If you run a local business in Ireland and you only have an hour to spend on marketing this month, spend it here. Not on a new logo, not on social media, and not on Google Ads.
Your Google Business Profile is the panel that appears to the right of the search results and the pin that puts you on Google Maps. For most of the trades we work with, it produces more phone calls than the website does — because the call button is right there in the results, and the customer never has to visit a site at all.
And yet nearly every profile we audit is somewhere between half-finished and abandoned.
Why it matters more than you think
Roughly 46% of all Google searches have local intent. When someone searches “emergency plumber near me” or “electrician Naas”, Google shows a three-result map panel above the organic results and, very often, above the ads too.
Those three slots are decided largely by three things: how close you are to the searcher, how relevant your profile looks, and how prominent your business appears to be. You cannot do much about the first. You have a great deal of control over the other two.
The checklist
1. Claim and verify it properly
If you have never claimed your profile, there is a reasonable chance one already exists — Google generates them automatically. Search your business name and look for “Own this business?”
Verification is by postcard, phone, email or, increasingly, video. Video verification means recording a continuous clip showing your premises, your signage, your tools and van, and then yourself. It is tedious. Do it once and it is done.
2. Pick the right primary category
This is the single highest-impact field on the profile, and it is where most businesses go wrong. “Contractor” is not the same as “Electrician”. “Roofing contractor” is not the same as “Roofing supply store”.
Pick the most specific primary category that describes what you actually do, then add secondary categories for your other services. Your primary category carries far more weight than the rest.
3. Define your service area, not just your address
If you travel to customers, set your service area to the towns and counties you cover rather than relying on a single pin. A plumber based in Douglas who covers all of Cork city and county should say so.
Do not be greedy here. Listing all 26 counties when you realistically cover two dilutes your relevance and can hurt you.
4. Fill in every service, with descriptions
Under “Services”, list each job separately: rewires, EV charger installation, fault-finding, certs. Give each one a short description. This is free, it takes 20 minutes, and almost nobody does it.
5. Photos — and keep adding them
Profiles with photos get meaningfully more enquiries than those without. Add:
- Your logo and a cover image
- Exterior and interior shots if you have premises
- Your van, your team, your workwear
- At least ten photos of finished jobs
Then add a few more every month. Google reads activity as a signal that the business is alive.
6. Get reviews, and reply to all of them
Reviews are the part everyone knows about and still avoids doing. A simple system works better than good intentions:
- A short link sent by text the day after the job is finished
- A card left with the invoice
- The link saved as a shortcut on your phone
Reply to every review, good or bad. A calm, specific reply to a two-star review does more for a prospective customer’s confidence than ten five-star reviews with no response.
7. Post something monthly
Google Posts appear directly on your profile. A photo of a recent job with two lines of text is enough. It takes three minutes and keeps the profile active.
The four fields almost everyone leaves blank
In the audits we run, these are the fields that are missing on the overwhelming majority of Irish trade profiles:
- Services with descriptions — usually completely empty
- Business description — the 750-character field that lets you use your actual keywords naturally
- Opening hours for bank holidays — Google flags your profile as unreliable when hours are wrong
- Products — underused by trades, but excellent for anyone with fixed-price offerings
What to expect, and when
Local map rankings move faster than organic rankings. In our experience you typically see movement within four to eight weeks of a profile being properly completed and actively maintained, assuming reviews are coming in.
That is not a guarantee, and anyone offering you one is not being straight with you. Competition varies enormously between “electrician Dublin 2” and “electrician Leitrim”.
If you would rather not do it yourself
We set up and optimise Google Business Profiles as a standalone piece of work, or as part of every website build. It includes claiming, verification, full configuration, photo optimisation, a review generation system and monthly posts.
If you already have a profile, we will audit it for nothing and tell you exactly what is holding it back — whether or not you decide to work with us.