This is free, it takes five minutes, and for a lot of trades it does more than a new website would. Do it before you spend a dollar with anyone, including us.

Key facts

Setting the Google Business Profile primary category to the exact trade (Plumber, Electrician, Locksmith) does more than any other field for appearing in the map results.
Service areas should be the named suburbs a tradie actually works in, not a radius; a profile claiming fifty suburbs ranks nowhere in particular.
A tradie who drives to customers should set up as a service-area business and hide the street address, which is what Google asks of a business without a shopfront.
Google verifies a claimed profile by a method it chooses, often a short video of the van, the tools and the work area; do it the day it asks.
Stuffing keywords into the business name is the fastest route to a suspended profile; use the name on the van and the invoices.
Bought, family or self-written reviews are removed by Google and count as misleading conduct under the Australian Consumer Law.
The profile and the website must carry the same business name, phone number and suburbs; when they disagree, Google trusts neither.

Search your trade and your suburb on a phone. Before any website, Google shows a map with three businesses in it. That box is where local work comes from, and getting into it is decided mostly by settings you control.

The five minutes

Primary category. Search `google.com/business`, open your profile, and check it says exactly what you do — "Locksmith", not "Security service". This single field does more than everything else on the list.
Service areas. Add every suburb you actually work in. Not a 50 km radius — the named suburbs. Ten is fine.
Hours, honestly. If you take after-hours calls, say so. If you do not, do not say you do: a missed call at 9pm on a profile that claims 24 hours earns a one-star review.
Services list. Add every job type separately. Each one is a phrase somebody searches.
Photos with real names. Five photos of actual jobs, saved as something meaningful before you upload — a van shot named after your trade and suburb beats `IMG_2049.jpg`.

If you only do one of these, do the primary category. A wrong category is the most common reason a good business is invisible in its own suburb.

If you have never claimed it

Search your business name on Google Maps. If a listing is there already — Google makes them from directories and old records — look for "Own this business?" and claim it. If nothing is there, go to `google.com/business` and add it. Either way Google will want proof that you are real, and it picks the method: often a short video of your van, your tools and where you work; sometimes a phone call; occasionally a postcard. Do it the day it asks. A profile that sits unverified for weeks is one your customers cannot find you on.

Use the name that is on your van and your invoices. Not "Dave's Plumbing — Emergency Plumber Geelong 24/7". Google treats the extra words as an attempt to game the map and can suspend the profile for it, and a suspended profile is worse than none.

Categories: the one field that does the work

The primary category is what Google matches against the search. It has to be the trade, exactly: Plumber, Electrician, Locksmith, Landscaper, Builder. Then add secondary categories for the jobs you also do — a plumber who installs hot water systems adds the hot water category; a locksmith who cuts car keys adds that one. Only the ones you genuinely do. A category you cannot deliver on earns a bad review, not a job.

Service areas, not a radius

If you drive to the customer, set the profile up as a service-area business and hide the street address: nobody needs to see your home, and it is what Google asks of a business without a shopfront. Then list the suburbs by name. The ones you actually take jobs in, not the whole city; a profile that claims fifty suburbs ranks nowhere in particular. Ten suburbs you would happily drive to is a good list, and it should match the suburb pages on your website word for word. Suburb pages that work explains why the two have to agree.

The description and the services

Write the description the way you would say it to a customer on the phone: what you do, where, and what makes you easy to deal with. Licensed, insured, the years you have been at it if you are proud of them. No list of suburbs jammed into one sentence, no "best", no "number one": Google ignores it and customers do not believe it.

Then the services list. One entry per job type, with a line of plain English under each saying what it is. Every entry is a search somebody types. "Blocked drains", "Switchboard upgrade", "Lock rekey" are the words. "Solutions" is not.

Photos that do the job

Real ones. The van with the name on it, you at a job, the finished work, a before and after when the difference is obvious. Five to start, then one whenever you remember. Name the files before you upload them: a photo named after your trade and suburb tells Google something, and `IMG_2049.jpg` tells it nothing. Stock photos of a smiling model in clean overalls do the opposite of what you want. Customers can tell, and they wonder what you are hiding.

Hours, phone, website: the boring fields that lose jobs

Hours. The hours you answer the phone, not the hours you would like to. If you do after-hours call-outs, say so and mean it. A profile that says 24 hours and goes to voicemail at 9pm earns the review you do not want.
Phone. Your mobile, the one that rings in your pocket. Not a diverted landline you check on Fridays.
Website. If you have one, link it. When the site carries the same details as the profile — same business name, same number, same suburbs — Google trusts both more. When they disagree, it trusts neither.

Questions, posts and the rest

The profile has a questions section that anyone can write in, including you. Put the three questions customers always ask — is there a call-out fee, do you work weekends, do you do emergency jobs — and answer them plainly. Posts are optional: a short one when you have something real to say, like a new service or holiday hours, is plenty. Nobody has ever hired a tradie because of a weekly post.

What not to do

Do not stuff keywords into the business name. It is the fastest route to a suspension.
Do not buy reviews, ask family for reviews, or review yourself. Google removes them, and in Australia a fake review is misleading conduct under the Australian Consumer Law.
Do not open a second profile because the first one is a mess. Fix the first one; two profiles compete with each other.
Do not use a PO box or a serviced office you are never at. A service-area business with a hidden address is the honest setting.
Do not claim hours or services you cannot deliver. Every one of them is a future one-star review.

How to tell it worked

Give it a couple of weeks, then search your trade and a suburb you listed, on a phone, from that suburb if you can, in a private window so Google is not showing you what it thinks you want. If you are in the map box, it worked. The profile also has a performance section that shows calls, direction requests and website taps. Look at it once a month, not once a day.

What it will not fix

A profile alone does not close anyone. When somebody taps through, they land on whatever you have got, and if that is nothing — or a page from 2014 — you have paid for the lead with your time and lost it at the door. That is the part we build, and setting the profile up properly is one of the four things we do.

After the five minutes

Reviews are what keep the profile moving, and there is a way to ask for them that does not make you feel like a nuisance: getting reviews without being a pest.

Fix your Google Business Profile in five minutes