For a contractor, the Google Business Profile is the sign on the truck. It is what shows up in the map when a homeowner searches “roofer near me,” with your rating, your photos and a button to call. Most contractors set it up once and never touch it again. Here is how to set it up right, using Google’s own rules.

Do you list your address or your service area?

If customers come to your shop or showroom, list the address. If you go to them, Google’s rule is plain: “If you don’t serve customers at your business address, remove your address from your Business Profile,” and enter only your service area (Google).

How do you set your service areas?

  • Up to 20 areas. Google says you can set up to 20 service areas by city, ZIP code or other area.
  • About two hours, at most. The overall area “shouldn’t be more than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based.”
  • No radius. You can’t set it as a distance around your shop. Pick the actual towns.

Start with the towns you get the most work from, then the ones you want more of. In the Ohio Valley that might read Steubenville, Wintersville, Weirton, Follansbee, Wellsburg and Wheeling, not “Ohio.”

What else belongs on the profile?

  • Categories that match the work. Roofing contractor, siding contractor, bathroom remodeler. Google ranks on relevance, so describe what you actually do.
  • Exact hours and a phone that gets answered. If you take emergency calls, say so, and pick up.
  • Real job photos. Finished work, before and after, your crew, your trucks. Add a few after every good job.
  • Your website. Link to the page for your main service, or to your home page if it says clearly what you do and where.
  • Posts. A finished job, a seasonal reminder, a new service. It shows the profile is alive.

How much do reviews matter?

A lot. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity, and that “more reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking” (Google). It also says there is no way to pay for a better ranking. How to ask for reviews at the end of a job.

Why does the website still matter?

The profile gets you the call. The website is where a homeowner goes to decide whether to make it. A profile that links to a site with a page for each service and a clear service area gives Google, and the homeowner, a match for exactly what they searched. What a contractor website needs.

A ten-minute checkup

  1. Search your business name on Google from your phone.
  2. Is the address showing when it shouldn’t, or missing when it should?
  3. Are your service areas the real towns you work in?
  4. Are the hours and phone number right?
  5. When was the last photo added?
  6. Have you replied to your last five reviews?

If any of that is a mess, it is a good place to start, and it costs nothing but an hour.