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What actually moves a Google Business Profile, and what does not.
There is a lot of confident advice about Google listings and most of it is untested. Here is what the controlled studies and Google's own guidance support, written for someone who runs a business rather than a marketing agency.
What gets you found
Your primary category is the single most important thing on the profile. "Pool Cleaning Service" and "Swimming Pool Contractor" are different lists. Pick the wrong one and you compete for the wrong search.
Completeness. Every service listed with a description, every attribute set, hours right, a real description. Google's profile signals together are about a third of local ranking weight in the annual industry survey of ranking factors, the largest single share you control.
Reviews, count, recency and your replies, are about a fifth. Nobody can shoot your reviews for you; the setup includes review request cards because asking is the only thing that works.
Distance from the searcher still dominates all of it. A business in Queen Creek will not rank in North Scottsdale no matter how good the profile is. Service-area settings matter for trades for exactly this reason.
What gets you called
Photos and video. This is where the evidence is strongest and most misunderstood. Photos do not measurably raise your ranking; controlled tests by local-search researchers found no lift. What they change is what happens after someone opens the listing. Google's own data, as analyzed across roughly 580,000 images and 45,000 businesses, shows profiles with a hundred or more photos get several times the calls, direction requests and website clicks of an average listing, and listings with a single photo get far fewer.
So photos are a conversion lever, not a ranking hack. They decide who gets the call among the three businesses shown. That is why we put a photographer on site instead of uploading whatever is on your phone.
Posts expire after seven days and keep the profile looking alive. The evidence that posting raises rankings is weak; the evidence that a dead profile loses the click is common sense.
What does not work
- Geotagging photosEmbedding coordinates in image files. Tested, debunked, and Google strips the data anyway.
- Keyword stuffingPutting "best pool builder Gilbert Chandler Mesa" in your business name or description. Against Google's guidelines and a suspension risk.
- Bought or exchanged reviewsDetected more often every year, and a suspension when they are.
- "Google certified" photographersGoogle retired its trusted photographer program at the end of 2024. There is no such certification now. Anyone claiming one is out of date or not being straight with you.
- Guaranteed top-three rankingsNobody controls distance, and nobody controls your competitors' reviews. Treat the guarantee as the warning sign it is.
Google's own video rules
Videos on a profile must be 30 seconds or less, under 75 MB, and at least 720p. Landscape displays properly; portrait is often cropped or rejected. This is why every short video we deliver comes in two formats: a vertical for Reels and Shorts, and a landscape version under 30 seconds built for the listing.
A sixty-day check
Google gives every profile owner its own numbers: views, calls, direction requests, website clicks. The setup summary tells you which ones to watch. Sixty days after a setup, compare them to the sixty days before. That is the only report that matters, and it is free.
Questions
How many photos should a profile have?
Twenty to thirty well-chosen ones to start, covering exterior, interior, people at work and the product or the finished job, then two or three new ones a week. Quantity matters less than covering every section and keeping it current.
Should a service-area business show its address?
If customers do not come to you, hide the address and set the service area. Showing a home address on a contractor listing is a privacy risk and can be a guideline violation.
How often should we post?
Weekly is the sensible rhythm, because posts expire in seven days. Four a month is what upkeep includes.
Do reviews on Yelp or Facebook help the Google listing?
Not directly, but consistent name, address and phone across those sites does, and Google reads them as confirmation the business is real. That is why the setup checks citations.
Will you tell me if my listing is fine and I do not need this?
Yes. The free audit sometimes comes back as "your profile is in good shape, fix these two things yourself." We would rather earn the next referral than sell a setup you do not need.
From the notes: What actually moves a Google Business Profile · Photos do not raise your ranking, but they do this · The primary category mistake
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