Google Business Profile for tradespeople: 10 optimisations to get more local enquiries

Take control of your Google profile with 10 practical checks to showcase your business, simplify contact, and track local enquiries effectively.

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You finish a job, pack away your tools, and check your phone. No calls. Yet your Google profile exists, you've listed your trade, and you tell yourself it should eventually start bringing in clients.

But what does someone who finds you actually see? Perhaps an old number, opening hours left unchanged for two years, or a description that doesn't tell them if you do what they need. They won't necessarily look any further. They might just call someone else.

Before trying to appear everywhere, I suggest reviewing your profile from a customer's perspective. The idea isn't to post every day just to keep Google busy, but to ensure the information you provide makes it easy to choose and contact you. Here are the ten points I would look at, in this order.

Before we start, what can a good profile really change?

A well-completed profile helps Google and your future clients understand your business. It doesn't guarantee you the top spot. Google explains that local results depend primarily on relevance, distance, and the prominence of the business. You cannot buy a better position in these organic results; advertisements are a different matter. Understand local ranking.

What remains in your hands, however, is the quality of the information displayed and the rest of the customer journey. Someone might find you, hesitate, open your website, then come back to call you. If every step tells the story of a different business, you are making things unnecessarily difficult for them.

1. Do you have control over your own profile?

Start by searching for your business on Google and Maps. Does a profile already exist? Check if you can manage it before creating another one. Otherwise, you risk ending up with two versions of your business, one of which no one is keeping up to date. Google prévoit une procédure pour add or claim a profile.

Also, look at who has access. If a service provider handles it, the business must be able to retain control when your collaboration ends. It would be a shame to have to negotiate access to your own phone number just to correct your profile.

2. Your name or a list of keywords?

Is your business called Martin Plumbing? Keep that name. Adding "emergency plumber cheap leak repair" might seem like an easy way to climb the search results, but it is no longer the name of your business.

Google requires the name to match the one used in the real world. Cities, services, and other details have their own dedicated fields. Guidelines for representing your business encadrent notamment ce point. Your client should find the same business on your profile, your website, and your quote, not wonder if they are dealing with three different professionals.

3. Do the categories truly describe your trade?

The primary category should represent what you are, not every service you might be associated with. If you are an electrician, look for the available category that best describes that activity. Choosing a related trade simply because it seems more searched for won't make the enquiries any more relevant.

To find your bearings, you can look at the categories of competitors who truly do the same job. I don't recommend copying them blindly: their services aren't necessarily yours.

Then add a few additional categories if they match your business. There's no need to find one for every single service. Google recommends staying specific and relevant, rather than filling in every possibility. A change in category can also trigger a new verification request. Manage business categories.

4. Address or service area?

The right question is simple: do you actually receive customers at this address? A workshop open to the public and a home from which you set off for job sites are presented differently. If you visit customers at their location but don't welcome them at yours, use the service area business setting and hide your address. Service area rules also explain the case for businesses that both welcome customers and travel to them.

For the area, stay true to the travel distances you actually accept. Receiving an enquiry from three hours away isn't very useful if you have to refuse it or charge more for travel than the job itself. Specify your conditions on your website when a few town names aren't enough to explain them.

And don't open a profile for every town for a single mobile business. This doesn't create new physical locations, just more information to manage.

5. Can the customer reach you without any nasty surprises?

Call the displayed number from another phone. Open the website link on a mobile. Check the hours, including during your holidays. These are simple checks, but they matter more than a nice description if the call never goes through.

A change of number or a move must be updated quickly. Think about special hours when your usual routine changes. A customer shouldn't discover you're closed only when they arrive at your door.

If a booking button has been added by a third-party platform, test that too. Does it still offer the right service? No longer using that provider? Check your profile settings and removal options with the platform, rather than letting the button send your customers down a dead end.

6. Do your services speak your customers' language?

"Leak detection" explains a need. "Expertise and quality at the service of your comfort" doesn't really say what you're going to do.

Describe your services using the words someone would use when calling you. For the main ones, specify what is included and the situations you handle. Do you do renovations but not emergency repairs? Better to make that clear before receiving ten calls you have to turn down.

Also, review your services after a change in what you offer. An old service left on the profile will continue to be associated with you, even if you've stopped offering it.

7. What is understood by reading your description?

Your trade, your area, and your way of working should be easy to grasp. No need to repeat "tradesman" in every sentence. A description that explains the services offered provides better information than a promise to be the best professional in the region.

I suggest reading it back as if you were discovering the business for the first time. Would you know why to call them? If the answer requires guesswork, something still needs clarifying. The description is also not the place to add links or multiple promotions: Google excludes them from this field.

8. Are you showing your work or an interchangeable image?

A workshop, equipment, a finished project: your photos allow people to understand what you do before they even read the details. They don't need to look like an advertising campaign. Above all, they must be clear, representative, and show your current activity.

A few different, well-chosen images are better than a series of duplicates. Before publishing a photo taken at a client's home, check permissions and what it shows: documents, faces, or personal information shouldn't end up on your profile by accident.

Tradesperson working with tools in a joinery workshop

9. Ask for reviews, not a rating in exchange for a gift

After a job, you can send a link for the client to leave a review. Keep it simple and let them tell their story. Don't only ask people you're certain will give five stars, and don't offer a discount in exchange. Google's guidelines on soliciting reviews.

When replying, maintain the tone you would use in a professional exchange. A thank you related to the service will feel more natural than advertising text copied under every comment. And if the review is negative, address the problem without publicly exposing the contract or the client's information. Details can be handled privately.

A message is often enough: "Thank you for your business. You can share your feedback on our Google profile using this link." A reasonable follow-up is fine if they forget; badgering for a good rating is another matter.

10. You have views, but do you have enquiries?

The dashboard can show views, searches, and interactions. Not all metrics are displayed for all businesses. And the call counter measures clicks on the call button, not a list of successfully completed conversations. Understand profile performance.

These figures become useful when you compare them to what is happening in your business. Are the calls about your services? Are the people in your area? Did they find what they were looking for on the website?

If clicks to the website are increasing but no one is contacting you, open the landing page on your phone. Is the number visible? Does the form work? You know your site, so you know where to look. Your future client, however, is seeing it for the first time.

Okay, the profile is up to date. What about the website?

The profile provides the first points of reference. Your website provides the detail: services, past projects, travel conditions, and how an enquiry is handled. Ensure the linked page follows through on what the profile promises, with a contact method that's easy to find.

If you want to see how this information can be presented, the projects Ravaliso et Pavage Normand provide two examples of websites organised around specific activities and projects.

Afterwards, don't let the work sit idle until the next time your number changes. Once a month, I suggest reviewing the points that change: contact details, hours, services, new photos, reviews, and enquiries received. And after a major change, don't wait for this review to update the information.

The goal remains the same: when someone finds you, they must understand if you can help them and how to reach you. If you would like to overhaul your profile and website together, we can discuss it.