For a neglected Google Business Profile, our priority order is primary category, services, reviews, photos, contact options, then posts. That fixes the foundations before spending time publishing updates.
Long Google Business Profile checklists often give every task the same weight. We prefer to work in priority order. That keeps lower priority work, such as posts, from taking attention away from the profile foundations.
Our order
Category. Services. Reviews. Photos. Contact options. Posts, last.
If you have one hour, work down that list and stop when the hour ends.
1. Categories, and why this comes first
The category is Google’s answer to one question: what kind of business is this?
Google states that categories affect local ranking, and recommends choosing the most specific categories that represent the core of the business.
A useful test. Your category should complete this sentence:
This business IS a…
Not:
This business HAS a…
A hotel with a swimming pool is a hotel. It is not also a swimming pool business. A restaurant with parking is a restaurant.
What goes wrong
- Choosing something too broad, so Google has little sense of what you specialise in
- Choosing the service you want to rank for rather than what the business actually is
- Adding every vaguely related category available
That last one is exactly what Google warns against. Categories are not a keyword list and they are not an inventory of everything you offer.
Your category is not your keyword list. It is Google’s answer to what kind of business you are.
One caution. If your primary category already describes the business accurately, repeated changes are not a substitute for fixing the rest of the profile. Fix it if it is wrong, then leave it and move down the list.
2. Check your services
Eligible businesses can list the services they actually provide, grouped into categories. When a local customer searches for one of those services, Google may highlight it on the profile.
If the services section is blank, the profile itself lists none of those services. Fill it with the services you genuinely provide. If you find yourself inventing services to populate the list, you have misunderstood what it is for.
While you are in there, check the rest of the basics. A description that says something. Opening hours that are current. Secondary categories. An enquiry or booking route.
3. Reviews
Two review habits are worth checking.
Ask for reviews
If you have had no recent reviews, check whether review requests are part of your normal customer follow up. Google gives you a review link and a QR code for exactly this.
Keep the ask simple, after the service:
“Thanks for coming in today. If you have a minute, we would really appreciate your feedback on Google.”
Then hand them the link.
Do not review gate. If you ask customers for reviews, do not choose who receives the request based on whether you expect positive feedback.
Google prohibits offering incentives for reviews, and it prohibits selectively soliciting positive reviews while steering unhappy customers elsewhere. So no discount for five stars, no free product, and no quietly checking whether someone enjoyed themselves before deciding whether to send the link.
Reply to reviews
Unanswered complaints, and the same copied “Thank you!” under every positive review.
A review response has two audiences. The customer who wrote it, who is notified when you reply and can update their review afterwards. And the future customers who will read the exchange.
How to handle a bad one:
- Read the complaint properly and work out whether they have a point
- Acknowledge what happened without writing a corporate apology essay
- Correct a factual error only where it actually matters
- Never insult them, never question their character, never reveal private information
- Move the detailed resolution offline
- Keep it short
That lines up with Google’s own guidance, which asks for professional and brief responses, no personal attacks, no private information, and complicated disputes taken to private communication.
Do not try to make every bad review disappear. A page of flawless five star reviews can read as less trustworthy than a good average with a few reasonable complaints answered sensibly. Google itself notes that a mix of feedback can appear more credible.
4. Photos
Old photos, no photos, or three taken years ago on a phone.
Current photos of the premises, the work, the team, the products. Prospective customers may use current photos when comparing businesses.
5. Contact options
Check that the phone number is right and clickable, the website link goes to the correct page rather than an old one, and there is an obvious way to enquire or book.
Then test it yourself, from a phone, as a customer would.
what a website and local visibility review covers
6. Posts, and an honest assessment
Posts are useful. We would not build a strategy around them.
Google says posts can show updates, offers, events, photos and calls to action directly in Search and Maps. Google’s published local ranking guidance focuses on relevance, distance and prominence. So we treat posts as a communication feature, not a ranking shortcut.
Worth posting: a current offer, a new service, an event, seasonal opening hours, a new location, a genuine announcement.
Not worth posting: “Happy Monday from the team.”
One thing specific to Thailand
Your customers may be searching in two languages, and you may be checking the profile only in English.
A foreign owner searches the business in English, sees it appears, and assumes everything is fine. Meanwhile a Thai customer is typing something entirely different in Thai. It is worth checking the Thai searches customers actually use as well.
So when we audit a Bangkok business we do not only test beauty clinic bangkok. We look at how the profile performs for the Thai phrases customers use for those services.
This is especially worth checking for restaurants, beauty, medical, home services and other businesses searched locally.
What we would not do is stuff both languages and a pile of keywords into the business name. Google’s guidelines require the profile name to reflect the real world business name, and recommend specific categories rather than categories used as keywords.
Get the real name right, the categories right, the services complete, the photos strong, and let reviews arrive naturally in both languages.
Three things you can check tonight
1. Check your primary category
Look at the competitors who consistently appear above you and see what Google identifies them as. Then look at yours.
Ask: does this category describe what my business actually is?
Do not change it just because a competitor uses something different. But if you are clearly in the wrong category, that is worth investigating properly.
2. Look at your profile as a customer, not as the owner
Do not open the management dashboard. Search your business on Google Maps, the way a customer would.
Can you see what they actually sell? Check services, photos, reviews, opening hours, phone number, website and the booking or contact option.
If half of those are missing or wrong, you have found where to start.
3. Read your last ten reviews
When was the most recent one? Did anyone reply? Do the replies sound like a human wrote them? Are several customers mentioning the same problem?
Why this matters alongside your website
A Business Profile can give local customers your hours, reviews, photos and contact information directly in Search and Maps, sometimes without them needing to visit your website at all.
Which is why, for eligible businesses, we set up or clean up the Google Business Profile as part of the website project at no extra cost. Building a good site and leaving the Google result beside it half finished makes very little sense. It is one of the things included in every project we build.
A slow, unclear or unconvincing website undermines this work just as much as a neglected profile does. If enquiries still are not coming in once both are fixed, Why your new website is not bringing leads covers the other reasons.
