Someone's hot water system has just packed it in. They don't ring around, and they don't ask the neighbours. They pick up their phone, type "plumber near me", and ring one of the three businesses sitting at the top of the map. That map is Google Maps, and it's where a huge chunk of local work now gets handed out.
The good part: you don't need to understand search engines to turn up there. You need to understand about five things, and they're all things you already know about your own business. Here's the plain version.
Why Maps matters so much if you work in an area
Google treats "local" searches differently to everything else. If someone searches for a recipe, Google shows web pages. If someone searches for an electrician, Google works out roughly where that person is standing and shows them a map with a handful of nearby businesses on it — name, star rating, hours, a Call button and a Directions button.
That block sits above the normal search results. It's the first thing on the screen, it's got a phone number attached, and it's aimed at someone who wants the job done now rather than someone doing research.
Which is why it matters most for the trades where the customer is in a hurry and the job is local:
- Electricians and plumbers
- Builders, carpenters and concreters
- Landscapers and painters
- Cleaners and pest control
- Mechanics and mobile mechanics
If your customers come from a fifty-kilometre radius rather than the whole country, Maps is probably the most valuable free thing available to you. There's a trade-by-trade breakdown of what to spell out in local SEO for plumbers, electricians and builders.
How Google decides who to show
There's no button, no fee and no back door. Google is weighing up three things, and it's worth knowing them in plain English because they explain almost every "why am I not showing up" question.
Relevance
How well your business matches what the person typed. If someone searches "emergency electrician" and your profile says you're an electrician who does after-hours callouts, that's a match. If your profile just says "electrical" and nothing else, Google is guessing.
Distance
How far you are from wherever the person is searching. This is the one that catches people out. If you're a plumber in Adelaide, you don't need to be found by someone searching for a plumber in Perth — but you also probably won't show up for someone on the far side of Adelaide, even though you'd happily drive there. That's not a fault in your setup. It's the map doing its job.
Prominence
How well-known and well-established your business looks. Reviews feed into this, so does having a website, so does being mentioned in the normal places a real business gets mentioned. It's the slowest of the three to move and the one you build up over time.
Your Google Business Profile is the whole thing
Here's the bit that confuses most people: you don't sign up for Google Maps. You set up a free Google Business Profile, and that one profile is what feeds the map pin, the panel that shows up beside search results, and the business card people see when they tap you in the Maps app. One profile, three places.
If you haven't set one up yet, start with our guide on how to get your business on Google — it walks through claiming and verifying it. Once that's done, this is what's worth keeping accurate:
- Business name — what you actually trade as. Not "Best Emergency Plumber Brisbane 24/7". Google can penalise stuffed names and customers can smell them.
- Primary category — the single most important field on the profile. "Electrician" and "Electrical supply store" are very different businesses to Google. Pick the one that describes what you mostly do, then add secondary categories for the rest.
- Service area — if you drive to customers, set your suburbs and hide your street address. Your home doesn't need to be on the internet.
- Services — list them individually. Not "electrical work", but switchboard upgrades, safety switches, ceiling fans, EV charger installs. Each one is a search someone types.
- Phone and website — the number you actually answer, and a link that works.
- Hours — honest ones, including whether you pick up on a Sunday.
- Photos — your work, your van, your team. Ten photos off your phone beat one stock image of a stranger holding a spanner.
- Description — a few sentences in normal words about what you do and where.
None of this is clever. It's just filling in the form properly, which is exactly why so many profiles sit half-finished for years.
Why reviews carry more weight than people think
Reviews do two separate jobs, and it's worth keeping them apart in your head.
The first is visibility — a steady stream of genuine reviews is part of how established your business looks, which feeds into that prominence idea above. The second, and honestly the bigger one, is that reviews decide who gets the call. Three plumbers show up on the map. One has forty reviews, one has four, one has none. You already know who's getting rung first.
- Ask right after the job, while they're happy — not three weeks later.
- Text them the direct review link. Nobody goes hunting through Google for it.
- Reply to every review. A calm, decent reply to a bad one does more for you than the review does against you.
- Never buy them and never write them yourself. It gets found out, and you can lose a profile you spent years building.
Your website still matters
Maps and your website aren't the same thing, and they're not competing. They do different jobs.
Your Business Profile is Google's summary of you — a name, a number, some photos and a star rating, in a format Google controls. Your website is the bit you own. It's where you can explain the services properly, show the jobs you're proud of, list every suburb you cover, answer the questions that come up on every quote, and actually sound like yourself.
It helps Google too. A profile on its own is a bit thin. A website backs it up — it confirms what you do, where you do it, and that there's a real, ongoing business behind the pin.
The simplest way to think about it: the map is how people find you, and your website is how they make up their mind. Plenty of people will tap through and have a look before they ring, and a decent site is often the difference between a phone call and a closed tab.
Five things you can do this week
- Claim and verify your Google Business Profile — and finish the verification, which is where most people stop.
- Check every detail is right. Google your own business name and see what comes back.
- Set your primary category properly, then add the secondary ones that genuinely apply.
- Add your services and your service areas, in the words a customer would actually type.
- Text your last five happy customers your review link.
Then keep one small habit going: add a few photos every month or so. A profile that's clearly being looked after reads as a business that's still trading, which is half the battle.
What if you're still not showing up?
Give it time first. A brand new profile can take a while to settle, and verification has to be finished before anything happens at all.
After that, it usually comes down to one of these:
- Distance — you're searching from somewhere you don't rank, which is normal. Try searching from the middle of the area you actually work in.
- Competition — some categories in some cities are genuinely crowded.
- An incomplete profile — missing categories, no services listed, no photos.
- Not enough to go on — few reviews, no website, not much sign you're an established business.
Work through those honestly and you'll usually find the gap. What you shouldn't do is pay someone a monthly fee to "do your Google" — the profile side is genuinely a DIY job, and it's one afternoon of work.
If you still can't find yourself anywhere, it's worth ruling things out properly — we've gone through the usual causes in why your business isn't appearing on Google.
Where people usually get stuck
It's almost never the Business Profile. It's the website. People know they need one, they get a couple of quotes back at three or four grand, and it goes in the too-hard basket for another year while the profile sits there linking to nothing.
That's the gap ONYA fills. We build the site, you pay monthly instead of copping the bill upfront, and the domain, hosting and ongoing care are all part of it — $0 upfront, from $49/month, usually live in 7 days or less. Have a look at some of the sites we've built or how it works if you want the detail.
Need a hand getting online?
You don't need to figure it all out yourself. ONYA builds small businesses a proper website — and you pay monthly instead of copping a big bill upfront. Most sites are live in 7 days or less.
$0 upfront · From $49/month