Written with a strong coffee and mild irritation at how many great businesses are invisible on Google at 10:22pm
Here’s a question — when did you last actually look at your Google Business Profile? Not just check it exists, but really look at it. Because right now, people in your city are searching for exactly what you do, Google is deciding who to show them, and there’s a very good chance you’re not making the cut.
Your Google Business Profile is completely free, takes no ad spend, and is often the single highest-converting piece of digital real estate a local business owns. I look at hundreds of NZ business profiles every year and they’re broken in the same ways every single time. The good news? The fixes take less than an hour and cost nothing. Here’s what’s actually going wrong.
The most common ways NZ businesses are killing their own Google profile
Let’s start with the one that genuinely baffles me. Someone takes the time to leave your business a five star review — they’ve gone out of their way to say something nice about you publicly — and you just ignore it. No reply. Nothing. That silence tells the next person reading your reviews two things: you don’t pay attention, and you don’t care. Replying to every review, good and bad, takes thirty seconds and tells Google and your potential customers that there’s a real, engaged human behind the business.
The second thing I see constantly — businesses have no idea how to share their Google review link. So they get a review here and there by accident but they’re never actively asking happy customers to leave one. Your review count is one of the biggest factors in whether Google shows you over your competitor. That link is sitting in your dashboard doing nothing. Start sending it.
Then there’s the basics that somehow still get missed. No website linked. No hours. No photos. From Google’s perspective an incomplete profile signals an inactive business — and it ranks you accordingly. From a customer’s perspective, if they can’t find your hours or see what you do, they’re clicking the next result. Someone else is getting that call.
Six Fixes You Need Today To Grow Your Business:
Reply To Every Review!
Good ones, bad ones, all of them. Thank people by name, address complaints professionally. It builds trust and Google rewards engagement.
Share Your Review Link
Get it from your Google Business dashboard and send it to happy customers after every job. A simple message with the link works better than you’d think.
Fill In Everything!
Website, phone, hours, description, services, categories. If there’s a field, fill it in. Every blank is a missed opportunity.
Add Posts and Photos
Businesses with photos get significantly more clicks. Real shots of your work, your team, your space. Not stock images. Real ones.
Get The Right Category
Most businesses pick one generic category and leave it at that. Adding secondary categories tells Google exactly what you do and dramatically improves how you show up in searches.
Stay Regular!
Google Business lets you post updates, offers and news directly to your profile. Almost nobody does it. The ones who do get rewarded with better visibility.
Final thoughts
Your Google Business Profile is free advertising that most of your competitors are leaving half-finished. An hour spent sorting it out properly is one of the highest return activities you can do for your business this week — no ad spend required.
If you want to know how your full digital presence stacks up — not just your Google profile but your ads, your website, your social — that’s exactly what the Lead Leak Audit is for. Free, no strings, plain English.
