When someone googles your trade nearby, the map results at the top are Google Business Profiles. It is free, and setting yours up properly is the highest-leverage half hour in your whole marketing. Here is how to do it, including the bits most tradies skip.
The basics (do these first)
- Claim and verify your profile so you actually control it.
- Get the business name, phone number and service area right. List the suburbs you genuinely cover, not all of Melbourne.
- Set your hours, and say if you do emergency or after-hours work.
- Pick the right categories: a primary one (like Electrician) plus any relevant extras.
The bits tradies miss
- Photos. Real job shots, your van, your team. Profiles with photos get more calls, and most tradies have none.
- Your services list. Spell out each service you offer, like switchboards, EV chargers or emergency callouts. It helps you match more of what people search.
- The description. You get 750 characters. Plain English, your suburb, your trade, what you do. ChatGPT can draft it for you (see how tradies can use ChatGPT).
- Reviews. The single biggest factor for both ranking and trust. Ask after every job, and get them onto your own website too.
- Reply to every review, good or bad. Here is how to handle the bad ones.
The honest bit
All of this is free and you can do it yourself in an afternoon. The catch is keeping it alive: fresh photos, a steady flow of reviews, the odd update. That upkeep is where most tradies quietly fall off, and a half-finished profile that has not moved in a year slips down the results.
BizEdge Get Found sorts your profile, keeps your reviews flowing after each job, and puts them on your own site as well, kept current without you touching it. It starts at $89 a month and you can cancel any time, which is cheaper than the hours it takes to do it properly yourself.