Maps & Local Listings

Why Maps behaves differently to Search

Someone searching in Maps has usually already decided what they want and is choosing between places to go. The distance to you, your opening hours and your reviews do most of the persuading, often before anyone reads a word you wrote.

That makes the listing itself the thing worth getting right. An excellent ad pointing at a thin, half-finished profile loses to an ordinary ad pointing at a complete one.

What a complete listing actually needs

Most local listings fail on the same handful of details, and all of them are fixable in an afternoon:

• Hours that are right, including holidays — nothing costs more calls than showing closed when you are open.
• A real service area if you do not have a shopfront people visit.
• Photographs of actual work, not only a logo.
• Categories chosen precisely, because they decide which searches you are eligible for at all.
• A phone number that matches the one on your website, everywhere it appears.

What we do, and what only you can do

On Growth and Pro we run the Maps advertising, and we will point out anything in your profile that is holding it back. Making those profile changes for you is Custom work. What we will never do is own the profile for you — Google ties verification to the business, and you should keep that in your name rather than an agency's. If you ever leave us, the listing leaves with you.

We also will not write or solicit fake reviews. Beyond being against Google's rules and grounds for removal, a wall of invented five-star reviews reads as invented to the exact customers you want.

Consistency is doing quiet work

The same business name, phone number and address across every place you appear seems like housekeeping. It matters twice: search engines read consistency as a signal you are a settled, real business, and customers read any mismatch as a reason to hesitate.

An old number on a directory you forgot about can cost you calls for years without ever showing up as a problem you could see.