A complete Google Business Profile for a tradie needs the right primary and secondary categories, accurate service areas, real photos, a steady flow of reviews, and regular posts and Q&A activity. It is free, it is the highest-leverage listing you have, and getting these basics right is what gets you into the map pack.
Your Google Business Profile is free, and for most trades it drives more calls than the rest of your website combined. It is also the listing tradies neglect most — set up once, then left half-finished. Work through this checklist and you will be ahead of most of your competitors.
Why this listing matters more than people think
When someone searches "[your trade] near me", Google shows the map pack — three local businesses — above the regular results. A complete, active profile is the single biggest factor in whether you are one of them. No ad spend involved, just the profile itself.
The checklist
- Primary category — pick the single category that matches your core trade exactly (e.g. "Plumber", not "Contractor"). This carries more weight than any other field.
- Secondary categories — add every category that genuinely applies (e.g. "Emergency plumber", "Hot water system supplier") to widen the searches you can appear for.
- Service areas — list the actual suburbs you cover, not just your home base. If you are not tied to a shopfront, hide your street address and set a service-area business instead.
- Business description — a plain, keyword-natural paragraph on what you do and where, written for people, not stuffed with search terms.
- Photos — real photos of finished jobs, your van, and your team, added regularly. Profiles with recent photos get more clicks than ones with none.
- Reviews — a steady flow of genuine Google reviews, replied to every time, good or bad.
- Posts — short updates (a finished job, a seasonal offer, a service reminder) posted every few weeks to show the profile is active.
- Questions & Answers — seed the obvious questions yourself (do you charge a callout fee, do you work weekends) so buyers get answers before they call.
- Website and booking links — point straight to a page that converts, not just your homepage, and add a booking link if you take one.
- Hours — accurate opening hours, with holiday hours updated so you are not marked "closed" during a normal trading day.
Get the category right before anything else
Category selection is worth more optimisation time than any other single field. A roofer who selects "General contractor" instead of "Roofing contractor" is competing in the wrong pool entirely. Check what your closest map-pack competitors have chosen and make sure yours is at least as specific.
Reviews are the biggest lever you control
Review count and recency both factor into map-pack ranking, and reviews are also the first thing a searcher reads before calling. A simple system — ask for a review the moment a job is signed off, send a text with a direct link, reply to every review within a day or two — does more for this listing than any other single habit.
A profile with 40 reviews from last year loses to a profile with 15 reviews from last month. Recency and consistency beat a big number sitting stale.
Mistakes that quietly cost tradies the map pack
- Leaving the service area blank or set to a single suburb when you actually cover ten.
- Never adding photos after the initial setup, so the profile looks abandoned.
- Ignoring negative reviews instead of replying calmly and professionally.
- Using a generic category to "cover everything" instead of the most specific accurate one.
- Letting a competitor use your business name in their profile description — report it, Google will remove it.
A well-run profile is free ongoing work, not a set-and-forget listing. If you would rather have someone else run it — categories, photos, review requests, posts, all of it — that is exactly what our Local SEO service does alongside the rest of your search presence.