A new client I onboarded a few months back mentioned almost in passing that a customer had called him to complain. The customer had driven to his business, couldn’t find it, and ended up going elsewhere.
He’d moved premises fourteen months earlier.
When I pulled up his Google Business Profile, the old address was still sitting there, clear as anything. His hours were wrong too. He’d changed to an 8am start when he moved, but the profile still showed 10am. And he’d had no idea. Nobody had told him to check it. He’d set it up years ago and assumed it just sat there doing its job.
That one outdated address had been quietly sending customers to an empty building for over a year.
Most local service business owners still think of their Google Business Profile the way they think of a phone book listing. You put your details in once and that’s it, done. But the way people choose who to call has changed significantly, and your profile is doing a lot more work than it used to.
When someone searches “plumber near me” or “electrician in Subiaco”, Google doesn’t just hand them a list of names and numbers anymore. It shows reviews, photos, recent posts, questions other customers have asked, and increasingly an AI-generated summary that quietly decides who looks like the safest bet. Your profile is the audition. And right now most local business owners haven’t looked at theirs properly in months, sometimes years.
You don’t need to be technical for any of this. Pull your profile up on your phone the way a customer would see it, and work through these.
1. Your categories. Your primary category is one of the strongest signals Google uses to decide which searches you show up for. Make sure it actually reflects what you do, and add relevant secondary categories. A plumber who also does gas fitting should have both listed.
2. Name, address and phone number. Check these match your website and every other listing you have, exactly. Even small differences like “St” versus “Street” can create confusion for Google and send customers somewhere wrong.
3. Your reviews, and your replies. Reviews are the heart of the trust page. But replying to them matters as much as having them. A genuine reply to a good review and a calm, measured response to a difficult one both tell future customers exactly how you treat people.
4. Photos. Profiles with recent, real photos get more clicks and more calls. Not stock images. Your actual work, your team, your van, your premises. Add a few new ones. It makes a real difference.
5. The Q&A section. Anyone can ask a question on your profile, and anyone can answer it, including people who don’t work for you. Check what’s there, answer anything that’s been left hanging, and add a few common questions yourself with your own answers.
6. Your services and description. Spell out exactly what you offer, in the words your customers actually use. This feeds both local search and the AI summaries that increasingly appear alongside your listing.
7. Google Posts. These are the short updates that show on your profile. A recent job, a service reminder, something timely. A profile that’s posted recently looks alive and active. One that last posted two years ago looks like it might not even be trading. We cover what to post and how often in Google Posts: The Free Local SEO Feature Most Perth Businesses Ignore.
You’ve probably noticed AI creeping into search results. When Google or an AI tool puts together a recommendation of local businesses, it leans heavily on the same trust signals that are sitting in your Google Business Profile. Complete information, consistent details, real reviews, genuine expertise.
This is the part most people miss. You don’t need a separate AI strategy for your local business. The trust and expertise signals that matter, what Google calls EEAT, are the same ones that have driven local search for years. Your Google Business Profile is one of the most important pieces of that picture, and a profile that’s current and complete is doing double duty, helping you in traditional search and in AI-generated results at the same time. We cover the full EEAT picture in Why EEAT Matters for Your Local Service Business.
One of the most common things I see with businesses that come to us after a difficult run with a previous agency is messy details scattered across the web. Old phone numbers, three different versions of the business name, an address from two offices ago. Google notices that kind of inconsistency, and so do customers who end up somewhere they didn’t expect to be.
Sorting it out isn’t the most exciting work, but it’s some of the highest-value SEO you can do as a local service business. It quietly removes the doubt, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that should be looked after properly rather than left to chance.
We fixed his address and hours the same afternoon we spoke. Within a few weeks his profile views had climbed back up and he’d had two new customer enquiries mention they’d found him through Google Maps. Not a difficult fix. Just one that nobody had pointed out to him.
If you’d rather have someone keep an eye on this for you, that’s exactly what we do at Blue Cherry. Come and say hello on Instagram @bluecherryonline, or find out more about how we help local businesses get found at bluecherry.com.au.
Karen Dauncey has been working in SEO since 2003 and is a recognised expert in Local SEO for professional and service-based businesses across Australia.
She is the founder of Blue Cherry Online Marketing, a Local SEO and Google Ads agency she established in 2008. Through Blue Cherry, Karen has optimised over 1,000 websites and managed millions of dollars in Google Ads spend, giving her a deep understanding of what drives visibility and enquiries for service businesses in a constantly evolving search landscape. Over the past two decades, she has worked with a wide range of local service businesses including trades, allied health, psychologists, childcare centres, naturopaths, accountants, lawyers and many more.
Karen is also the creator of The SEO School, an online SEO course designed to teach business owners how to take control of their own SEO. She regularly delivers educational programs for Local, State and Federal Government and was an advisor for the ASBAS Digital Solutions Program. Her passion for making SEO accessible drives everything she does, from free resources to hands-on training.
Karen has attended search engine conferences in London, Stockholm, Adelaide and Sydney, and was invited to attend a pilot Business Coaching Course at Google's Head Office. She holds a Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK.
She is also the co-owner of the Digital Experts Directory, an online directory for female service-based businesses.
To keep up to date with the latest in SEO, join her Facebook group The SEO School Community or follow her on Facebook or LinkedIn.
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