Google Business Profile for trades: the free lead source
When someone types "electrician near me" or "bathroom fitter Sunderland", the first thing on the screen is a map with three businesses on it. Those three get most of the calls. They're Google Business Profiles, they're free, and most trades either haven't claimed theirs or filled it in once in 2019 and never touched it again.
This is the highest-return hour of marketing available to a local trade. Here's how to do it properly.
Why it matters more than a website
A website is where people go after they've heard your name. A Business Profile is where people find your name in the first place — and the searcher is at the sharpest end of intent there is. Nobody searches "emergency plumber" for research. They've got water coming through a ceiling.
It also feeds everything else: your profile shows your reviews, your photos and your phone number right there in the results, so a lot of people ring you without ever visiting a website.
Setting it up right
Claim or create it. Search your business name first — Google sometimes auto-creates listings. If one exists, claim it rather than making a duplicate. Verification usually involves a postcard, phone call or video, and can take a bit of time.
Business name: your actual name. Not "Dave's Plumbing — Emergency Plumber Newcastle 24/7". Keyword-stuffing the name breaks Google's guidelines and can get the profile suspended. Competitors do it and report each other for it; don't be the one who gets caught.
Primary category is the most important field on the page. Pick the one that matches what you actually want to be called for — "Plumber", "Electrician", "Bathroom remodeler", "Roofing contractor". Then add a handful of genuinely relevant secondary categories. The primary one has far more weight than the rest, so don't waste it on something broad.
Service area vs address. Most trades don't want customers turning up at the house. You can set up as a service-area business, hiding your address and listing the towns and postcodes you cover. Be realistic — listing half the country doesn't help and can hurt. Cover the area you'd actually drive to.
Hours. Real ones. If you list 24/7 and don't answer at 11pm, you get bad reviews. If you do genuine emergency work, say so and mean it.
Phone number. The one you actually answer. And make sure your number is identical everywhere online — profile, website, directories, Facebook. Inconsistent details across the web is one of the classic things that holds local rankings back.
Description. A few plain sentences on what you do, where, and what makes you worth ringing. Written for a human, mentioning your trade and your area naturally.
Services and attributes. Fill in the individual services you offer — boiler repairs, bathroom installation, EICR testing, whatever. Each one is a way of matching a search. Add attributes that apply: identifies as, on-site services, free estimates if you offer them.
Photos: the bit that gets skipped
Profiles with real photos get more clicks and calls. It's about the only thing here that's straightforwardly proven.
What to add, and keep adding:
- Finished work. The bathroom, the board, the roof. Well lit, no clutter, shot straight.
- Before and after pairs. Enormously persuasive for domestic work.
- You and the van. People are letting a stranger into their house — a face helps.
- Logo and cover image.
Take a photo at the end of every job. Two minutes, and it means you're adding fresh photos every week — which is a signal of an active business, and gives you something to post.
Skip the stock images. Everyone can tell.
Reviews: the ranking factor and the conversion factor
Reviews do two jobs: they help you appear, and they make people choose you once you have. A profile with 40 reviews at 4.8 beats one with 3 reviews at 5.0 almost every time.
The rules that matter:
- Ask everyone, every time. Consistency beats bursts — a steady trickle looks natural and keeps the profile fresh.
- Make it one tap. Google gives you a short review link. Put it in a text you send the day you finish.
- Never buy them or write your own. It's against the rules, it's obvious, and it risks the whole profile.
- Don't incentivise. Offering a discount for a review breaches Google's policies.
- Reply to every one. Including — especially — the bad ones. A calm, factual, non-defensive reply to a one-star review is read by everyone who comes after, and it reads better than the review itself.
The full method, including what to say so it isn't awkward, is in how to ask customers for reviews.
The features nobody uses
Posts. Short updates with a photo, posted regularly. "Bathroom finished this week in Gosforth." It keeps the profile active and gives searchers something current. Five minutes a week.
Q&A. Anyone can ask a question on your profile — and anyone can answer, which is a risk. Get ahead of it: post the questions you get asked constantly and answer them yourself. "Do you charge for quotes?" "What areas do you cover?" "Are you Gas Safe registered?"
Messaging. You can enable direct messages. Only do it if you'll actually reply — Google tracks response times, and an ignored message is worse than no messaging.
Booking and quote requests. Depending on category, you may be offered request-a-quote features. Same rule: only if you'll respond fast.
Insights. Check them monthly. How people found you, what they searched, how many rang or asked for directions. It'll tell you which of your services people actually want — which is useful for pricing and for your website.
What actually moves you up the map
Google's local ranking broadly comes down to relevance, distance and prominence. You can't move your customers closer, but you can affect the other two:
- Complete and accurate profile — every field filled, right primary category
- A steady flow of genuine reviews, replied to
- Consistent name, address and phone everywhere you appear online
- A website that matches — with pages for your services and your area, linked from the profile
- Regular activity — new photos, posts, answered questions
- Local mentions — being listed on genuine local sites, trade bodies, supplier directories
And one thing that undermines all of it: being unreachable. If people ring and don't get through, they don't ring back — they ring the next pin on the map, and Google notices what people do after they search.
Traps worth avoiding
- Keyword-stuffing the business name — suspension risk
- A fake address to appear in a town you want work in — it's a violation and it gets reported
- Duplicate listings — merge or remove them
- Letting hours go stale over Christmas and bank holidays
- Ignoring a bad review, or arguing with it in public
- Enabling messaging you don't monitor
- Setting it up and never touching it again — which is what most of your competitors have done, and precisely why the ones who bother do so well
Half an hour a month
Realistically that's what it takes to stay ahead locally:
- Add the photos you took on jobs
- Post once a week (or once a month, honestly)
- Reply to new reviews
- Check the Q&A
- Glance at Insights
- Check your hours are right for the month ahead
That's it. Free, and it produces exclusive leads that nobody sold to three other trades at the same time — which is the whole argument for building channels you own rather than renting them. More options in getting jobs without Checkatrade.
The part that decides whether any of it pays
All of this ends with your phone ringing, usually while you're mid-job. The profile can be perfect and you still lose the work if the caller gets no answer and no reply — and worse, a pattern of people bouncing straight off your profile back to the map isn't a signal you want to send.
Answer what you can. Make sure everything else gets a reply within a minute or two, automatically. Then the hour you spent on your profile actually turns into jobs.
QuoteSnap texts back every missed call the second it happens, so the leads your Google profile earns don't end up ringing the next pin on the map. Try it free for 14 days.