Guide
Why is my business not showing up on Google Maps?
Usually it is one of seven things, and six of them you can fix yourself this afternoon for nothing. Here is how to work out which one it is.
Short answer: the most common cause is an incomplete Google Business Profile — specifically an empty services section and a category that is too general. Verification, review count, service area settings and mismatched details across the web account for most of the rest.
First, make sure you're not just checking it wrong
Before you assume anything is broken: searching your own business name on your own phone, from your own driveway, tells you almost nothing. Google personalises results heavily. You are the least reliable person to test whether you show up.
Two things skew it. Google knows where you are, so your own address pulls you up the results in a way it never would for somebody across town. And it knows you have visited your own listing before.
Check it properly instead:
- Open an incognito window and search your trade + your town, not your business name
- Do it from a different part of town, or ask a customer to try it
- Search the service, not the company — nobody types your name unless they already know you
If you turn up when somebody searches your business name but never when they search your trade, nothing is broken. You are simply not competing for the searches that bring new work, which is a different problem and the rest of this page is about fixing it.
How Google actually decides who appears
Google publishes this, which almost nobody reads. Three factors:
- Relevance — how well your profile matches what was typed
- Distance — how far you are from the person searching
- Prominence — how well known your business is, which includes reviews
Distance you cannot change, short of moving house. The other two you can change this week, and most people change neither. That is the whole game, and it is much less mysterious than the industry would like you to believe.
Seven reasons you're not showing up
In rough order of how often we find each one.
1. Your profile isn't verified
An unverified profile can exist and still not appear in local results. Open your Google Business Profile and look for a verification prompt. If there is one, that is the entire answer and nothing else on this list matters until it is done. Verification usually means a postcard, a phone call, or a short video.
2. Your services section is empty
This is the most common fixable cause, and the one people are most surprised by. The services section is the field Google reads to work out which searches you belong in. Left blank, you are not losing to the businesses above you. You are not entered.
Fill it in using the words a customer would type, not the words the trade uses. Furnace repair, not HVAC solutions. Blocked drain, not drainage services. Nobody has ever typed “drainage services” into Google at eleven at night.
Profile › Edit services › Add
3. Your primary category is too general
If you are a roofer and your category says Contractor, you are competing with every trade in town for words nobody is searching. Set it to Roofing contractor. Same for Plumber, Electrician, HVAC contractor.
The category is the single strongest signal on the profile. It takes thirty seconds to change and most businesses have never touched it since setup.
Profile › Edit profile › Business category
4. You have very few reviews
Reviews are part of prominence, and prominence is one of the three factors Google names. This is not about your rating. A business with 40 reviews at 4.6 generally sits above one with 6 reviews at 5.0.
In our study of 141 local service businesses, the median review count in towns under 5,000 people was 12. In cities it was 203. If you are in a small town, the bar is far lower than it feels — getting to 25 puts you ahead of most of your competition.
5. Your service area is set wrong
If you work out of a van rather than a shopfront, you should be set up as a service-area business with your address hidden and your towns listed. Two things go wrong here: people list a radius instead of towns, or they list thirty towns they never drive to.
List the towns you actually serve. A profile claiming half the province dilutes every one of them.
6. Your details don't match across the web
Google cross-checks your name, address and phone number against other places you appear. When those disagree, it trusts you less.
This is the one nobody checks, because why would you. We audited an HVAC company recently: of 23 directories, 21 had nothing about them at all. The one that did had a company name they had dropped years earlier and a phone number one digit off — so the single place on the internet they existed was sending work to a stranger.
7. Your profile is suspended
Rare, but it happens, and it is invisible unless you look. Sign in and check for a suspension notice. Common triggers are a keyword-stuffed business name (“Dave’s Plumbing | Emergency Plumber Kelowna”), an address that is a mailbox, or an address shared with another business.
The one that isn't about ranking at all
Photos do not straightforwardly move you up the results. They do decide whether the person who found you bothers to call.
A profile with no photos reads as closed, even when you are flat out. Twelve photos off your phone, of jobs you have already finished, and it stops looking abandoned. You do not need a photographer. You need twelve photos.
What to fix first
If you only do one thing, do the second one on the list above. If you have an afternoon, do these in order:
- Check the profile is verified
- Fill in the services section, in customer words
- Set the primary category to the specific one
- Add twelve photos
- Check your hours are right for the season
- Ask your next three customers for a review, in the driveway, before you start the truck
None of it costs money. All of it takes about ninety minutes. It is the least glamorous work in the business and it is the reason the company above you is above you.
Give it time. Google does not re-rank the moment you hit save. Changes typically take days to a few weeks to settle, and a profile that has been thin for years does not become prominent in a fortnight. Do the work, then leave it alone.
What we found across 141 businesses
We went through 141 independent local service businesses across 19 towns in Canada and the US, spanning twelve trades, to see how they actually show up online. A few findings worth knowing:
- Nine in ten had obvious gaps — not subtle ones
- One in eight had no website at all, almost all of them in towns under 5,000 people
- Businesses in the smallest towns scored 42% lower than those in cities
- 97% of the sites we could check already had Google Analytics installed. Almost nobody had ever opened it
The last one is the most useful. Most local businesses are not missing tools. They are missing twenty minutes and somebody to tell them which twenty minutes matter.
See exactly where you stand
We will check your listing, your reviews, your directory details and your website setup, and tell you the two things worth fixing first. Free, before you pay us anything. If it comes back saying you are doing fine, we will tell you that too.