Five things to check on your Google listing
Ten minutes, your phone, nothing to sign up for.
I’m Victor. I check Google listings for small businesses around Lewis County, and the same five things are wrong on most of them. Here’s how to check yours.
Open Google on your phone and search your business name. Tap the result with the map. If there isn’t one, stop here — go to google.com/business and claim it. Nothing below matters until you have.
1Hours.
Look for Open or Closed and a time. If it says Add hours, somebody driving past at 4pm doesn’t know if you’re there, and most people won’t call to find out. To fix it: Edit profile → Hours. Put in the real ones, including the days you’re closed. By appointment only? Pick Open with main hours and use the hours you answer the phone.
2Photos.
Count them, then look at the first one — that’s what Google shows next to your name in search. If it’s a street-view of the building, a logo, or blank, that’s your first impression. To fix it: five phone photos in daylight — the front with the sign readable, the inside, you or your crew working, the thing you make or fix, one finished job. Upload under Photos and set the front-of-building shot as the cover.
3Reviews.
Read the number next to the stars. Under ten and the stars don’t mean much yet. Then open the newest one and see if you replied — unanswered reviews look like nobody’s home. To fix it: reply to every review you have, two sentences each, old ones too. Then text your last five happy customers: “Would you leave me a quick Google review? Here’s the link: [link]” — the link is under Ask for reviews on your profile. Don’t buy reviews and don’t ask family. Google takes those down and can pull the listing with them.
4Phone and address.
Tap the number. Does your phone ring? Tap Directions and see where the pin lands. Fix either under Edit profile. Then search your business name plus your town and look at everywhere else you’re listed — Yelp, Facebook, the Chamber, Nextdoor. Same number, same address, spelled the same way, on every one. When they don’t match, Google trusts none of them.
5Category and description.
Under your name is a grey label: Plumber, Hair Salon, Contractor. Is it what you do, in the words a customer would type? General Contractor is searched; Construction Company mostly isn’t. Then scroll to About. If it’s blank, write three plain sentences — what you do, where, how long. No slogans. The words people search for are the words you say out loud.
That’s the five. Fix them and you’re ahead of most of the businesses on your street.
If you’d rather I do the whole check — these five and the other fourteen, each with its fix written out in order — that’s $128, at 1xevmedia.com/presence.
Victor Lahti · 1XEV Media · Chehalis, WA