Eight Google Business Profile mistakes East African businesses can fix this week

You search Google for what you sell, in your own neighbourhood, and three competitors come up on the map. You don't. The cause is often your Google Business Profile, and most of the fixes cost nothing but an afternoon.

Use this as a checklist if nobody has touched your profile in the last 60 days. If you're also wondering about a new website, read whether to fix your website or your Google Business Profile first.

Mistake 1: the wrong category

Google offers thousands of categories, and it's easy to pick the first one that looks close. Your primary category is one of the biggest factors in whether you show in the map results at all.

A dental clinic in Kampala that picks "Medical Center" when "Dentist" or "Dental Clinic" fits drops out of the searches that matter most to it. A beach lodge in Diani that picks "Lodging" over "Resort Hotel" does the same.

Fix: open your profile, choose "Edit profile" and set the primary category to the most specific one that's accurate.

Mistake 2: secondary categories left empty

You can add up to nine more categories, and many profiles leave them blank. A diagnostics centre might choose "Diagnostic Center" as its primary category and add "Medical Laboratory", "X-Ray Lab" and "MRI Center", so it shows for each of those searches. A boutique hotel in Kigali might add "Hotel" and "Wedding Venue".

Fix: add three to five accurate secondary categories. Unrelated ones break Google's guidelines and can hurt you.

Mistake 3: an empty service list

The services section lets you list each service with a short description and a price. Buyers see it without leaving Google, yet plenty of local profiles leave it empty.

Fix: list 10 to 30 services in sensible groups, each with a one-sentence description and a price where you can give one. It takes about 90 minutes, once.

Mistake 4: photos from 2021

Buyers read your photos as a sign of whether you're still trading. If the newest one is 18 months old, you can look closed.

Fix: upload five to ten new photos every 60 to 90 days. Show the outside, the inside, your products, your team and the real space. Skip stock images and logo-only uploads.

Mistake 5: no posts

Posts are short updates inside your profile: an offer, an event, a new service, some news. Many owners never touch them, and a buyer comparing two listings can tell which one is looked after.

Fix: post something useful at least once a month. A hotel can post a seasonal offer, a shop its new stock, a clinic a service update and a consultancy a short tip or a link to an article.

Mistake 6: reviews without replies

Unanswered reviews leave happy customers unthanked and complaints sitting there for every future buyer to read. A clinic that answers a 2-star review calmly can look more trustworthy than one with only 5-star reviews, because people read the reply as well as the complaint.

Fix: reply to every review within a day. Thank people briefly and personally for good ones. For bad ones, write a calm public reply that acknowledges the problem and offers to continue privately. Got a backlog? Start with the newest and the negative ones, then work back a few a day.

Mistake 7: wrong opening hours

Wrong hours send buyers to a locked door. Public holidays and Ramadan hours are the easiest to miss.

Fix: check your hours today, and set special hours for each public holiday before it arrives.

Mistake 8: one profile for several branches

Each branch, whether it's a clinic, restaurant, office or shop, needs its own profile verified at its own address. One profile can't stand in for five.

This is the most expensive mistake on the list. Five branches sharing one profile show up in one set of map results, which leaves the other four close to invisible. There's more on this in local SEO for multi-branch clinics.

Fix: verify a separate profile for each branch, each with its own photos, hours, reviews and posts. It's more work, and it's where the biggest gain is.

Check your own profile

Running one branch's profile against this list takes about 15 minutes, and you'll come away with a short list of fixes, most of them free. For a local business, a well-kept profile is often the cheapest marketing there is. Sort it out before you pay anyone for SEO, content or social media.

Would you rather hand it over? Our Google Business Profile service covers four posts a month, photos and review replies for each location, and the pricing page shows what it costs.