Google Business Profile: How to Get More Local Enquiries

If your business serves a local market and you’re not getting enquiries through Google Business Profile, you’re leaving the easiest leads on the table. Most Melbourne SMBs we audit have a profile sitting there with the basics filled in, a logo from 2019, and not much else. Meanwhile their competitor down the road is showing up first in the map pack and pulling in calls every week.

Google Business Profile (GBP) is the cheapest local marketing channel you have. It’s free, it sits at the top of search results for “[your service] near me”, and it converts faster than any ad campaign. The catch is that Google rewards profiles that are actively maintained, and punishes ones that aren’t. Here’s what actually moves the needle.

Why the profile matters more than your homepage

For local searches, Google often shows the map pack above the organic results and sometimes above the ads. That means a well-optimised profile can outrank your own website for the searches that matter most. We’ve seen plumbers, accountants, dentists and cafes get the bulk of their enquiries from GBP without ever ranking on page one organically.

The profile is also where buying decisions get made. Someone searches “physio Brunswick”, clicks your listing, sees four-star reviews from three years ago, no recent photos, and incorrect opening hours. They bounce. The whole journey takes about eight seconds. You don’t get a second shot.

Fix the fields most businesses get wrong

Start with the basics that get neglected. Your business name should be your actual trading name, not “Smith Plumbing Melbourne Best Emergency 24/7”. Google will suspend you for keyword stuffing, and we’ve seen it happen.

Your primary category is the single biggest ranking factor inside GBP. Pick the one that matches your core service, not a broader umbrella. A “Hair Salon” outranks a “Beauty Salon” for haircut searches every time. Add secondary categories for your other services, but get the primary right first.

Service areas matter for tradies and mobile businesses. If you serve all of inner-north Melbourne, list the suburbs explicitly. Don’t just put “Melbourne”, you’ll get lost in a city of five million.

Opening hours need to be accurate, including public holidays. Google flags profiles that show “closed” when customers turn up and find them open, and the reverse is worse. Update holiday hours in advance, not the morning of.

Use Posts and Q&A to stay visible

The Posts feature is underused by almost every business we audit. Posts let you publish updates, offers and events directly to your profile, and they appear in the knowledge panel when someone searches for you. Google rewards profiles that post regularly, even a fortnightly update keeps you in the freshness algorithm.

What works: a recent job you completed, a customer win, a seasonal offer, a useful tip. What doesn’t: corporate fluff or “we’re hiring” notices unless that’s directly relevant to your customers.

Q&A is the bit nobody manages. Anyone can ask a question on your profile, and anyone can answer it, including your competitors. We’ve seen profiles with three-year-old questions answered incorrectly by random users. Go in, seed your own questions with proper answers (Google explicitly allows this), and monitor for new ones weekly.

Reviews are the lever that beats everything else

If you do one thing, do this. Google rewards profiles with a high volume of recent reviews, and customers trust them more than anything you write about yourself. Reviews are one of the strongest trust signals you can build. Our rule of thumb: aim for at least one new review per fortnight, ongoing. If you want the full system, here is exactly how to get more Google reviews.

The trick is making it easy. Generate your review link in GBP, save it as a short URL, and send it to every happy customer the same day the job is finished. Don’t ask three weeks later, the moment of satisfaction is short. Text message converts better than email for service businesses.

Respond to every review, good or bad. Thank the positive ones briefly. Reply to the negative ones with composure and a path to resolution, never argue in public. Prospective customers read the way you handle criticism more than the criticism itself.

Photos and products, what to upload and when

Profiles with photos get 42 percent more direction requests than those without. Upload the basics, exterior, interior, team, work in progress, finished jobs, and then keep adding. We tell clients to add at least two new photos a month, geotagged where possible.

Phone snaps are fine. You don’t need a professional shoot. What matters is authenticity and recency. Stock photography hurts you because Google can usually tell.

If you run a clinic, the listing matters even more than it does for most trades, because it is the first thing a patient in pain compares. We have written up the full order of work in how physio clinics get more patients.

If you sell products or packaged services, use the Products section. It lets you list prices, descriptions and images that appear directly in the profile. Even for service businesses, you can list your top three packaged offerings here, it gives customers a price reference before they call.

Measure what’s actually working

GBP Insights tells you how customers find you and what they do next. The numbers to watch are calls, direction requests, website clicks and message enquiries. These are your real conversions, far more useful than impressions.

Track them monthly. If calls are up but direction requests are flat, you’ve got a phone problem. If direction requests are up but calls are flat, your phone number might be hard to find on the profile or your site. Use the data to fix the bottleneck, not to feel good about traffic.

Compare your search queries report to what you actually want to rank for. If you’re a roofer showing up for “gutter cleaning” but not “roof replacement”, your categories and services need work.

The compounding effect

The reason most businesses lose at GBP is that they treat it as a set-and-forget. The ones that win treat it as a weekly habit, one post, one review request, two photos, check the Q&A. Twenty minutes a week. Over six months, that’s the difference between page two and the top of the map pack.

We work with Melbourne businesses to get GBP profiles ranking and converting, alongside the rest of their digital marketing. If you want a free audit of your profile and a clear list of what to fix first, book a strategy call. We’ll show you exactly where the easy wins are.

Your Business Profile works best alongside a website that ranks. See our SEO services in Melbourne for the bigger local picture.

Frequently asked questions

For dental practices this matters more than most. An emergency dentist search at 8pm is won in the map pack, not on your website. More on that in marketing for dentists. It is the same story for law firms and accounting firms, where the first call usually goes to whoever appears in the map pack.