When someone on Hilton Head Island searches for a dentist, a plumber or a property manager, one of the first things they usually see is a map with a few businesses listed under it. Those listings come from Google Business Profile. For a lot of local businesses, the profile is where a customer decides to call, before they ever visit the website.
Here is the checklist we use when we review a profile. Work through it in order. Most of it takes an afternoon, and the rest becomes a monthly habit.
1. Claim and verify the profile
Search for your business on Google Maps. If a profile already exists, use the link to claim it. If none exists, create one through Google Business Profile.
Google will ask you to verify that you run the business. The method varies and can include recording a short video that shows your location, signage and proof that you manage the business. Follow the instructions exactly; a rushed or incomplete video can be rejected.
Use a business Google account that more than one person can reach, and add a second owner or manager. If the only owner is a former employee or a past marketing vendor, getting control back can take a long time.
2. Use your exact business name
The profile name should match your real-world name: what is on your sign, your letterhead and your website. Google's guidelines don't allow adding keywords or locations that aren't part of the name. "Smith Dental" is fine. "Smith Dental Best Dentist Hilton Head Teeth Whitening" breaks the rules, and profiles with stuffed names can be edited by Google or suspended.
3. Keep your name, address and phone consistent
Your name, address and phone number (often called NAP) should match everywhere they appear: the profile, your website footer and contact page, Facebook, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places and industry directories. Small differences add up. A suite number written two ways, an old phone number on a directory, or a previous address after a move all make your business look less certain.
If you serve customers at their homes or job sites and don't receive customers at your address, set the profile up as a service-area business and hide the street address. That is what Google's guidelines call for.
4. Choose the right categories
Your primary category has a big influence on which searches you appear in. Pick the one that describes your core business as specifically as possible: "Family law attorney" rather than just "Lawyer", or "Property management company" rather than "Real estate agency" if management is most of what you do. Then add secondary categories for other services you genuinely offer. Don't add categories for things you don't do.
5. Set hours, including holiday hours
Regular hours are easy to set once and forget. Holiday and special hours are where profiles go wrong. Set special hours ahead of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and the Fourth of July, and for any closures for weather or staff events.
A listing that says "Open" when your door is locked costs more than one lost customer. The person who drove across the island to find a dark office may leave a review about it, and they will trust the rest of your profile less. During hurricane season, update your hours as soon as you decide to close.
6. Set your service areas
Service-area businesses can list the towns, ZIP codes or regions they cover. Around here that might be Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, Okatie, Hardeeville, Ridgeland and Beaufort. Keep the list to places you actually serve. Adding far-off towns doesn't make you show up there.
Many customers think in communities rather than towns: Sea Pines, Palmetto Dunes, Shipyard, Hilton Head Plantation, Palmetto Bluff, Belfair, Sun City. Google's service area picker is built around cities, ZIP codes and regions, so names like these may not be available. Mention them in your service descriptions and on your website instead, where you have room to explain what you do there.
7. Fill in your services
The services section lets you list what you offer, with short descriptions. Use the words customers use, not internal jargon. A contractor might list deck repair, storm shutters and screened porches.
Want us to take a look?
Tell us what's going on. You'll hear back from a person who can actually fix it.
8. Add real photos, and keep adding them
Add your logo, a cover photo, the outside of your building (so people can find the entrance), the inside, your team and your work. Real photos beat stock images. Add new ones every so often, and report any customer uploads that are inappropriate or show a different business.
9. Make sure the website link actually works
This sounds obvious. Check it anyway. Open your own profile on a phone and tap the website link. Does it load? Does it go to your current site, not an old domain, an expired page or a builder's placeholder? Does it use https? If you have more than one location, does each profile link to that location's page?
A broken website link sends your most interested visitors to an error page. If your site was rebuilt or moved recently, this is the first thing to check. We check it as part of every site we launch through our web design work.
10. Keep an eye on questions
If your profile shows a questions and answers section, anyone can ask a question and anyone can answer it, including people who don't know your business. Answer questions accurately and flag wrong answers. Google has been changing how this feature works, so what you see may differ from what you saw last year.
11. Ask for reviews, and reply to every one
Reviews affect both who calls you and how you show up on the map. The simplest way to get them is to ask: at the end of a job, in a follow-up email, on a card at checkout. Your profile has a share link you can send to customers directly.
Two rules from Google's policies: don't offer anything in exchange for a review, and don't ask only the customers you expect to be happy. Either one can get reviews removed.
Reply to every review, good or bad. For a positive review, a short, specific thank you is enough. For a negative one:
- Wait until you are calm before you write.
- Thank them for the feedback and acknowledge the problem without arguing.
- Never share private details. Medical, dental and legal offices have privacy rules that apply here too.
- Offer to continue offline, with a name and a phone number.
Future customers read your reply as closely as the complaint. A calm, professional answer shows them how you treat people when something goes wrong.
12. Post updates
Profile posts let you share news, offers and events, and each one takes a few minutes. Treat posts as a way to show the business is active and answer timely questions, not as a ranking trick.
13. Check Performance every month
The Performance section (it used to be called Insights) shows how people found you, which search terms they used, and what they did next: calls, website clicks, direction requests, messages and bookings.
Look at it once a month. If calls drop, check whether your hours, categories or website link changed. If a search you care about never shows up, that is a sign you need a service entry and a page on your website for it.
Once a month, also look at your profile the way a customer would. Google sometimes applies edits suggested by the public, and you want to catch a wrong phone number before your customers do.
Your profile and your website work together
The profile gets the first click. The website answers the rest of the customer's questions and gets the call. The business name, address, phone number and services on each should match, so customers and Google see the same business either way. That is why our local SEO work treats them as one project, reading Search Console data for the website alongside the profile's Performance numbers.
Want a second set of eyes on your profile?
We help businesses on Hilton Head Island and in Bluffton set up, clean up and maintain their Google Business Profiles alongside their websites. If yours hasn't been looked at in a while, contact us or call (843) 422-2201 and we'll go through it with you.
