Usually it’s 1 of 5 fixable things: an empty Google Business Profile, too few recent reviews, a name, address, and phone that don’t match across the web, a slow site on phones, or no local words on your pages. Each one takes about 2 minutes to check. Each has a free fix. Do them before you pay anyone, us included.
Yes, we sell local SEO. And a good chunk of what you’d pay us for in month 1 is on this page, written so you can do it on a Tuesday night with your phone. Don’t get us wrong, we’d love to work with you. But you built this business, and you deserve straight answers first. If all 5 checks pass and you still can’t find yourself, you’ll ask sharper questions of whoever you hire.
How much is a spot in the map results worth?
More than most owners guess. So why does it matter so much...? Because of who’s searching. About 46% of Google searches have local intent, according to BrightLocal’s local SEO statistics. When someone in Fishers types “plumber near me,” Google answers with a map and three businesses, the local 3-pack, above the regular results.
BrightLocal reports that businesses in the 3-pack get 126% more traffic than businesses ranked fourth through tenth. So fourth place is mostly invisible.
And these searchers are ready to buy. Google’s own consumer research found 76% of people who search “near me” on a phone visit a business within 24 hours.
In our book, a half-finished Google Business Profile is the most expensive free thing a local business owns. Filling it out costs nothing. Leaving it costs you calls you never see.
Which of the 5 is holding you back?
Grab your phone. Here’s the whole list on one screen.
| Cause | The 2-minute check | The free fix | When you might need help |
|---|---|---|---|
| Empty profile | Search your name on your phone | Fill every field; pick the most specific category | Rarely |
| Few recent reviews | Sort reviews by newest; count the last 90 days | Ask every happy customer by text, with one link | If asking never becomes a habit |
| Mismatched details | Search your phone number in quotes | Pick one exact version and correct every listing | Dozens of old or duplicate listings |
| Slow site | Load it on your phone with Wi-Fi off | Shrink photos, cut the slider and unused plugins | The theme or builder is the problem |
| No local words | Read your homepage headline out loud | Name the service and the town, in customer words | Several services across several towns |
Is your Google Business Profile filled out, or just claimed?
Claimed isn’t finished. Plenty of listings were verified once and never touched again.
Search your business name on your phone, not your laptop, and tap your listing. Look for a specific primary category, current hours, a list of services, a description that says what you do and where, and photos from this year. Anything missing counts as a fail.
The free fix is to sign in and fill every field Google gives you. Choose the most specific primary category on offer; “HVAC contractor” beats “contractor” every time. Use all 750 characters of the description, with what you do and where you do it in the first sentence. Then add your real services and a dozen honest photos of actual jobs. Your people want to see your work, and stock photos fool nobody.
When did your newest review come in?
A wall of five-star reviews from 2021 tells a searcher you might have closed.
Open your listing, tap Reviews, and sort by Newest. Count how many came in over the last 90 days, then note your total and your star average.
Both numbers matter. BrightLocal found that profiles with 40 or more reviews and an average of 4.5 stars or better appear in the 3-pack about 3.7 times as often as profiles with fewer than 10. In our experience, a steady trickle of new reviews does more than a big pile of old ones.
The fix costs nothing but a little nerve. Ask every happy customer right when the job wraps up, by text, with a direct link (your profile has a button to create one). Reply to every review, the sore ones too. Don’t buy reviews or trade discounts for them; it breaks Google’s rules, and Google can remove them or restrict your profile.
Do your name, address, and phone number match everywhere?
Google checks your details against every other listing it can find. When they disagree, it trusts all of them less, and so do the AI assistants reading the same listings.
Search your phone number in quotes. Then look up your business on Yelp, Facebook, Bing Places, and Apple Business Connect, and compare each one to your Google profile, character by character. “Suite 200” versus “Ste. 200” is minor. A phone number from two offices ago is not.
To fix it, pick one exact version of your name, address, and phone (the one on your Google profile is usually right) and correct every listing to match. Merge or delete duplicates. Then write the official version on a sticky note, and stop improvising.
Does your website load fast on a phone?
The person searching for you is on a phone, with three other options a thumb away.
Turn off Wi-Fi, open your site on your phone, and count. If you reach 5 before you can read anything, it’s slow. For a second opinion, run it through Google’s free PageSpeed Insights.
Small-business sites are usually slow for boring reasons: giant photos straight off a phone, a homepage slider, a chat widget, and plugins nobody remembers installing. Resize photos before uploading (Squoosh is free). Kill the slider. Delete plugins you don’t use.
Honestly, this is the one fix that isn’t always free. If the slowness lives in the theme or builder itself, you may need someone technical. Find that out before anyone sells you a new website. It’s often an afternoon of cleanup.
Can Google tell where you work from your website?
Read your homepage headline out loud. If it says something like “Quality solutions since 1998,” Google has no idea you fix furnaces in Greenwood.
Read your page title (the text on the browser tab), your main headline, and your first paragraph. Do you see your city? Do you see your service, in the words a customer would actually type, like “AC repair” instead of “climate solutions”?
The fix is about an hour of rewriting. Put the service and the place in your page title and headline: “Furnace and AC repair in Greenwood and the south side of Indianapolis.” Say it again, naturally, in the opening paragraph. Give each main service its own page, and add one line naming the towns you really serve, and only those.
Why do these before you pay anyone?
Because most of what a local SEO retainer covers in month 1 is this list. Ours included. That’s our hot take, and we’re sticking to it.
The classic mistake is buying ads on top of an unfinished profile. The ad brings a searcher to your listing. They see 11 reviews from 2022 and no hours, and they call the next company. You paid for that click.
It’s not a traffic problem, it’s a foundation problem. We’ve seen plenty of money go to advanced work on a foundation nobody finished.
So here’s your one thing this week: do the free things, then give them a few weeks. If you hire help after that, you’ll pay for the hard part, not the chores.
What if you fixed all 5 and still don’t show up?
Then the problem is real, and it’s rarely an evening fix. But it’s still solvable.
Distance is the big one. Google weighs how close you are to the person searching, so a shop in Plainfield may never appear for someone in Carmel, however good its profile. Crowded categories are another: a downtown dentist competes with dozens of profiles that did their homework too. Then there are messy cases, like duplicate listings or a website no local site links to. It takes steady work over months, and anyone promising page one in 30 days is guessing.
Want the rest of the checklist?
Our free self-audit, Can Indy Find You?, covers your whole Google profile, your reviews and replies, your website basics, and the smaller extras. You get a live grade and a plain fix for every item you miss. No email, no login, nothing to sign up for.
Rather have somebody to lean on? That’s our local SEO work: the profile, a review system that runs on its own, listing cleanup, and local pages, reported monthly in calls and booked jobs. Run a trade or a storefront around Indianapolis? Our page for local businesses covers the rest.
What else do owners ask about showing up on Google?
How long after fixing my profile will I show up higher on Google?
Most profile edits go live within a few days, once Google reviews them. Climbing in the map results is slower: a few weeks if your profile was badly neglected, a few months in a crowded category. If someone promises you the top three in 30 days, ask them what happens on day 31.
Why does my competitor show up on Google when I don’t?
Most often they’re closer to the person searching, or their profile has more recent reviews. Sometimes it’s both. Put their listing next to yours and run the 5 checks on each. The gap is usually obvious in a few minutes.
Do I need a website to show up on Google Maps?
No. A complete Google Business Profile can appear in map results without one. A site that names your service and your towns still helps, though. It gives Google more reasons to trust the listing, and it gives a customer somewhere to land that isn’t a competitor’s page.
Should I pay for Google Ads instead of fixing my listing?
Not while your profile fails these checks. Ads send people to the same thin listing and old reviews everyone else sees. Fix the free things first, then decide whether ads are worth it.
What does Carson Poore Consulting charge for local SEO?
Local SEO is part of our published monthly retainers: $1,200, $2,400, or $4,800 a month. Most single-location businesses whose main problem is getting found start at $1,200. Three months minimum, then month to month. We take 8 clients at a time.