I Googled My Business and Couldn't Find It. Now What?

GSL Media Insights — Issue #1

You do it without thinking.

You need a plumber. You're looking for somewhere to eat. You want to know whether the hardware store is still open. You pull out your phone and search.

Then one day, out of curiosity, you search for your own business.

And you can't find it.

Or maybe you find it eventually—but it's sitting underneath several competitors you're pretty sure aren't doing anything dramatically different from you.

Usually, that's not a glitch. It's the result of a local search system most business owners have never had much reason to understand, even though that system can influence which businesses potential customers discover when they're ready to call, visit or buy.

So if your business isn't showing up, where do you start?

Here's the distinction that trips up a lot of business owners:

Having a website is not the same thing as being discoverable.

Your website is one part of your online presence. For businesses serving local customers, your Google Business Profile is another important piece.

Your Business Profile gives you direct control over information Google can use when displaying your business in Search and Maps—things like your business category, hours, location or service area, phone number, photos and other details.

When Google determines which businesses to show for a local search, Google says its local results are primarily based on three factors:

Relevance: How well does a business match what the person searched for?

Distance: How far is the business from the location used in the search?

Prominence: How well-known or established does the business appear to be?

You can't optimize your way around geography. If somebody is looking for a coffee shop in Dublin, Ohio, a coffee shop 20 miles away in downtown Columbus probably isn't going to become the best local result simply because somebody worked on its profile.

But relevance and prominence give business owners more to work with.

Google says complete and accurate business information can make a business more likely to appear in relevant local searches. Reviews, ratings, links and other information can also contribute to how Google evaluates prominence.

That doesn't mean there's a secret checklist that guarantees the top position.

There isn't.

In fact, Google explicitly says there is no way to request or pay for better local ranking.

That's why I'd be skeptical of anyone promising you otherwise.

You don't need a pile of impressive-sounding statistics to understand why this matters.

One useful data point comes from a Backlinko study examining Google search behavior. The study found that 42% of people searching for local terms clicked a result inside Google's Map Pack—the group of local business results Google displays alongside a map for many location-based searches.

That's significant because some of the competition for a local customer can happen before that customer ever reaches an individual business website.

Google's own guidance is simpler: businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to appear in local search results.

That does not mean completing your profile guarantees a top-three position.

It means something much more practical:

If Google doesn't have accurate and useful information about your business, you're making it harder for the system to understand when your business might be relevant to someone's search.

And that's something you can actually do something about.

If I owned a local business and couldn't find it when searching Google, I wouldn't spend money on advertising yet.

I'd first make sure I wasn't unnecessarily difficult to find for free.

Specifically, I'd check five things.

1. Is the Google Business Profile claimed and verified?

Start with ownership.

If the profile hasn't been verified, or you're not sure who controls it, solve that first. You want legitimate control over the information representing your business.

2. Is the business information complete and accurate?

Look at the profile the way a customer would.

Are the hours correct?

Is the phone number correct?

Is the address or service area accurate?

Does the website link work?

Are applicable attributes and other business details filled out?

This sounds painfully basic, but that's exactly why I'd start here. There's no point thinking about sophisticated local-search tactics while Google is working with incomplete or inaccurate information.

3. Do the categories accurately describe what the business actually does?

Your primary category helps describe the core nature of your business. Additional categories can provide more context about other services you legitimately offer.

Don't choose categories because you think they'll magically produce rankings.

Choose the most accurate categories available for the business you actually operate.

If Google misunderstands what kind of business you are, matching you with the right searches becomes harder.

4. Does the profile visually represent the real business?

Add genuine, useful photos.

Depending on the business, that might mean the storefront, interior, team, products, completed work, equipment or other things that help a potential customer understand what they're considering.

There's no magic number of photos I'd tell every business to upload.

The better question is:

If I'd never heard of this company before, would these photos help me understand and trust it?

That's the standard I'd use.

5. Are you actually managing your reviews?

Don't treat reviews as something that happens to your business.

Pay attention to them.

Respond professionally to positive reviews. Respond appropriately to negative ones. Look for recurring themes in what customers are telling you.

Google says reviews and positive ratings can contribute to local prominence, but there's an equally important reason to care about them:

Potential customers read them.

Your profile isn't only communicating with an algorithm. It's communicating with a person deciding whether to trust you with their money.

If those five things are already in good shape and you're still struggling to appear for searches that genuinely match your business, then I'd start looking competitively.

What businesses are appearing?

How established are they?

What categories are they using?

How strong is their overall web presence?

What do their reviews look like?

Are there differences between searches conducted from different locations?

That's the second conversation.

Don't jump there before having the first one.

Before spending money trying to get seen, make sure you're not unnecessarily difficult to find for free.

You can't control every factor that determines where your business appears on Google. But you can give Google—and the customer searching through it—accurate, useful information about who you are, what you do and why you're worth considering.

If this was useful, forward it to a business owner who could use it.

Want an outside look at your own Google Business Profile? Visit GSL Media's Free Business Visibility Audit.

Sources: Google Business Profile Help, Tips to improve your local ranking on Google; Google Business Profile Help, Manage photos or videos for your Business Profile; Backlinko, How People Use Google Search (New User Behavior Study) (backlinko.com/google-user-behavior).