6 Google Business Profile mistakes that hide your practice from local searches

Six Google Business Profile mistakes hide practices from local searches: leaving the profile unclaimed, choosing the wrong category, letting your name and address vary across the web, publishing wrong opening hours, having no photos, and leaving the profile silent for months. None of them needs a budget to fix – every one is a free change in the Google Business Profile dashboard. Here they are in the order worth fixing.

Mistake 1: an unclaimed profile

Google often creates a profile for your practice whether you asked or not. Unclaimed, it sits half-empty, occasionally wrong, and completely outside your control – and an unmanaged profile gives Google little reason to show it above a competitor’s complete one. This matters because the profile is where patients actually look: 71% of patients check online reviews as the first step in finding a new doctor (Software Advice).

The fix: search your practice name, click “Own this business?”, and complete verification. It costs nothing and takes days at most.

Mistake 2: the wrong category

Your primary category is the single strongest signal for which searches you appear in. A dental practice filed under “Doctor”, or a physiotherapy clinic under the generic “Medical clinic”, is invisible for the exact searches its patients type.

The fix: set the most specific primary category that matches what you do – “Dental clinic”, “Physiotherapist”, “General practitioner” – then add secondary categories for genuine additional services. Resist stuffing categories you don’t offer; it dilutes the signal.

Mistake 3: a name and address that vary across the web

If your website says “The Maples Dental Practice”, your profile says “Maples Dental”, and an old directory says “Maples Dental Surgery Ltd” at a previous address, Google has three weak candidates instead of one strong one. Consistency is how Google decides you are one real, established place.

The fix: pick one exact name, address format and phone number, then spend an hour making your website footer, profile and the major directories match it word for word. Never add taglines or keywords to the business name field – that also breaches Google’s guidelines.

Mistake 4: wrong or missing opening hours

“Closed” at 10am on a Tuesday, in red, next to your name, sends patients to the next result – and a patient who travels to a practice that Google wrongly said was open rarely forgives it quietly. Incomplete hours also make the profile look abandoned.

The fix: set full weekly hours, then add special hours for bank holidays and training afternoons the moment they’re decided. Make it part of the same checklist as changing the answerphone message.

Mistake 5: no photos – or a blurry doorway from 2019

Profiles with no photos get Google’s grey placeholder and a patient’s instinctive “is this place still trading?”. Remember who is looking: 76% of consumers regularly read online reviews when browsing local businesses (BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2023), and the photos sit right beside the stars.

The fix: ten minutes with a phone – a straight-on shot of the entrance and signage, the reception area, a treatment room, the team if they’re willing. No patients in frame, ever, and written consent from any staff shown.

Mistake 6: a profile that never says anything

A silent profile – no replies to reviews, unanswered questions in the Q&A section, no updates – reads as an empty reception desk. Review replies are the most visible signal of life: businesses that respond to reviews are seen as 1.7× more trustworthy (Google/Ipsos).

The fix: a 15-minute weekly slot, owned by one named person: reply to new reviews (courteously, never confirming anyone is a patient), answer any public questions, and correct anything that has drifted. Since NHS.uk closed its public star-ratings in 2025, this profile is the main public rating patients see – it has earned a recurring slot in someone’s diary.