Your business isn't showing on Google Maps.
And people looking for you end up calling someone else. It's almost always your profile, its details or a listing that isn't yours. All of it can be fixed.
The short answer
Google Maps shows the businesses it trusts first. It trusts a profile that is verified, has the right category, shows the same details as the website and has recent reviews. If any of those four is missing, your business drops. And sometimes the gap is filled by a listing that isn't even a real business.
Why you're not showing up
- The profile isn't verified. It exists, but Google hasn't confirmed the business is yours. An unverified profile hardly ever appears.
- The category is wrong. If you're a plumber and the profile says "construction company", Google shows you to people looking for something else. The primary category carries the most weight.
- The phone number on the profile isn't the one on the website. It happens a lot. An old number in one place and the new one in another. Google sees two different numbers and trusts neither.
- Few reviews, or no recent ones. A profile with no new reviews looks like a business that has gone quiet, to Google and to customers alike.
- The profile is in someone else's name. A former employee set it up, or the agency you used years ago, or a relative. Nobody can edit it and nobody replies to the reviews.
- Fake listings using your town's name. "Blocked Drains" or "Locksmith" plus the name of the town, with no premises behind them. They're usually call centres that keep the call and sell it on. They take the customers who were looking for you.
What you can check yourself
- Search for your business on Google Maps on your phone, without signing in. If it doesn't come up under its exact name, there's a problem. If you've also had a notice saying your profile has been suspended, that's a different case: see what to do if Google has suspended your Business Profile.
- Search for your service plus the name of your town. Look at who comes up and whether any listing has no address or website of its own.
- Compare the phone number, address and opening hours on the profile with those on your website. They have to be identical.
- Check the date of the latest review and whether any are still unanswered.
- Audit your website in 20 seconds on the home page. The profile sends visitors to your website, and the website has to live up to it.
What can be done
- Recover access to the profile if someone else has it, or create and verify it if it doesn't exist.
- Choose the right primary and secondary categories, with the services and the area you cover.
- Make the name, phone number and address identical on the profile, on the website and in the directories where you appear.
- Set up a simple way to ask for a review at the end of every job, and reply to every one.
- Report, with evidence, the fake listings posing as businesses in your area.
- Link the profile to a website that loads fast and has a page for each service. More on why your website gets no traffic.
It works without ads
A training academy in Madrid went from 28th to 10th on Google with no ads. In September it received 107 enrolments through its website. No tricks: the website and what Google sees of it, done properly and measured every month.
If you'd rather not wrestle with this
Business Profiles come with deadlines, verifications that fail and hard-to-find forms. If you'd rather not lose afternoons to it, tell me your business name and where you work. I'll look at it and tell you what's failing and what it would take, with a fixed price before I start. If your website is also giving you trouble, see what to do if your website won't load or if your contact forms aren't arriving. I work remotely, in English, with businesses outside Spain. I don't compete on price. I compete on quality and speed.
Questions
Why isn't my business showing on Google Maps?
The most common reasons are that the profile isn't verified, that its category doesn't fit or that its details don't match the ones on your website. Google shows the profiles it trusts first. If yours has details that don't add up, it falls behind.
What do I do if someone else manages my profile?
You can request access from whoever has it, directly through the profile. If they don't reply within the time Google allows, you can claim it by proving the business is yours. It's a process with specific steps, and it pays to get it right first time.
What about fake listings using my town's name?
They are listings such as "Blocked Drains" plus the name of the town, with no real premises behind them, usually run by call centres that take the call and sell it on. They can be reported to Google with evidence. Google doesn't always remove them quickly, so the main defence is making your profile better and more complete than theirs.
How many reviews do I need?
There's no magic number. What matters is having recent reviews and replying to them. A profile whose last review is two years old looks like a business that has closed. Asking for a review at the end of every job, with a direct link, is usually enough.
Can you guarantee I'll be number one?
No. Nobody can guarantee a position on Google, and anyone who does is lying. What I can do is set up the profile and the website the way Google asks and measure how they perform every month.