Before visiting a business, calling or messaging it, most people look it up on Google. If your business doesn’t show up, or shows up with old opening hours, no photos and three reviews from two years ago, that customer picks the one next door, and you never find out.
The good news is that getting your business on Google doesn’t depend on a big budget. It depends on doing a set of concrete things well and keeping them up. In the SEO work I do for businesses in Colombia, the Google Business Profile is one of the first things I check, because it’s usually where there’s the most to gain for the least effort.
How Google decides who shows up
Google explains that local results depend on three factors (Google Help):
- Relevance: how well your profile matches what someone is searching for.
- Distance: how far your business is from the person searching.
- Prominence: how well-known your business is, online and offline.
It also makes one thing clear: there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. You can’t control distance. Relevance and prominence you can.
Step 1: create or claim your profile, then verify it
Search for your business on Google Maps. If it already exists (sometimes customers create it), claim it; if not, create it from Google Business Profile (official guide). Then verify it: Google says a verified profile is more likely to show up in results. Verification may ask for a short video of the premises, a call or an email.
Step 2: complete everything, carefully
A complete, accurate profile is more likely to show up. What matters most:
- Your real business name, exactly as on your sign. Adding keywords to the name (“Restaurant X best food Bogotá”) breaks Google’s rules and can get the profile suspended.
- Primary category. One of the most important choices: pick what you are, not what you’d like to sell. Secondary categories add detail.
- Opening hours, including public holidays. Colombia has a lot of them; wrong hours on a holiday Monday mean frustrated customers and bad reviews.
- Phone and WhatsApp, website, exact address and the attributes that apply (parking, Wi-Fi, payment options, accessibility).
- A clear description of what you do and for whom, in your customers’ language.
Step 3: real photos and video, regularly
Upload photos of the storefront (so people recognize it when they arrive), the interior, the team and your products or services. Refresh them regularly: a profile with recent photos signals that the business is alive. Avoid stock images; people can tell.
Step 4: build a review system
Reviews are the prominence you can actually build. In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of US consumers, 97% said they read reviews for local businesses, 47% wouldn’t use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, 74% only care about reviews from the last three months, and 31% will only use a business rated 4.5 stars or higher (BrightLocal, 2026). The data is from the US, but the behavior it describes is the same in any Google Maps search.
In practice:
- Always ask for the review, right after a good experience, with a direct link on WhatsApp or a QR code at the till or on the receipt.
- Reply to every review, good and bad, within a few days. Google says replying shows you value customer feedback, and shoppers notice.
- For a negative review, respond calmly, acknowledge the problem and offer to sort it out privately. That reply is read by your next customers, not just the person who complained.
- Never buy reviews or offer discounts for positive ratings. It breaks Google’s policies and can cost you the profile.
Step 5: the same information everywhere
Your name, address and phone number should be identical on your Business Profile, website, Instagram, Facebook and any directory you appear in. Inconsistencies confuse both Google and customers. This matters more every year: in the same survey, 45% of consumers already use ChatGPT or other AI tools to ask for local business recommendations, and those tools build their answers from what’s published about you. I wrote more about this shift in AI search and the future of SEO.
Step 6: a website that backs up the profile
The profile brings the visit; the website convinces. The basics:
- One page per location or city you serve, with address, hours and a map.
- The city and the service in page titles (“Interior design in Medellín”), written for people, not robots.
- LocalBusiness structured data, so Google understands who you are and where.
- Fast loading on mobile and a visible WhatsApp button. In Colombia, many customers prefer to message rather than call.
The most common mistakes
- Keywords in the business name.
- Duplicate profiles for the same location, created by different people at different times.
- Virtual or shared-office addresses that don’t serve the public.
- Changing your name or phone on the profile but not everywhere else online.
- Leaving reviews unanswered, especially negative ones.
How to tell it’s working
Your Business Profile itself shows how many people found you, asked for directions, called and clicked through to your website. Check it once a month and compare it with the previous month. If calls and direction requests go up, the work is paying off, even if you never see a “ranking”.
Getting your business on Google isn’t a trick or a one-off payment: it’s maintenance, like a shop window. The businesses that spend an hour a week on their profile and reviews end up above the ones that created it once and forgot about it.