The free thing almost nobody finishes.
It costs nothing, it takes an afternoon, and roughly two thirds of the businesses around you have left most of it blank.
Start with the category, because everything hangs off it
The primary category is the single strongest signal on the whole listing, and it decides which searches you are even eligible for. Pick the one that names what you mainly do, not the broadest one available.
Then add the secondary categories for the rest. A garage that also does tyres should say so; a listing with one vague category competes for nothing in particular.
Hours, including the ones that catch people out
Regular hours are the easy part. What loses custom is the special hours: the summer change, the public holiday, the afternoon you close early.
A listing showing open when the door is locked earns a bad review from somebody who drove there, and that review outlives the mistake by years.
Where you work, if you go to the customer
Trades who travel should set a service area rather than pretending the van is a shopfront. It is a different kind of listing and it behaves differently in the results.
Keep the area honest. Claiming the whole country makes you weaker everywhere rather than stronger anywhere.
Photographs and the part everyone skips
Pictures of the real place beat anything bought, and a handful taken in daylight is enough. The inside matters more than the sign, because the question being asked is what it is like in there.
Then answer the questions people keep ringing to ask, in the listing itself, in every language your customers use. That section sits there empty on almost every profile in the country.
Reviews, asked for rather than waited for
Ask at the moment somebody says they are pleased, not a fortnight later by message. A steady trickle of recent ones counts for more than a pile from three years ago.
Reply to the bad ones calmly and in public. The reply is not written for the complainer; it is written for the next person reading it.
Questions worth asking
Is it really free?
Completely, and it stays free. Anybody ringing to sell you a Google listing or offering to verify it for a fee is selling something you already own for nothing.
I have no shopfront. Can I still have one?
Yes, as a service area business. You give an area you cover instead of an address people can visit, and your address stays hidden. That is the correct setup for a trade working out of a van.
What if somebody else claimed my business?
It happens, usually years ago and often by an old employee or a directory. There is a claim process, it takes a few weeks, and it is worth starting today rather than building around the problem.
Should the listing be in Albanian or English?
Write it in the language your customers search in, which on this coast is often more than one. The description and the questions can carry more than a single language, and most competitors use exactly one.
Does posting updates help?
A little, and much less than the fields above. Do the categories, hours, photographs and reviews first. If posting is the only thing you have energy for, it is the wrong thing to spend it on.
Send us your listing and we will tell you which fields are empty and which of them is costing you calls. Get a free audit.
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