Why a new business starts out invisible
When you open in a growing area like Beveridge, Mickleham or Craigieburn, Google knows very little about you. People nearby are already searching for what you offer, but the results show businesses that Google has more information about.
Google says local results are mainly based on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well your business matches the search. Distance is how far you are from the person searching. Prominence is how well known you are, which includes things like reviews and how other websites mention you.
You cannot change distance, and prominence takes time to build. Relevance is where a new business can make progress straight away, by telling Google and customers clearly what you do and where you do it. That is what the first 90 days are for.
Weeks 1 to 2: set up your Google Business Profile properly
Your Business Profile is what appears on Google Maps and in the local results. Start by deciding how you serve customers. If people come to you, such as a shop, clinic or showroom, show your address. If you travel to customers, like most trades and mobile services, Google asks you to hide your address and list the areas you serve instead. If you do both, you can show your address and add service areas.
This matters for home-based businesses. If you run a cleaning or electrical business from your house in Wollert or Donnybrook, you do not need to put your home address on Google. Hide it and choose the suburbs you actually travel to.
Use your real business name, exactly as it appears on your signage and paperwork. Adding suburb names or keywords to the name goes against Google’s guidelines and can get a profile suspended. Pick the primary category that best describes your core business, and add others only where they genuinely fit.
Then fill in everything you can: opening hours, phone number, website, a short description in plain words and your main services. Add real photos of your work, your team, your vehicle or your premises. Customers can spot stock photos, and real ones show them who they will be dealing with.
Keep your name, address and phone the same everywhere
Once your profile is set, use exactly the same business name, phone number and address (or service area) everywhere else: your website, Facebook and Instagram, industry directories, quotes and invoices.
Mismatched details confuse customers and make it harder for Google to be sure all those mentions are the same business. A common trap is using a personal mobile in one place and a business number in another. Choose one and stick with it.
If you move premises or change your number later, update every listing at the same time, starting with your Business Profile and website.
Weeks 2 to 6: give each main service its own page
Your website is where people decide whether to call you. The most useful thing a new business site can have is one strong page for each main service, rather than one page that lists everything.
Each service page should say what the service is, who it suits, the areas you cover, what affects the price, what happens after someone gets in touch, and photos of real jobs. A plumber might have separate pages for blocked drains, hot water and new home fit-outs, because people search for each of those differently.
Make it easy to act on a phone. Plenty of people will find you on their mobile, so the phone number should be tap to call, the contact form should be short, and you should test it yourself to make sure enquiries actually arrive.
If you have a showroom, the site should help people plan a visit too. Queen Style Furniture, whose online store we built, has a showroom on Settlement Road in Thomastown, so its site gives people a clear choice between shopping online and visiting the showroom.
Mention your suburbs without spammy suburb pages
It helps to say where you work. Mention the suburbs you serve in plain sentences on your service pages and your contact page, the way you would explain it to a customer on the phone: “We service homes across Craigieburn, Roxburgh Park, Greenvale and Mickleham.”
What does not help is copying the same page twenty times and swapping the suburb name. Google’s spam policies warn against near-identical pages made only to rank for different places, and customers see straight through them. A separate page for one suburb only makes sense when you have something different to say about it, such as local jobs you have done there.
Our guide on suburb pages, linked below, explains how to decide when one is worth building.
Weeks 3 to 8: start collecting genuine reviews
Reviews help a new business stand out, and they give the next customer a reason to trust you. Your Business Profile gives you a link you can send to customers so they can leave a review in a couple of taps.
Ask every customer, not just the ones you think were happy. Google does not allow businesses to pick only happy customers to ask, offer discounts or gifts for reviews, or review their own business. The simplest habit is to send the link with your invoice or a thank-you message once the job is done.
Reply to reviews, including the critical ones. A calm, helpful reply to a complaint often tells future customers more about you than five stars do.
Weeks 9 to 13: measure what matters
Your Business Profile shows how many people called you, asked for directions or clicked through to your website. Google Search Console, which is free, shows which searches your website appears for, how often it appears and how many people click.
Also ask every new customer how they found you, and write it down. That one question tells you more than any ranking report.
Be careful about checking your position by searching on your own phone. Local results change depending on where the person searching is standing, so what you see at home in Beveridge is not what someone sees in Epping or Mernda.
Do not expect everything to move in the first month. Our guide on how long SEO takes, linked below, explains what to look for at each stage, so you can see what is working and put more of your time into it.