Google ranks Google My Business (now called Google Business Profile) listings on three factors: relevance, distance, and prominence. You can't control distance, but the other two are almost entirely in your hands — and none of it costs ad spend.
1. Fill out every single field
Category, sub-categories, business hours, service area, attributes, products — an incomplete profile is a weaker signal than a complete one. Most businesses fill in the basics and stop. The ones that rank fill in everything Google gives them a field for.
2. Reviews matter more than almost anything else
Review count and review recency are two of the strongest local ranking signals. A profile with 60 reviews from the last six months will consistently outrank one with 200 reviews that stopped coming in two years ago. Ask happy customers directly, right after a good interaction — a simple link sent by text or WhatsApp gets far more responses than a sign on the wall.
3. Respond to every review — good and bad
Google can see engagement on your profile, and responding to reviews (especially negative ones, handled well) signals an active, trustworthy business. It also directly influences whether a potential customer picks you over a competitor with identical star ratings.
4. Post regularly, not just once
Google Posts (updates, offers, events) inside your profile are an underused feature. Businesses that post at least weekly tend to see more profile engagement, which feeds back into ranking. It doesn't need to be elaborate — a photo and two lines is enough.
5. Add real photos, often
Profiles with more photos get significantly more direction requests and website clicks according to Google's own data. Add new photos regularly instead of uploading ten once and never touching it again — recency matters here too.
6. Match your NAP everywhere
Your Name, Address, and Phone number should be identical across your website, your Google Business Profile, and any directory you're listed on. Inconsistencies (a missing suite number, an old phone number lingering on a directory) quietly undermine the trust signal Google is looking for.
The bottom line
None of this requires an ad budget. It requires consistency — a bit of upkeep every week rather than a big push once a quarter. This is exactly the kind of ongoing work we handle as part of our Google My Business service when a business doesn't have the time to stay on top of it themselves.