Getting found All posts

Your Google Business Profile is outselling your Instagram.

You spent four hours on reels this week and none on the free listing that people actually find you through. Here's the fifteen-minute fix, in the order that matters.

Megan Nakazawa · · 5 min read

Think about the last time you needed something in a town you didn't know well. A hardware shop, somewhere to eat, a place open past six. You didn't scroll Instagram. You typed the thing plus "near me" and picked from what came up.

Everybody does that. Including your customers. Including the ones who've never heard of you and are ready to buy something today.

And yet: if I ask an owner when they last posted to Instagram, the answer is usually "yesterday." If I ask when they last touched their Google Business Profile, the answer is "when I set it up," said with a slight question mark, because they're no longer sure they ever did.

Why it matters more than the feed

Social media is where you build affection over months. Your Google listing is where you catch intent, right now.

Someone searching "florist open now" is not browsing. They have an occasion, a deadline and a wallet. That is the warmest traffic that exists, it is completely free, and the only thing standing between you and it is a profile with your old hours on it and four photos from 2021.

Instagram is how people fall for you. Google is how people find you when they've already decided to buy something.

The fifteen-minute fix, in priority order

Do these in this order. The first three do most of the work.

1. Fix your hours — including the odd ones

Wrong hours are the single most expensive mistake on the whole listing, because the punishment is someone driving to a locked door and never trying again. Set your regular hours, then set special hours for every holiday and closure you already know about for the next six months. Do it once, in one sitting. Put a recurring reminder in your calendar for the start of each quarter.

2. Nail the primary category

Your primary category does more for what you show up in than any other single field. Be specific, and be specific about what you actually want to sell. "Gift shop" and "candle shop" surface for very different searches. Then add secondary categories for the rest of what you do — but guard the primary one jealously.

3. Ask for reviews, properly

Reviews affect both whether you rank and whether anyone picks you once you do. Two things most owners get wrong:

  • They don't ask. Happy customers are delighted to help and will simply never think of it unaided. Ask at the moment of delight — not in a follow-up email three weeks later. Get the short review link from your profile, put it on a card by the till, in your order confirmation, in your email signature.
  • They don't reply. Reply to every review, good and bad. Replies are public proof that a real person is paying attention. For a bad one: no defensiveness, no essay. Acknowledge, apologise for the experience, say what you're doing, offer to take it offline. You are not writing to the angry reviewer — you are writing to the two hundred people who'll read it later while deciding about you.

4. Photos, and then more photos

Add real ones, taken on your phone, this month. The outside of the shop from the direction people approach it, so they recognise it. The inside. Your actual products. You, or your team. Skip the stock imagery entirely — it reads as fake instantly and it doesn't look like the place people are about to walk into. Add a few every month; freshness counts.

5. Fill in the boring fields

Products, services, attributes, the description. Nobody enjoys this bit. Do it anyway — every field you complete is another thing you can match a search against. Write the description for a human who's never heard of you, in plain language, with the words a customer would actually use rather than the ones you use internally.

6. Post, lightly

You don't need a content strategy here. An update when something changes — new stock in, a seasonal thing, holiday hours, an event. Once a fortnight is fine and it's more than most of your competitors manage.

Members: get a score instead of a to-do list

The Google Business Profile audit in the club checks your listing against every one of these, scores it, and hands you the gaps in priority order — so you know what to fix first rather than guessing.

See what's in the membership

One thing to do today

Search your own business name on your phone, in a private window, as if you were a stranger. Look at what comes up the way a customer would.

Are the hours right? Would you recognise the shop from the photos? Is the most recent review answered? Does the category match what you most want to sell?

Whatever bothered you most in those ten seconds — fix that one thing before you close the tab. Then put fifteen minutes on next Tuesday for the rest.

None of this is glamorous and none of it will get you a single like. It'll just quietly send you people who are ready to buy, for free, every week, for as long as you keep the details right.

Want the next one in your inbox?

New posts and the odd thing worth knowing for small business owners, by email. No set schedule, no filler.

Free. Unsubscribe in one click, any time.

Read next.

Pricing

You're probably losing money on your best seller

The thing that flies off the shelf is the thing nobody ever re-prices. Here's the ten-minute check that tells you whether your bestseller is carrying the shop or quietly bleeding it.

· 6 min

Marketing

Content pillars, minus the workshop

You don't need a brand strategy day to stop staring at a blank caption box. You need four things you're willing to talk about for a year — and here's how to pick them in twenty minutes.

· 5 min