Google Business Profile rankings come down to three things: relevance, distance and prominence. You cannot change where your customers are, but you can change almost everything else.
What matters most
- Primary category. Picking the single most specific category is the biggest on-profile lever. Secondary categories help, but the primary one decides which searches you are eligible for.
- Review velocity and replies. A steady stream of recent reviews beats a big pile of old ones. Reply to every one, including the bad ones.
- Landing page relevance. The page your profile links to should name the service and the city in the title, the heading and the first paragraph.
- Consistent NAP. Name, address and phone must match across your site, your profile and the main directories.
A 30-day plan
Week one: fix categories, hours, services and photos. Week two: build a review request into your job-completion process. Week three: rewrite the service landing page. Week four: audit citations and fix mismatches. Then keep the review engine running; it is the part most businesses let slip.