Your Google profile Updated October 2026
Google Business Profile management
Managing a Google Business Profile is the difference between a listing that sits there and one that brings work: the right primary category, every service listed, photos that keep arriving, posts, answered questions, and reviews asked for every time. It is the biggest single source of local trade leads, and the one most businesses have never had done properly. tyso does it for tradies in Canberra, Queanbeyan and anywhere in Australia.
What is a Google Business Profile?
A Google Business Profile is the free listing Google shows for a business on Search and Maps: the panel with the map pin, the hours, the photos and the reviews that appears when somebody searches your name, or searches a service near them.
Most people still call it Google My Business, and so do most of the searches. Google renamed it a few years ago and the old name never left. Same listing, same map pack, same dashboard, different label on the door.
Why do most Google profiles underperform?
Most profiles underperform because they were set up once, verified, and then left alone. A near-enough primary category, no services listed, photos from the day the account was opened, no reviews arriving. The listing above you is not doing anything clever. It is doing the basics, continuously.
The wrong primary category
The primary category does more work than any other field on the listing. Choosing the near-enough one, or a broad one that sounds impressive, quietly rules you out of the searches you actually want.
No services listed
The services list is where you tell Google every job you really do. Left empty, the profile has to be guessed at from your business name, which works about as well as it sounds.
Photos from the day it was made
A profile keeps working while it keeps moving. Fresh job photos, current hours, service areas that match where you actually drive. None of it is clever and all of it gets skipped.
Reviews nobody asks for
Reviews are a ranking signal and a sales pitch at once. Most trades never ask, then wonder why the business above them has a wall of them going back years.
What does managing a Google Business Profile involve?
It involves four ongoing jobs: claiming or creating the listing in your own name, optimising the fields that decide relevance, keeping it moving with photos, posts and answered questions, and asking every customer for a review. Not a one-off optimisation and a tidy report, because Google reads recency and so does the person deciding who to call.
Set up or claimed, in your name
Created or claimed under your own Google account, then verified. You own it, you keep the logins, and nothing about the arrangement holds your listing hostage if you walk away.
Optimised where it counts
Primary and secondary categories, the full services list, a description written for a person rather than a keyword, service areas that match where you really go, and hours that are true.
Kept moving
Job photos, posts, and answers to the questions people actually ask. The questions module is public, so one left unanswered is an open door with a competitor's name on it.
Reviews, asked for properly
A direct link and a text you can send from the ute once the job is done, to every customer. Handled inside the Australian rules: no incentives, no filtering, no asking on site, nothing invented.
Can I manage it myself?
Yes, and plenty of businesses should. The profile is free, the dashboard is open to whoever owns the account, and none of the work is technical: pick the right primary category, list every service you do, add photos after jobs, answer the public questions, ask every customer for a review.
What people run out of is not skill, it is the habit. The fields get filled in once and the photos stop somewhere around week three. Paying somebody is paying for the continuing, and for the awkward parts: a verification that fails, a listing that gets suspended, a competitor quietly editing your hours. If you will genuinely do it yourself, do it yourself, and the audit will still tell you what to fix first.
How long before a Google profile ranks?
Weeks, not months, once the listing is complete and verified. Google re-reads the profile constantly, so a corrected category, a full services list and fresh photos get picked up far faster than any change to your website does.
Reviews are the slower half, because they arrive at the rate your customers finish jobs. Proximity never moves at all. And a new listing has to clear verification first, which runs on Google's clock rather than anyone else's, and is the step most people stall on.
Which profiles has tyso actually run?
tyso has run two Google profiles you can go and check, both named and both openable. It is a one-person Canberra studio launched in 2026, so this is the whole list, and our own number sits on it beside the client ones.
Sophisticated Manes, 3 reviews to 10
Sophisticated Manes is a Melbourne cat grooming business and a tyso build. Its Google reviews went from 3 to 10 in August 2026, its first month live, on nothing cleverer than asking every customer with a direct link.
ANT Painting, quoted in AI answers
ANT Painting is a Canberra painting business whose search presence tyso runs, profile included. It was cited on 9 of 22 painting questions we measured on 29 August 2026, across Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT search.
Our own number, published
tyso.io is measured every month on the same eight questions. On 1 October 2026, in one run, ChatGPT search cited it on three of the eight and Google's AI Overview on one.
The working, written up
What is the first step on a neglected profile?
The first step on a neglected profile is finding out what is publicly visible about you right now, which is what the free audit does. It reads your site and asks an AI assistant who it recommends in your suburb.
- Tell it your business, your trade and your suburb.
- It checks your site and your AI visibility.
- You read the findings worst first. No email needed to see the score.
- For the full profile audit and where you rank across your suburbs, the Deep Audit lands on your desk within five business days.
Questions about the profile
Is Google My Business the same as Google Business Profile?
Yes. Google Business Profile is the current name for what nearly everyone still calls Google My Business. Same listing, same map pack, same dashboard, new label. If you searched for Google My Business management, this is the page you were after.
What does Google Business Profile management include?
Setup or claiming and verification, category and services optimisation, a description written for a person, service areas, photos, posts, answering the public questions, and a review system that gets used. Then keeping all of it current, because a profile that stops moving stops performing.
What is the most common mistake on a trade profile?
The primary category, by a distance. It decides which searches you are eligible for at all, and picking the impressive-sounding one over the accurate one quietly removes you from the results you wanted. Everything else on the listing is tuning by comparison.
Who owns the profile if you manage it?
You do. It is created or claimed under your own Google account and you keep the logins. Management is access, not ownership. If we part ways, the listing, the reviews and the photos stay exactly where they are.
How do I rank higher in the map pack?
Three things decide it: how complete and relevant the profile is, your reviews, and how close you are to the person searching. Proximity is fixed. The other two are work, and they are what separates the three in the pack from everyone below.
Can you get my profile verified?
Usually. Verification is video or postcard depending on what Google asks for, and it is the step most people stall on. It gets handled as part of setup, including the awkward cases like service-area businesses with no shopfront to film.
See how your profile reads.
The free audit checks how you show up right now, including whether an AI assistant names you in your suburb. You see the score before it asks for an email.
Rather talk it through? Book a call.