Why your Google profile matters more than your website in Derby

When someone in Derby searches “plumber near me” or “hairdresser Allestree”, Google usually shows a map with three local businesses above everything else. Most people pick from that map. They never scroll to the websites underneath.

That map is built from Google Business Profiles, not websites. So a business with a thin, half-finished profile and a beautiful website often loses to a competitor with a complete profile and no website at all. If you only fix one thing this year, fix the profile.

What Google is actually looking at

Google says it weighs three things when deciding which local businesses to show:

• Relevance — how well your profile matches what was searched. This is the one most people leave money on the table with: categories left on the default, services never listed, a description that says nothing.
• Distance — how near you are to the searcher. You can’t change where you are, but you can make sure your service areas are set properly so you’re considered at all.
• Prominence — how well known you are, which includes reviews, and how consistently your details appear across the web.

Relevance is the part I can genuinely influence. Prominence I can help with, by setting up a proper way to ask customers for reviews. Distance is fixed. Nobody can guarantee where you’ll appear, and I won’t pretend otherwise.

What usually needs fixing

Almost every profile I look at has the same handful of problems:

• The primary category is wrong, or too general — the single biggest lever on the whole profile
• Services aren’t listed, so Google has no idea what you actually do
• Service areas are missing, or set to somewhere you don’t cover
• Opening hours are wrong, or bank holidays were never set
• Two or three photos, taken years ago, none of them of the actual work
• The phone number or business name doesn’t match the website
• Nobody has ever asked a customer for a review

None of it is complicated. It’s just fiddly, and it’s the kind of job that stays at the bottom of the list when you’re busy running the business.

What it costs

Fixed prices, agreed before I start. No hourly billing, no surprise additions.

• Essential Listing Setup — £149. For a profile that’s new, missing or half-finished. Details, categories, services, hours, service areas and photos all set up properly.
• Complete Profile Optimisation — £430. For a profile that already exists but isn’t pulling its weight. A full review and upgrade, including competitor research.
• Care Plan — £74 a month. Keeps the profile active afterwards — posts, photos and reviews asked for properly. No minimum term.
• Website + profile bundles — from £410. If you haven’t got a website either, both can launch together.

What I won’t tell you

I won’t tell you I can get you to the top of the map. Google decides that, and anyone promising a position is either guessing or misleading you.

I won’t buy or incentivise reviews for you either. It breaches Google’s policies and it can get your profile suspended, which is a far worse problem than the one you started with.

What I will do is make your profile accurate, complete and genuinely useful to the person looking at it, show you every change before it goes live, and tell you plainly what’s worth doing and what isn’t.