Google Business Profile: the highest-return hour a local business can spend

If your business serves anywhere local — a town, a region, “within an hour of here” — one free listing routinely out-earns entire marketing budgets: your Google Business Profile. It's what puts you on the map panel when someone searches “CBT therapist Sheffield” or “coffee roaster near me”. Here's the one-hour version, done properly.

Minutes 0–10: claim and verify

Search your business name on Google. If a panel appears, claim it (“Own this business?”); if not, create it at google.com/business. Verification is usually a postcard, video or phone step — start it today, since it can take days.

Minutes 10–30: complete every field

Category (be specific: “Cognitive behavioural therapist”, not “Therapist”), services with descriptions, hours, the areas you serve, and a link to your website's most useful page — the booking or contact page, not always the homepage. Businesses with complete profiles show up more and convert better; empty fields are visibility left on the table.

Minutes 30–45: real photos

Your face, your premises or workspace, your product. Phone photos in good light beat no photos by a mile, and they beat stock by more — people are checking you're real before they call.

Minutes 45–60: the review engine

Find your review link (Profile → “Ask for reviews”) and put it where the asking happens: the bottom of your handover or thank-you emails, a follow-up text after a job. Ask every happy customer, one at a time, personally. Never buy or fabricate reviews — it's against UK consumer law and Google's rules, and one flagged review can taint the lot. A steady trickle of real ones is the goal.

Then: ten minutes a month

Reply to every review (including the awkward ones — politely, briefly), add a photo now and then, keep hours current. That's the whole maintenance job.

Local visibility is one of the checks in the marketing audit, and Google Business Profile setup is included in our Complete site build. Questions about your specific setup? The 20-minute call is free.