When someone needs a roofer today, they rarely start on a homepage. They search, they see the map, they read three listings, and they tap call. Your website may never enter the decision. Your Google Business Profile is the storefront, and for most local trades it is the highest leverage free asset you own.
It also decays. A profile you set up two years ago and never touched slides down the map results while an active competitor climbs past it. The fix is not complicated, it is just regular.
Reviews, on a cadence
Volume matters, but so does rhythm. Forty reviews that all arrived in one week two years ago read as stale. A steady handful every month reads as a business that is currently busy.
- Ask at the moment of relief, right when the customer sees the finished work, not three days later by email.
- Send the review link by text. It converts far better than a link buried in an invoice.
- Ask the customer to name the service and the city in their own words. Those words are what a future searcher is typing.
- Reply to every review, including the bad ones. Short, specific, no defensiveness. Future customers read your replies more closely than the reviews.
Photos, every week
Upload job photos from your five frame shot list. Fresh photos signal an active business and they give browsers something to look at while they decide. Include a few of your trucks, your team, and your shop, not only finished work. Buyers are checking whether you are a real company with real equipment.
One upload a week is plenty. Consistency beats a single dump of a hundred images.
Service areas and services
List the cities you actually serve, not every town within an hour. An honest, tight service area helps you show up for the searches you can profitably answer. Then fill out the services list with the plain names people search for. If you do standing seam metal, say standing seam metal. If you do epoxy garage floors, say epoxy garage floors. Vague categories cost you matches.
The profile is not a directory listing. Treat it like a landing page that Google happens to host.
Questions and answers
Anyone can post a question on your profile, and anyone can answer it, which is a risk and an opportunity. Seed the section yourself with the five questions your office answers every day. Do you offer financing? Do you handle insurance claims? How long does the job take? Are you licensed and insured? What areas do you cover?
Answer them plainly, from the business account, and check monthly for anything a stranger has added.
Why this feeds the map
Map results weigh how close you are to the searcher, how relevant your listing is to what they typed, and how prominent your business looks. You cannot move your shop, but relevance and prominence are both things you feed. Accurate services and service areas handle relevance. Reviews, replies, and recent activity handle prominence.
The fifteen minute weekly routine
- Upload two or three photos from the week's jobs.
- Reply to every new review.
- Send review requests by text to the customers you closed out this week.
- Check the Q and A section for anything new.
- Confirm hours are right, especially before a holiday.
That is it. Fifteen minutes, once a week, on the asset that most local buyers see before anything else you own. Put it on one person's calendar and treat it like a standing appointment.