For most home service businesses in Los Angeles, the Google Business Profile produces more calls than the website. It is also the one asset most owners set up once, years ago, and never open again. This is the checklist I run on every new client's profile, in the order that matters.
1. Get the basics right, or nothing else counts
Business name. The real-world name on your license and your truck, nothing else. "Sunset Remodeling" is fine. "Sunset Remodeling | Kitchen & Bathroom Remodel Los Angeles" gets the profile suspended sooner or later, and suspensions take weeks to lift.
Primary category. This is the single most important setting. General Contractor, Remodeler, Kitchen Remodeler, Bathroom Remodeler, Custom Home Builder, HVAC Contractor, Appliance Repair Service: pick the one that describes what you want to be found for most. Add the others as secondary categories, up to nine, but only the ones you actually do.
One thing owners rarely know: Google itself edits categories "based on feedback from Google users or other sources", and the change goes live before you see it. When that happens, a blue banner with a "Review changes" link appears at the top of the Services screen. Open the profile once a month and check that banner; I have seen a remodeler's categories quietly rewritten this way.
Address and service area. If customers do not come to your office, you are a service-area business: hide the address and set the areas you serve. Choose real cities and neighborhoods, not "Los Angeles County" only. A P.O. box is not allowed as an address and is a common reason for suspension.
Phone. Use your main number as the primary. If you use a call tracking number, Google allows it as the primary as long as the real number is listed as an additional number; that way the reviews, the citations and the tracking all stay consistent.
Website link. Add UTM parameters to the link (?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp) so Analytics shows the profile as its own traffic source instead of lumping it into "direct".
Hours. Real hours, including Saturday if you answer on Saturday. "Open 24 hours" on a remodeling company reads as fake.
2. Fill in what most competitors leave empty
Services. Add every service as its own item with a short description and, where you can, a "from" price. Homeowners compare profiles side by side; the one with "Kitchen remodel, from $55,000" and a description wins over the one with a bare list.
Description. 750 characters. Say what you do, where, for whom, and what makes you different, in plain words a homeowner uses. Include the neighborhoods you work in. No keyword lists.
Attributes. Licensed, insured, veteran-owned, women-owned, free estimates, whichever apply. They show as badges.
Photos. At least 20 real photos of finished projects, the crew, the trucks, the office. Add new ones every month. Skip the stock images and the "geotagging" tricks; Google strips the metadata anyway, and real photos of real jobs are what convert.
Products. Contractors can use the Products section for packages: "ADU design and build", "Bathroom remodel package". Each gets a photo, a price range and a link to the matching page on your site.
3. Reviews: the part that actually ranks you
The three things that move a profile up the map pack are review count, review recency and the words inside the reviews.
- Ask every customer, the same way, at the same moment: the final walkthrough, when the work is done and the homeowner is happy. A short link or a QR code on the closing paperwork. Both are ready-made in the profile: the "Ask for reviews" tile gives you a link, share buttons and a QR code you can print.
- Ask for specifics. "Would you mention the kitchen and the neighborhood?" turns "Great work!" into "They remodeled our kitchen in Culver City on time", and that sentence ranks you for kitchens in Culver City.
- Reply to every review, including the bad ones, within a few days. Replies are read by the next homeowner, not by the reviewer.
- Never buy reviews and never gate them (asking only the happy customers through a filter). Both get profiles suspended, and the FTC fines businesses for fake reviews.
4. Keep it alive
Posts. One update a month is enough: a finished project, a seasonal offer, a new service area. Profiles with recent posts look open for business; profiles whose last post is from 2023 look closed.
Q&A. Seed it yourself with the five questions you answer on every first call: do you handle permits, how long does a bathroom take, do you offer financing, which areas, how does the estimate work. Anyone can post a question, so check the section monthly.
Messaging. Turn it on only if someone answers within an hour during business hours. An unanswered chat is worse than no chat.
5. Track it, or you will not know it works
Google's own Insights show calls, direction requests and website clicks, but the numbers are rounded and disappear after a few months. Export them monthly into a sheet. On the website side, the UTM link from step 1 puts profile visitors into Analytics, and call tracking on the primary number tells you which calls came from the profile. On the accounts I run, every lead is logged with its source in a shared sheet; the profile is usually the first or second line.
6. Local Services Ads sit on top of all this
Local Services Ads, the "Google Verified" listings above the map, are linked to your Business Profile and, since 2026, are managed inside Google Ads as pay-per-lead campaigns. They need business verification, and they charge per lead rather than per click. If you serve homeowners and have not set them up, they are usually the fastest paid channel to test; here is how they compare with regular Google Ads.
The mistakes that undo everything
- Keywords in the business name.
- A P.O. box or a coworking address as the location.
- Two profiles for the same company (an old one from a previous owner or a previous agency). Claim and merge them.
- A phone number that differs from the one on the website and on Yelp.
- Categories that describe what you might do rather than what you sell.
- Reviews requested by an agency from a fake account list.
What good looks like
A complete profile, 20+ recent photos, services with prices, reviews arriving every week with the trade and the neighborhood in the text, a monthly post, and a spreadsheet that shows how many calls it produced last month. That takes about three hours to set up and half an hour a month to keep. If you would rather have it done and reported, it is included in every sprint I run.
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