Google Business Profile, the parts that actually move it
What this fixes: GBP incomplete · Not in map results · Few photos · No GBP posts · Wrong categories · No Q and A
Tick these off as you go. This page remembers where you got to, so you can come back to it another day.
For local work, your Google Business Profile does more than your website does. A homeowner searching on a phone sees the map results first, and most of them never scroll past it.
Set up once
Primary category. This is the single highest impact setting and most pond contractors get it wrong by choosing Landscaper. If a pond specific category fits your main work, use it. Your primary category tells Google what kind of searches you should appear in.
Secondary categories for the rest of what you do, without padding the list with things you barely offer.
Name, address, and phone exactly as they appear on your website. Character for character. If the website says Suite B and Google says Ste B, fix one of them.
Service area, listing the real towns in your service area rather than a hundred mile radius.
Every service listed individually: ponds, waterfalls, and water features. Each one gets its own entry with a real description, not one line saying pond services.
Hours, including how you handle the off season.
The description, 750 characters, saying what you do, where, and what makes you different. Not a mission statement.
Website link pointing to the homepage, and service links pointing to the matching service page.
Photos, and this is where most profiles are starved
Twenty to start, then a handful every month. Finished ponds, builds in progress, the crew, the trucks, the shop. Real photos from your phone beat stock every time.
Name the files something real before you upload.
Posts, twenty minutes a month
One or two a month is plenty. What you are doing this season, a recent project, an answer to a common question, a seasonal reminder. Each with a photo and a link to the matching page on your site.
Q and A, the part nobody uses
You can ask and answer your own questions. Seed it with the questions you answer on every estimate. What does a pond cost. How much maintenance. Do the fish survive winter. Will it breed mosquitoes. Can I swim in it.
Write real answers. This shows in the profile and it is another place an AI answer tool can read you.
Every month
Check nothing has changed that you did not change, since Google accepts edits from the public. Add photos. Post once. Answer any new questions. Respond to reviews.