesses it out-performs everything else they pay for.
When someone needs a sparky at 7am, they type their trade and their suburb into a phone and ring one of the businesses that appears on the map. That listing is a Google Business Profile, it costs nothing, and a surprising number of trade businesses either haven't claimed theirs or set it up years ago and never looked at it again. This guide covers claiming it, filling it out so it works, and the handful of things worth doing to it every month.
Doing this job for a living? See job management in ServiceYak.
What it is and why it matters most
A Google Business Profile is the listing that appears in the map results and in the panel beside search results — business name, phone number, hours, photos, reviews, directions. It's the same thing that used to be called Google My Business, and it's free.
For a trade business it's the highest-value thing you can set up, for three reasons:
- It's local by design. People searching for a trade are searching for one near them, and a map listing is built around exactly that.
- It's where your reviews live. For most clients, your review count and rating are the deciding factor, and this is where they see them.
- It's the check on a word-of-mouth referral. Even the client who was given your name will look you up before ringing. If nothing comes back, that's a problem.
If you get all your work by word of mouth and you're wondering whether this is worth an afternoon — it is, precisely because of that. A referred client who searches your business name and finds nothing has just been handed a reason to hesitate.
Claiming and verifying the listing
- Search your own business name first. A listing may already exist — Google generates them from other sources, and a previous owner or a well-meaning client may have created one. If it's there, claim ownership rather than creating a duplicate. Duplicate listings split your reviews and confuse the whole thing.
- Create the profile if there isn't one. You'll need a Google account. Use one tied to the business rather than a personal address you might lose access to, and make sure more than one person in the business can get into it.
- Verify it. Google will ask you to prove the business is yours. The available methods change and not all of them are offered to every business — work through whatever it presents. Nothing you enter goes live properly until verification is done, so don't stop halfway.
- Set it as a service-area business if you don't have a shopfront. Most tradies work out of a ute, not a premises. You can list the suburbs or regions you service without publishing your home address, which is what you want if the business runs out of your house.
Filling it out so it actually works
A half-finished profile is worse than useless — it appears, and then it fails to answer the two questions the person has: can you do this, and can you do it here.
| Field | How to fill it |
|---|---|
| Business name | Your actual trading name, matching your signage and invoices. Google's guidelines have long prohibited stuffing keywords in here — check the current rules before you get creative |
| Primary category | The one that best describes your main trade. This does more work than almost any other field |
| Additional categories | Your genuine secondary services. Don't list things you don't do — it draws enquiries you have to knock back |
| Service area | The suburbs or regions you'll actually travel to. Be honest; jobs an hour out rarely pay for the drive |
| Hours | What you really answer the phone between, plus public holidays. Wrong hours generate calls you miss and clients who give up |
| Services list | Name specific jobs — switchboard upgrade, blocked drain, ducted install — not just your trade |
| Description | A few plain sentences on what you do, where, and what makes you worth ringing |
| Photos | Real, well-lit photos of finished work, the ute and the crew. Not stock images |
Keep the same business name, address and phone number everywhere else you appear — your website, your directory listings, your social profiles. Inconsistency between them is a common and completely avoidable problem.
Reviews are the part that decides it
Two plumbers appear in the same map result. One has a handful of reviews from three years ago; the other has a steady run of recent ones. The second one gets the call, and the difference in what they can charge follows from that.
- Get your review link out of the profile and save it somewhere you can reach on the job — it's a short link you can text.
- Ask at the end of the job, while they're standing in front of the work and pleased with it.
- Respond to every review, good and bad. A calm, specific reply to a complaint reads better to the next reader than the complaint does.
- Keep them coming steadily. A long-dormant profile with old reviews reads as a business that may not exist any more.
Never buy reviews or write your own. Fake reviews are easy to spot, they can get a listing penalised or removed, and losing the profile costs you the channel entirely.
The monthly ten minutes
Most of the value comes from setup. The rest comes from not letting it rot. Once a month is enough:
- Add a few photos from recent jobs. It's the easiest way to keep the listing current.
- Answer the questions people have posted. Anyone can answer a question on your listing, including someone who's wrong — so get in first with the ones you're asked constantly.
- Reply to new reviews.
- Check the details haven't been changed. Google accepts edits from the public and from other sources, and hours or categories can shift without you doing anything.
- Look at the stats. The profile reports how people found you and what they did — calls, direction requests, website clicks. It's the cheapest marketing data you'll get.
The other free tools worth twenty minutes
- Google Search Console — if you have a website, connect it. It shows what people searched before they landed on your site, which tells you which services to talk about more.
- Bing Places — smaller audience, but it's free and takes ten minutes, and there's less competition in it.
- Apple Maps — worth claiming for the same reason. A lot of iPhone users never leave it.
- Local directories — pick two or three that are genuinely used in your area rather than signing up to twenty. Keep the details identical to your profile.
Point the enquiry link on your profile somewhere the enquiry actually gets caught. In ServiceYak, a web enquiry becomes a record you can quote from, so the lead your listing generated doesn't die in an inbox on a busy week.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a business address for a Google Business Profile?
No. If you work out of a vehicle rather than a shopfront, set it up as a service-area business and list the suburbs or regions you cover. Your home address stays hidden, which is what most tradies want.
How long before a new profile starts bringing in calls?
Expect weeks rather than days, and expect it to build as reviews and photos accumulate. It's worth being patient with — unlike advertising, it doesn't stop the moment you stop paying.
Should I put keywords in my business name to rank better?
No. Google's guidelines have long required the name field to be your real trading name, and listings that break the rules can be suspended. Use the categories and services fields for what you do — that's what they're there for.
What do I do about a bad review?
Reply to it, calmly and specifically, and take the detail offline. The reply is written for the next person reading it, not for the reviewer. A measured response to an unfair review often does you more good than the review does harm; an angry one does the opposite.