Free lesson — Setting Up Google Business

Setting Up Google Business

Free, takes an hour, and produces more enquiries in month one than any amount of advertising.

Screen recording — coming

Being filmed. The written lesson, the steps, the action task and the downloads below are complete — work through those now and the footage will appear here.

What You Will Learn

How to create and verify the profile correctly
How to choose categories and service areas
What to put in every field, and which fields matter most
The weekly maintenance habit that keeps it ranking

Step-by-Step Instructions

1
Create it as a service-area business
You go to customers; they do not come to you. Set your service areas to the suburbs you actually work, not a 50 km radius. Listing the suburbs individually is what gets you into those suburbs' map results.
2
Start verification immediately
It can take days or weeks, by postcard, phone or video. Start it in week one so it is live when you need it.
3
Choose the primary category carefully
'Pressure washing service' is usually the right primary. Then add the secondary categories that match what you do — gutter cleaning service, window cleaning service, roof cleaning service.
4
Fill in every single field
Hours, phone, website, services with descriptions and prices, attributes, a description with your suburbs and services in it. Completeness is a ranking factor and most competitors have half-finished profiles.
5
Add the services individually with prices
Each service as its own entry with a short description and a from-price. This is what appears when someone searches the specific service.
6
Upload real photos, and keep uploading
Ten to start, then two a week forever. Before-and-afters, the ute, the crew, the gear. Real photos taken on a phone outperform stock images and Google measures engagement with them.
7
Turn on messaging and set up a response habit
Enquiries arrive here. An unanswered message is a lost job and a ranking signal.
8
Post weekly
A photo and two lines about a job you did, naming the suburb. Takes two minutes and it is the single most neglected ranking lever.
9
Never fake a location
Do not create profiles for suburbs you do not operate from, and do not use a fake address. Suspension is permanent in practice and it takes the reviews with it.

Notes & reference

For a local service business, the Google Business Profile outranks the website in importance. It is free, it appears above the organic results, and the map pack is where "pressure cleaning near me" actually gets decided.

Setup, field by field

Business name. Your real trading name. Do not stuff keywords into it — Google suspends listings for that and the recovery is painful. "Coastal Pressure Cleaning" is fine. "Best Cheap Pressure Cleaning Sydney NSW" is a suspension waiting to happen.
Category. Primary: Pressure washing service. Add secondaries: gutter cleaning service, window cleaning service, roof cleaning service.
Service area business. Hide your address if you work from home, and set the suburbs you actually service. Twenty suburbs maximum — a service area covering an entire state ranks for nothing.
Hours. Real hours. If you answer at 7am, say 7am.
Phone. A mobile is fine. Use the same number everywhere on the internet, forever.
Website. Point it at your homepage now; a service page later.
Services. List every service with a description and a price range. This fills the "services" panel most competitors leave blank.
Description. 750 characters. Suburbs, services, and the reason to pick you. Write it for a human.

Verification

Usually postcard or video. Video verification means filming your vehicle, your gear and the area — have signage on the ute before you record it. Do not skip this: an unverified listing does nothing.

What actually moves you up the map pack

Proximity to the searcher. You cannot change it, which is why suburb-level focus matters.
Reviews — count, rating, recency and whether they mention the service and the suburb.
Photos — geotagged, frequent, real. Ten photos a week beats a hundred once.
Posts — weekly updates with a photo and a call to action.
Consistency — identical name, address and phone everywhere online.
Q&A — post your own common questions and answer them.

The weekly habit

Ten minutes, every Monday: upload five job photos, write one post, answer any question, respond to every review. Do it for six months and you will outrank operators who have been trading for a decade.

Action Task

In the portal these tick off and save as you go.

Create the profile and start verification today.

Fill in every field, add each service individually with a from-price, and upload ten photos.

Put a weekly reminder in your calendar: one post, two photos.

Download Resources

These come with the lesson when you enrol.

🔒 Google Business Profile checklist MD

🔒 Before-and-after photo guide MD