Do I show up nearby?
For a plumber, a dentist or a cafe, this question is worth more than any other on any platform. Someone two suburbs away picks up their phone at eight in the evening and types "emergency plumber". Google shows them a handful of businesses on a map, with star ratings and a call button. If you are one of them, the phone rings. If not, you never find out the call happened.
Your Business Profile is the listing behind that moment. It appears in Google Maps and in the local results above the ordinary blue links, and for a local service business it is often the biggest source of calls, ahead of the website. You cannot buy a place: the local results are not an auction, and your only levers are a complete profile, genuine reviews and steady activity, which is slower than paying but far cheaper.
Your website is where people check you out. Your Business Profile is where they find you, and often where they call from, without the website ever loading.
How the local results work
Three stages, and only the middle one is Google's: the customer has a problem, Google ranks, and your listing takes it from there.
New custom
Discovery searches: someone searched for the service, category or a landmark. They did not know your name, and Google introduced you.
Existing custom
Direct searches: someone typed your business name or address. They already knew you and wanted your number or hours.
That split is the most useful thing on this page, and most people never look at it. The two halves answer different questions. Discovery tells you whether your marketing is creating demand, because each of those people was a stranger now looking at your photos. Direct tells you whether existing demand can find you, a question about signage, word of mouth and correct hours, not reach.
The three ranking factors are not equal levers. You cannot change distance without moving. You change relevance by naming your categories and services exactly, so your profile actually says "emergency plumbing". Prominence is the one that moves with effort, and it is mostly reviews and completeness.
What a customer sees
This is the whole product
No website, no advertising budget: a photo, a rating, a phone number, opening hours and the area served, each a field you fill in once.
The buttons are what the next section's numbers count. Call, Directions and Website are the actions; everything above them earns the right to be shown.
Google Search, September 2026. Names and contact details are examples.
The two numbers worth reading
The Performance report is short enough to read in a minute. It covers what happened on the listing itself, so it stops when somebody leaves for your website or picks up the phone. Two numbers carry almost all of it, and each has a breakdown that says more than the total.
1Views
How many people saw my listing?
1,240 in a month
Views are counted twice over: by where the listing appeared, and by what the person searched for.
Where they saw it
What they searched for
2Actions
What did they do about it?
173 14 per 100 views
Actions are the closest thing on the platform to a customer. Each kind is a different strength of intent, so read them apart.
What they did
Read the two as one sentence and you have the month: this many saw us, mostly on Maps and mostly strangers, and this many did something about it, mostly by phone. Reviews sit outside the Performance report but shape both numbers: the count and rating decide whether you are shown, and whether a stranger acts.
Views tell you Google is showing your listing. Actions tell you the listing is doing its job. They are different problems with different fixes.
Setting it up
Five steps. The first four take an afternoon; the fifth never finishes, which is the point.
- 1Claim the profile and verify the business
Search for your business name first, because someone else may have created a listing. Claim it, then verify: usually a postcard to the address, sometimes a phone call, increasingly a short video of the premises and your tools. The form takes minutes; verification takes days.
15 min, plus days - 2Complete every field, especially the exact ones
Primary and secondary categories, because they decide which searches you are eligible for. Service area, if you travel to customers. Opening hours including holiday overrides, the field most often wrong and the one that can cost a whole busy weekend.
30 min - 3Add real photos
The actual premises, van and team, and a few pieces of finished work. Stock images read as stock and do nothing for prominence. A dozen honest phone photos beat three polished ones of somebody else's kitchen.
20 min - 4Set up the action you actually want
Decide what a good outcome is and make it easy: the call button for a trade, a booking link for a clinic, a quote form for a builder. Then check the number and link on your own phone, because a wrong digit is invisible and expensive.
10 min - 5Ask your next five happy customers for a review
Ask when the job is done, with a short link, and ask five people rather than fifty. Then reply to every existing review, the good ones briefly and the bad ones calmly. The next customer sees both the asking and the replying.
Ongoing
Three things beginners misread
The wrong read
"We had 1,240 views last month, so 1,240 people were interested in us."
The right read
"Our listing appeared 1,240 times and 173 people did something about it. The other 1,067 scrolled past."
Misread one
Views are not customers
A view is your listing appearing on a screen, usually beside two or three competitors. Actions are what matter: each is a person who chose you over the businesses either side.
It matters most when the two move apart. A profile with rising views and flat calls has a listing problem, not a visibility problem: Google shows you plenty and people pick someone else. That is nearly always photos, reviews or hours, fixed on the profile, not by being seen more.
The wrong read
"Views are up 30% since the rebrand, so more people are finding us."
The right read
"Views are up 30% and discovery fell from 61% to 44%. More people are looking us up by name. Fewer strangers are finding us."
Misread two
Direct searches are not marketing success
Direct searches are people who already knew your name. They are usually your best customers, but they are not evidence that your reach is growing. Word of mouth, a radio spot or a sign on a van all push direct up without a single new person discovering you.
So read the share, not the total. If discovery falls while total views rise, the chart looks like growth and is not: you are being found by people who could already find you. Discovery has to move for new custom to arrive.
The wrong read
"Analytics says Maps sent us 60 visits. The profile is a minor channel."
The right read
"The profile sent 60 visits and 118 phone calls. Analytics can only ever see the 60."
Misread three
A call from the listing never reaches Analytics
When someone taps the call button, the phone rings and the website is never involved. Nothing loads, no tag fires, and Google Analytics cannot know it happened. The same is true of a direction request, which sends a customer to your door with no digital trace on your side.
Judging the profile by website traffic therefore undercounts it badly, often by more than half. Calls are counted in one place only, the Business Profile Performance report, so open it rather than assume analytics is the whole picture.
In Clearly
Google Business Profile is not connectable in Clearly yet. The connector is built and tested and is waiting on Google to approve our access: our first application was declined and we have resubmitted. Until then, you can connect Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Merchant Center and your own Google Sheets. Our integrations page shows the current position for every source, updated the day anything changes.
It will show the month as a local business experiences it: views split between Maps and Search, the discovery share beside the direct share, and calls, direction requests and website clicks counted as actions. In the same report as your website and search traffic, it will answer whether the people finding you nearby are the ones arriving on the site, or whether the phone does most of the work while the website takes the credit.
Keep this one
Business Profile cheat sheet
| Metric | What it is | How it is counted |
|---|---|---|
| Views | Times your listing was shown | Counted separately for Maps and Search; read apart, not as one total |
| Discovery searches | Views from people searching the service or category | Google classifies the search, not the person. These are strangers; the share is your reach |
| Direct searches | Views from people searching your name or address | Same classification, opposite meaning: existing custom finding your number |
| Calls | Taps on the call button | Counted on the listing only; never in Google Analytics, as the website is not involved |
| Direction requests | Requests for directions to your address | Counted on the listing; the strongest intent signal for a premises business |
| Website clicks | Clicks through to your site | The one action analytics can also see, so easy to overweight |
| Messages | Chats started from the listing | Only where messaging is on; slow replies visibly hurt it |
| Reviews and rating | Review count and the average of the stars | Recency counts as well as the average; your public replies are part of what customers read |
Common questions
Is Google Business Profile free?
Entirely. There is no listing fee, no cost per view or call, and nothing you can pay Google to rank higher in the local results. If somebody offers to buy you a better position on Maps, Google does not sell that. The only related paid product is a Google Ads campaign, which can place an ad above the local results but does not change them.
Do I need a shopfront?
No. A business that travels to its customers, such as a mobile mechanic or an electrician working from home, can set up as a service-area business, hide the street address and list the suburbs or radius it covers. You still verify at the real address; Google just does not publish it. Listing an address you do not operate from is the fastest route to a suspension.
How long does verification take?
It depends on the method. A phone call or email can be immediate. A video of the premises, signage and tools is usually reviewed within a few days. A postcard is slowest, commonly one to two weeks, and can go astray, in which case you request another. Nothing is public until verification finishes, so do it first.
Why did my profile get suspended?
Almost always an address or name problem: an address you do not staff, a virtual office, a name padded with keywords like "Smith Plumbing Auckland Emergency 24/7", or a sudden edit to several core fields at once. Fix the detail so the profile matches reality, then appeal through the support form with evidence such as a utility bill or a photo of the signage. Appeals are usually decided in days.
How do I ask for reviews without breaking the rules?
You may ask. Asking every customer, in person or by a short link after the job, is within Google's rules. You may not incentivise (no discount, prize draw or free coffee in exchange for a review) and you may not gate, which means asking how the job went first and only sending the happy ones to Google. Both are grounds for having reviews removed, and gating is the more common mistake because it feels sensible.
Where to go next
Open your Performance report and look at the discovery share first. If most views are direct, your listing is a phone book for people who already know you, and the fix is reach, not polish. If discovery is healthy but actions are thin, the profile is shown and passed over, and the fix is on the profile, starting with photos and review count. Either answer is worth more than the total view count at the top of the page.
The series
All nine Platform 101s, in setup order
What each platform does, what it costs, how to set it up, and what its numbers mean.