Google Business Profile Review — The Most Important Free Marketing Tool for Contractors
Visit Google Business Profile ↗Real Pricing
| Starter |
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| Free |
⚠ Completely free with no premium tier and no hidden fees. Google Local Services Ads — the 'Google Guaranteed' badge — is a separate paid product. Photos, posts, Q&A, messaging, and review responses are all free.
What It Actually Does
Google Business Profile — formerly Google My Business — is your business listing on Google. When someone searches for electrician near me, HVAC repair, or pool contractor in Denver, your profile appears in the results with your business name, photos, star rating, review count, phone number, hours, website, and directions. It also powers your appearance on Google Maps, which is how many customers find local businesses now.
The profile is free. There is no premium tier. There are no hidden fees. Everything Google offers through the platform — photos, posts, Q&A, messaging with customers, review responses, and analytics showing how people find you — is included at no cost. Google benefits from having accurate business information to show searchers, so they give you the tools to maintain it.
What makes the difference between a profile that generates calls and one that just exists is how actively you maintain it. A profile with 10 recent photos, 50 reviews, posted updates every week, and prompt responses to every review looks like an active, trusted business. A profile with one photo from three years ago, no posts, and unanswered reviews looks abandoned. Potential customers make decisions based on what they see. Active profiles win.
How to Set It Up Right
Go to google.com/business and sign in with a Google account. If you don’t have one for your business, create one. Search for your business name. Google may have already created a listing for you based on publicly available information. If it exists, claim it. If not, create it.
You will need your business name exactly as customers know it, your business address even if you work from home, the cities or zip codes you serve, your phone number, your website, and your primary business category. Pick the most specific category available. Electrician is better than Contractor. HVAC Contractor is better than Home Services.
Google will mail a postcard to your business address with a verification code. This takes five to 14 days. When the postcard arrives, enter the code on your dashboard to verify your profile. An unverified profile does not appear in search results. Do not skip this step.
Once verified, fill out everything. Upload at least 10 photos including your logo, your truck, your crew working, and before and after project shots. List every service you offer with descriptions. Set your actual business hours. Write a 750-character description of your business including your trade, service area, and what makes you different. Add five to 10 common customer questions with answers in the Q&A section.
The Weekly Routine That Makes the Difference
Post a photo every week. Project photos, before and afters, crew photos, seasonal tips. Posts expire after seven days, which is why weekly posting matters. It keeps your profile looking active. Google notices active profiles and ranks them higher in local search results.
Respond to every review within 24 hours, good and bad. A good review gets a quick thank you. A bad review gets a professional apology and an invitation to discuss it privately. Potential customers read your review responses. How you handle criticism tells them more about your business than the original review does.
Keep your hours and services updated. Holiday hours, seasonal changes, new services. Nothing frustrates a potential customer more than calling during posted business hours and getting no answer. Nothing wastes your time more than getting calls for services you no longer offer.
That’s it. Thirty minutes to set up. Ten minutes a week to maintain. And you show up when people search for your trade in your area.
From the Trenches
Google Business Profile is not optional. If someone searches for your trade in your area and your profile isn’t there, you do not exist to them. No website makes up for that. No social media presence compensates. The local search results — the map pack with three businesses at the top of the page — is where most customers click. If you’re not in those results, they’re calling your competitors.
The competitive advantage here is that most contractors set up their profile and then ignore it. They have one photo from 2019. They never post. They don’t respond to reviews. Their profile looks abandoned. Your profile, with weekly photos and prompt review responses and current information, wins by default. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be better than the other contractors in your area, and most of them are doing nothing at all.
Set a recurring calendar reminder for every Monday morning. Post one photo on your Google Business Profile. Do it for three months. Watch your calls increase. At the end of those three months, look at your competitors’ profiles and see how many of them have done anything at all. Most will have done nothing. That’s why you win.
Alternatives
- Cheaper: Nothing — it's free
- Simpler: Nothing — this is the baseline for existing online
- More powerful (and more expensive): Google Local Services Ads (paid, 'Google Guaranteed' badge, pay per call)