Categories: the highest-leverage field
Your primary category is one of the strongest signals Google uses to match your profile to searches. "Dentist" is more specific and more useful than "Healthcare," and specificity wins. Add secondary categories only when they're genuinely accurate — padding categories that don't apply dilutes relevance rather than expanding it.
Every field Google actually checks
- Business description — plain language stating what you do and who you serve, without keyword stuffing.
- Services and products — listed explicitly, not just implied by the category.
- Hours, including holiday hours — inaccurate hours are a trust signal Google and customers both penalise.
- Attributes — wheelchair accessible, women-led, appointment-only, and similar tags that match real searches.
A profile that's 100% complete outperforms a partially filled one even before you touch reviews or posts. Completeness is the free, unglamorous work most competitors skip.
Photos and how often to add them
Profiles with regularly updated photos get more clicks and calls, according to Google's own guidance — and in our experience, they also signal to Google that a business is active and legitimate. Add new, genuine photos monthly at minimum: the team, the space, finished work, products. Stock photos hurt more than they help.
Posts, Q&A and staying active
Weekly posts — offers, updates, short announcements — keep the profile visibly active. Monitor and answer the Q&A section yourself; unanswered or incorrectly answered questions sit there publicly and quietly cost you trust.
Reviews and responses
Review volume and recency both factor into local ranking, and responding to every review — good or bad — is one of the clearest trust signals available to a potential customer scanning your profile before they call. See our full guide on getting more Google reviews for the system we actually use with clients.