Someone looking for a repair shop in their neighborhood usually has a very clear need. The same goes for someone looking for a restaurant that’s open now or a store near home. In those moments, your business needs to be easy to find, and the customer needs to understand within seconds whether you can help.
That’s why local traffic deserves attention. It brings your business closer to the people looking for products and services in the area you serve. Google Business Profile, formerly known as Google My Business, is part of that work.
A well-kept profile works like a front door. A confusing one can shut down contact before the first conversation even starts.
What Is Local Traffic?
Local traffic is the flow of people from a given area who reach your business’s channels: your website, your ads or a map search. The goal is to attract people who can become customers in that market.
Think of a language school serving El Poblado and Envigado, in MedellĂn. Visits from other cities might boost the website’s numbers, but those visits don’t always help fill in-person classes.
For that business, it makes more sense to reach people who live, work or study nearby. The strategy should start from the area served, the offer and the capacity to take on new students.
The same logic applies to clinics, gyms, hair salons, stores and service providers. Before chasing more visits, it’s worth asking: where do the next customers need to come from?
Why Have an Optimized Business Profile?
The profile gathers information that helps people decide. Address, phone number, opening hours and photos reduce doubts before contact. Google states that complete and accurate profiles are more likely to appear in local searches. [1]
Imagine someone who wants a haircut after work and finds two salons nearby. One shows its hours, its space and its services. The other has an old phone number and little information.
There’s no guarantee which one they’ll choose, but the first offers a clearer path: the customer can judge whether it’s worth calling or leaving the house.
Optimizing the profile means taking care of those details with a business goal in mind: making the path from search to service easier.
How Does Google Decide Local Results?
According to the official documentation, three factors play a central role in local ranking: relevance, distance and prominence. [1]
- Relevance: how well the business matches what the person is searching for.
- Distance: how close the business is to the location considered in the search.
- Prominence: how well known the business is, based on signals such as links and reviews.
These criteria work together, which is why results can change from one area to another. Google also makes it clear that you can’t pay for a better position in organic local rankings. [1]
How to Optimize Your Business Profile
Use real information and the right category
The name should represent the business as it is known in the real world. Avoid adding neighborhoods, services or promotional phrases just to try to rank higher: Google’s guidelines prohibit unnecessary information in that field. [2]
Choose a specific category that describes your main activity, and check your phone number and address. If you serve customers at their location and don’t receive visitors at your premises, follow the instructions to hide your address. [2]
The profile is meant for eligible businesses that serve customers in person, either at the business location or at the customer’s address. Operating only online is not enough to justify a local profile. [2]
Show what the customer needs to know
Review your profile through the eyes of someone who has never visited your business. Is it clear what services you offer? Does the customer know how to get there? Do the photos show the space as it is today?
For example, a repair shop can explain what kinds of maintenance it does. A hair salon can list its services and explain how to book. A store can show its entrance to make arrival easier.
Avoid long texts full of technical terms. Describe what you do in the words your audience uses. If a piece of information often causes questions when customers contact you, it deserves a place in your digital channels.
Ask for reviews from real experiences
Reviews help other people get to know your business. Google lets you request them through a link or a QR code, but it prohibits offering incentives in exchange, such as discounts, gifts or free services. [3]
Set up a simple request after the service. Invite the customer to share how their experience went, without asking for praise or a specific rating.
When you receive criticism, try to understand what happened. Reply respectfully and offer a channel to handle the case. Don’t expose personal information or turn your reply into a public argument. These guidelines also appear in the official documentation. [3]
Your Website Needs to Continue the Conversation
The work doesn’t end when someone clicks on your profile. The landing page needs to help that person take the next step.
If the customer is looking for a specific service, they shouldn’t have to browse several pages to find it. Explain how you work, the area you cover and how to request a quote.
Try a test on your phone: open your website, look for the phone number and try sending a WhatsApp message. Check that the buttons work and that the form only asks for what’s necessary.
It’s also worth reviewing pages dedicated to specific neighborhoods or nearby towns. Each one should provide useful information about service in that area. Simply swapping the place name in otherwise identical text does little for someone trying to decide.
Paid Media and Local Presence Can Work Together
A local strategy can combine your profile, your website and paid campaigns. Planning should take into account the area you serve and your team’s capacity.
Imagine a technical service that can handle ten new requests a week. Before expanding its advertising, it needs to decide which services to prioritize, who will respond to inquiries and how quickly.
In that scenario, media, content and customer service need to talk to each other. Attracting more people without organizing the responses can create an operational problem.
That integration is where I can help: local SEO, paid media and data analysis. Take a look at my services.
Which Results Should You Measure?
The Business Profile performance dashboard shows actions such as website clicks, direction requests and clicks on the call button. The available metrics vary by business. [4]
Each data point needs careful interpretation. A click to call doesn’t prove the call was answered, and a direction request doesn’t confirm a store visit.
Google also notes that the dashboard data may include interactions from both organic results and Google Ads. So the total shouldn’t be treated as a result of local SEO alone. [4]
Beyond those indicators, keep a simple sales log: how many contacts turned into quotes, how many closed and which services were purchased. Ask customers how they found out about your business.
Compare similar periods and write down the changes you made. That makes it easier to judge what needs adjusting.
Where to Start?
Start with the errors that get in the customer’s way: a wrong phone number, missing information and difficulty requesting service. Then set up a routine for reviewing your profile and website.
Decide who is responsible for updates, for following up on reviews and for logging incoming contacts. This work needs an owner and a frequency you can sustain.
If you want to plan your next steps, message me on WhatsApp. The starting point is understanding your area, your offer and the path your customer takes before buying.
References
- Google: Tips to improve your local ranking. Read the official documentation.
- Google: Guidelines for representing your business. Read the Business Profile rules.
- Google: Tips to get more reviews. Read the guidance on reviews.
- Google: Business Profile performance and insights. Read the metric definitions.