Google Business Profile: The Free Tool Norfolk and Suffolk SMEs Are Leaving on the Table
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By Nick Pandolfi, New Anglia Growth Hub
- What is a Google Business Profile? A free Google listing showing a business’s name, address, phone number, hours, reviews, photos, and posts – it is what appears in Google Search and Google Maps local results.
- Why does it matter for local search? It feeds Google’s ranking system directly, meaning a well-maintained profile can outperform a website alone for “near me” and local-intent searches.
- What is NAP? Name, Address, Phone number – the three core details that must match exactly everywhere a business appears online to build local SEO trust.
- How does Nick help? Through one-to-one sessions covering local SEO, general SEO, weekly posting habits, and storytelling – tailored to any sector from retail to professional services.
If you run a business anywhere in Norfolk or Suffolk – a shop on the high street, a tradesperson covering three counties, a consultancy working from a home office – there’s a good chance you have a Google Business Profile already. The question is whether it’s working for you, or just sitting there half-finished.
I sit down with business owners across this region every week, and Google Business Profile is one of the first things I look at. It costs nothing to use properly, yet it’s often the most neglected part of a business’s online presence. Here’s what it does, why it matters, and how I help clients get it right – whatever sector they’re in.
Why your Google Business Profile matters more than you think
When someone searches “plumber near me” or “gift shop Aldeburgh”, Google isn’t just pulling from your website. It’s pulling from your Business Profile – your reviews, your categories, your posts, your photos, how recently you’ve updated anything. This is what’s called the local pack, that block of three businesses with a map that shows above the regular search results.
Miss out on that, and you miss out on the searches most likely to turn into a phone call or a visit. This sits alongside your website’s organic search performance rather than replacing it – the two work together, but a profile is far quicker to influence, and it’s free.
NAP: The detail most businesses get Wrong without realising
NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone number. It sounds basic, but consistency here is one of the biggest trust signals Google uses to decide whether your business is legitimate and where it should rank locally.
If your website says “12 High Street” and your Google Profile says “12 High St,” or your phone number differs between your Facebook page and your listing, that inconsistency chips away at your credibility in Google’s eyes. Part of what I do with every client is a NAP audit – checking every place a business appears online and making sure the details match, word for word, digit for digit.
I also check something many businesses overlook entirely: service area settings. If you travel to clients rather than trading from a fixed shopfront, your profile needs to reflect the towns and areas you actually cover – not just your home base. Get this wrong, and you’re invisible in searches from villages and towns you’d happily serve.
How I work with businesses: Understanding local SEO and general SEO together
Every session starts the same way – sitting down and understanding the business, not just the profile. I want to know who your customers are, where they’re searching from, what makes you different from the business three doors down or three towns over.
From there, we look at two things side by side:
- Local SEO: How you rank for geographically-specific searches, driven largely by your Business Profile, reviews and NAP consistency.
- General SEO: How your website itself performs in broader search results, driven by content, structure and site health.
They’re not separate jobs. A strong Business Profile can send valuable signals back to your website, and a well-optimised website reinforces the credibility of your profile. Businesses that treat these as one connected system consistently outperform those that only focus on one.
Why I teach clients to post weekly – and what they gain from it
A Business Profile isn’t a one-off setup job. Google rewards activity. I teach every client to post to their profile weekly — not a hard sell each time, but a mix of:
- What’s new – a product, a project, a seasonal offer
- Behind-the-scenes moments that build trust
- Answers to questions customers actually ask
- Genuine updates that show the business is active and engaged.
The benefits compound over time. Regular posting signals to Google that a profile is active and well-maintained, which supports local ranking. It gives potential customers fresh reasons to choose you over a competitor whose last post was eighteen months ago. And it builds a running record of your story – your services, your value, your personality – right where people are already looking.
It’s about telling your story, not just filling in a form
This is the part that matters most to me. A Business Profile isn’t a directory listing to tick off – it’s a free platform, available to almost every sector, for telling people who you are, what you do, and why it matters. I’ve worked with retail businesses turning footfall into loyal customers, tradespeople covering wide service areas, and professional services building trust before a client ever picks up the phone. The sector changes; the principle doesn’t.
Done properly – NAP consistent, service area accurate, and posted to weekly – your Business Profile becomes one of the hardest-working, lowest-cost tools in your marketing.
Want to talk it through? If you’d like help auditing or building out your Google Business Profile, or want to understand how local SEO and general SEO fit together for your business, email me directly at nick.pandolfi@newangliagrowthhub.co.uk
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Lesley van Dijk