Why your business isn't showing up on Google (and the fix)

It's usually one of five things, and a ten-minute test on your phone tells you which. Google fills local results (the map block at the top, and the plain links under it) from your Google Business Profile plus whatever it can read about you on the rest of the web. When you're missing, one link in that chain is broken. The five causes below are in the order we'd check them, and most are fixable on a lunch break.

Run this test first#

Do it on your phone, not a laptop. Google picks local results by where the searcher is standing, and your customers search from their phones.

1. Search your business name, spelled the way it's on your sign or van. "Reyes Plumbing", not "reyes plumbing fresno llc".
2. Search your service plus your town. "plumber in Fresno" or "dog groomer near me".

If you're in neither, the problem is the profile itself: reasons 1 to 3. If you show up for your name but not the service search, Google knows you exist but doesn't treat you as an answer for "plumber": reasons 2, 4 and 5. If you show up in both with a wrong phone number or address, that's reason 3, the cheapest fix here.

Reason 1: the profile isn't verified#

Until you verify, Google won't let you edit your name or hours or interact with customers.

To check, search your business name while signed in to the Google account you used to create the profile. Google shows a management panel above the normal results, and if verification is still pending it says so right there.

Google offers verification by phone or text, email, live video call or postcard, and for some businesses a recorded video. Google says most postcard codes arrive within 14 days, so take any of the others if offered. After you submit, Google's review takes up to 5 business days. For a trade we'd pick video: show the van with the name on it and a piece of paperwork with the address.

Reason 2: the primary category is wrong#

Google's guideline is that a category should complete the sentence "This business is a...", not "This business has a...". A barbershop whose primary category is "Hair salon" is competing for salon searches it doesn't want and sitting out the "barber near me" searches it does. A plumber filed under "Contractor" has the same problem.

Select Edit profile and find the category field. The first one listed is your primary. You can add up to nine more, but Google's advice is to use as few as possible. If your test came back "name yes, service no", start here. It's a two-minute edit.

Reason 3: your name, address and phone don't match across the web#

The same guideline says the business name should be the one used consistently "on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers." Same for address and phone. When Yelp says "Reyes Plumbing LLC" at one number, Facebook says "Reyes Plumbing & Drain" at the number you had in 2019, and your own site says a third thing, Google can't be confident those are one business. Part of how it ranks you is what it can piece together from other sites, so the pieces need to match.

To find every copy, search your phone number in quotes, then your old address if you've moved. Some results are listings you set up; others are directory copies built from old data, which you can usually claim or ask to have corrected. Fix your own website first, then Facebook, then whatever else comes up.

Two more rules from the same page: use a local number you control rather than a call-center line, and don't pad the name with keywords. "Reyes Plumbing, Best Emergency Plumber Fresno" isn't your real-world name.

Reason 4: there's no website for Google or anyone else to point to#

The profile has a Website field, and Google's page on local ranking lists "how many websites link to your business" as part of prominence, one of its three ranking factors. With no site, that field is empty, there's no page for anyone to link to, and the only text describing what you do is the 750-character profile description. A competitor with a site gives Google a link from the profile and gives other sites something to link to, while you're giving it one paragraph.

The site doesn't have to be big. For most trades one page does it: phone number at the top, the services you actually offer, the area you cover, and a handful of photos of real jobs. The one-page checklist has the full list. If you don't have one, the website builder on Mr Create makes that page from a plain description of your business, puts it live at a free address, and on the Plus or Pro plan lets you connect a domain of your own. The examples page has one-pagers for plumbers, electricians, salons and a few dozen other kinds of local business.

Once the page is live, paste its full address, including the https://, into the Website field, and Google has the link it was missing.

Reason 5: the profile is under a month old#

If everything above checks out, look at when you created the profile. The waits Google puts a number on are all measured in days: verification review up to 5 business days, photos and service-area edits up to 48 hours. But the third ranking factor is prominence, and a new profile has none: no reviews, few photos, nothing on the web pointing at it. Nothing is wrong with the profile; it just has nothing on it yet, and the first month is when you fill it.

The one-hour Google Business Profile setup, in order#

Everything here lives under Edit profile, and the field names are Google's.

1. Enter the Business name exactly as it's painted on the sign or the van. Leave out the town, the slogan and "LLC" unless they are on the sign.
2. Set the primary Category to what you are, not what you also do. Add more only for services you'd take a call about.
3. Fill in the Address if customers come to you. If you go to them, remove the address and set a Service area under Location instead; Google's own examples are plumbers and cleaning services. Google allows up to 20 cities or postal codes (there's no radius option) and expects the whole area to sit within about two hours' drive of your base.
4. Enter your real Hours, and add special hours for holidays now so you don't forget in December.
5. Use a local Phone number you answer. You can add two more.
6. Paste the full URL, with https://, into Website. No site yet? See reason 4 and come back.
7. Write the Description the way a customer would describe you, up to 750 characters; skip the keyword list. "We fix leaks, clear drains and replace water heaters for homes in Fresno and Clovis. Same-day for emergencies."
8. Add the Opening date, month and year.
9. Upload Photos: a logo, a cover photo, then business photos. JPG or PNG, 10 KB to 5 MB, 720 by 720 pixels recommended. Ten phone photos of real work beat one stock image. They only show once you're verified and can take 48 hours to appear.
10. Tick whichever Attributes apply.
11. Add Social media links, one per platform, only the ones you post on.
12. Verify, if you haven't. Then close the laptop and give it a week.

Budget about twenty minutes for the fields and description, twenty for photos (mostly finding them on your phone), and the rest to start verification. After that it's Google's wait, not yours: up to 5 business days for the review, longer if you're waiting on a postcard.

Keeping it alive: posts, photos, reviews#

Posts come in three types. An Update has a description, a photo or video, and an optional button to your site. An Offer needs a title and dates, gets a View Offer button, and can carry a coupon code. An Event needs a title and start and end dates. For a trade the Update is the workhorse: one photo of a finished job and two sentences about it, once or twice a month. Offers are for a seasonal deal you'd honor, Events only if people can turn up to something. Posts older than 6 months are archived unless they carry a date range, so plan on doing this regularly rather than once.

If writing the two sentences is the part that stalls you, Mr Create's social post generator drafts the caption and an image from a one-line prompt. It doesn't post to Google for you, so you copy the text and picture into an Update.

Add a few photos every month too. Phone shots of real jobs are fine.

Reviews feed prominence directly; Google's ranking page says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. It gives you a review link and a QR code, so text the link after every job and put the QR code on the invoice. Reply to every review, by name, in a sentence or two. Don't offer anything in exchange for one. Google calls that fake content and strictly prohibits it.

Questions people ask#

How long until it shows?#

For a name search, Google gives no fixed timeline, but verification itself takes up to 5 business days after you submit, and longer if you're waiting on a postcard. The service-plus-town search depends on how many competitors have more reviews and photos than you. Do the setup, then work the posts, photos and reviews loop for a month before you decide something is wrong.

Do I need a website for the profile?#

No. The profile works and verifies without one. But an empty Website field means Google has one paragraph to go on and nothing to link to, so a one-page site is worth having for the searches that bring new customers. Does a plumber need a website? walks through which searches those are.

What if I work from home?#

It depends on whether customers come to you. If you go to them, you're what Google calls a service-area business: remove the address, set the service area under Location, and customers see the area instead of your street. If clients come to your home, for a haircut or a lesson, keep the address on the profile. Either way, keep the phone number local, and the rest of the setup list applies the same way.