Keywords in the name
Against Google's rules, and punished by suspension of the profile. The gain is real for a few weeks, the loss is total.
Visibility
Being found on Google when you run a shop: what matters, in order
The business profile before the website, consistency before volume, reviews before keywords. The order matters more than the effort.
There are two results, not one. The map with its three profiles at the top of the screen, and the blue links below. They do not answer the same signals: the map reads mostly your business profile, the blue links read mostly your website.
A shop that works only on its website is dealing with half the problem — and on a search made from a phone three streets away, it is not the half that pays. The order below is the order of return, not the order of effort.
1. The business profile, first
The primary category describes what you are, not what you sell. Google says it word for word in its guidelines: choose categories that complete the sentence “this business is a…” rather than “this business has a…”, and do not use categories as keywords. A bakery that sells coffee is still a bakery; what it does on top belongs in the services, not in the category.
The service area has to stay an area. The same guidelines state that it should not extend beyond roughly two hours' driving time from where the business is based. An area covering three provinces does not make you more visible: it says you are local nowhere.
The name is the most expensive trap. Adding unnecessary information to the business name is not permitted and can get the profile suspended. “Restaurante centro paella barata” wins three weeks and loses everything else. The name on the profile is the trading name, the one on the shopfront.
The rest is filled in once and rechecked each quarter: opening hours, holiday hours, phone, website, photos, services, attributes. A complete profile is no feat; an incomplete one is a handicap.
2. Reviews, next
It is the most under-used lever, and the only one that costs nothing but the asking. Ask on site, at the end, while the customer is happy — not by email three weeks later, when they no longer remember your name.
And the wording counts. A review that names the trade and the town — “they installed the POS in my salon in Fuengirola” — is worth ten “very professional”. Ask for one line on what was done and what it changed.
Reply to every one, in the language of the review, within two days. The replies are read by the next customers, and they are indexed too.
3. Consistency, everywhere
The name, the address and the phone number must be written the same way everywhere they appear: the profile, the website, directories, the Facebook page, the email signature, the invoice. Three spellings of one address means three possible businesses to a search engine trying to work out whether it is you.
It is the least rewarding job on the list. It is also the cheapest when it is done properly once, and the dearest when it has to be redone three years later.
4. The website, last
One page per real intent. A “services” page that talks about everything ranks for nothing: it answers none of the questions people actually type. One page per trade, per town or per need — provided it has something to say that the others do not.
In the language people type. On the coast, the neighbour searches in Spanish and the foreign resident searches in their own. They are not the same words, and they are not the same expectations. Three written pages beat one hastily translated page — and a machine-translated page is worth less than no page at all.
What does not work
Twelve identical town pages
The same text with the town name swapped: a search engine calls that duplicate content and ignores them all, including the one that might have worked. One town, written properly, then watch.
Buying reviews
Detectable, removable, and the profile keeps the trace. Five real reviews spread over time do better than thirty at once.
Chasing a tool's score
Those scores are dominated by domain age and inbound links. They stay low for months on a new site, even when everything is done right. They are not what brings customers.
The rhythm, and the patience it takes
Take a reading before you start: impressions, clicks, average position, and the queries that make the site appear. Then at one month, then at three, with exactly the same filters. A comparison is only worth something if the method does not move.
After a change of addresses or structure, positions move for two to four weeks. A reading taken too early gets a sound decision reversed — the most frequent mistake, and the most expensive.
Source: Google — Guidelines for representing your business on Google, accessed 23 September 2026.
Is your profile in order?
Category, area, reviews, consistency: four points that can be checked in a quarter of an hour.