Google Business Profile is the card a stranger opens when they are already near a decision: which clinic, which hotel, which printer, which web studio. It is not a social network. It does not need a slogan. It needs the name people use, the category that matches the money, hours that are true on Sunday, photos of the actual door, and a website that does not belong to a different company.
The address problem
Nigerian listings die on fake addresses. A friend’s shop in Ikeja, a “virtual office” that is a desk in someone else’s reception, a pin dropped on a roundabout because the estate has no number. Google has been deleting these in waves. If you serve customers at their site — a plumber, a mobile DJ, an SEO studio that visits — use a service-area profile honestly. If people walk into Shop 19, Eagleville Estate Plaza, Mabuchi, that is the address. Put it on the website too.
Do not list a Lagos address, an Abuja phone, and a Port Harcourt Instagram bio and then argue with the algorithm about which city you “really” are. Pick the one where the work happens. Mention other cities on the website as service areas, with pages if the work is real.
Categories, hours, photos
The primary category should be the thing you want to be found for, not the most flattering label. A hotel that lists itself as a restaurant first will get dinner traffic and lose room traffic. Hours should match the door. If you close on public holidays, say so the week before, not after a review that begins “I came from Nyanya…”.
Photos should look like the place. A borrowed interior from a theme demo is a short-term trick with a long-term smell. Take the frontage in daylight. Take the thing you sell. Take a staff photo if you are willing to stand behind the work. Update them when the paint changes.
A review that sounds like a brochure was written by someone who does not talk like your customers.
Reviews without the script
Ask people who actually paid you. Ask after the job, not during the invoice argument. Do not send a paragraph for them to copy. “If we did what we said, a sentence on Google helps the next person decide” is enough. Reply to the bad ones without performing. “We missed that, here is the number” beats a legal essay.
The website has to agree
Name, address, phone, hours, URL. If the profile says one thing and the footer says another, you have built a small argument into the internet. Connect the correct site. Create the service pages the profile cannot hold. Then leave it alone long enough to measure.
Use the profile checklist if you want the gaps in a score you cannot hide from. Then talk to us if the listing, the site and the city still refuse to line up.