The Google Business Profile mistakes quietly costing you enquiries

For most local searches, your Google Business Profile is the first real impression you make — often well before anyone clicks through to your actual website. Profile completeness and accuracy is measured as one of the biggest factors in local search ranking, which means a sloppy profile doesn't just look bad. It actively holds your visibility back, regardless of how good your site is.

We audit these constantly, and the same handful of mistakes show up again and again — almost always unintentional, almost always fixable in minutes.

1. Categories that are close, but not exact

"Real estate agency" and "Real estate agents" sound interchangeable. They're not the same category to Google, and picking the near-enough option instead of the precise one is one of the most common — and most avoidable — mistakes we find. Your primary category should be the single most accurate description of what you do, not the first plausible option in the dropdown.

2. Hours that are wrong more often than they're right

Bank holiday hours never get updated. Seasonal changes never make it in. A prospect who turns up — or calls — during what your profile claims are open hours, only to find you closed, doesn't file a polite complaint. They just go to the next name on the list. This is the single easiest thing on this list to fix, and the one we see go stale the most.

3. NAP inconsistency across the web

"NAP" — name, address, phone number — needs to match exactly everywhere your business appears: your website, Bing, Apple, your listings on Rightmove or Zoopla, Companies House, review sites, local directories. A mismatch here isn't cosmetic. It's a measured, confirmed local ranking factor, and every inconsistency quietly works against you. Search "[your business name] [your town]" and check the first two pages of results by hand — you'll usually find at least one old address or a defunct phone number still floating around.

4. A profile that looks abandoned

Google and Apple both reward profiles that look genuinely active — a recent post, an answered question, a fresh photo — and quietly downrank ones that look untouched. Activity and freshness are a measured part of how these platforms decide your local visibility. You don't need a content calendar for this. A short update once every few weeks is enough to keep a profile looking alive rather than abandoned.

5. Apple Business Connect, unclaimed

This is the one almost nobody has done. Roughly a third of UK web traffic happens on Safari, and over half of UK mobile browsing happens on it — yet most agents have never claimed their Apple Business Connect listing at all. It costs nothing and takes minutes, and because so few competitors have bothered, it's currently one of the easiest wins available in local search.

Five minutes, right now

Open your Google Business Profile and check your category, your hours, and the last time you posted anything. Then search your own business name and skim the first two pages for an old address or number. If anything on this list is wrong, it's costing you enquiries today, not hypothetically — fix what you find before you do anything else.