If you run a local business and you only do one marketing task this month, make it this one. It's free, it takes about twenty minutes, and it will do more for you than almost anything else on the list.
Claim and complete your Google Business Profile.
I bring this up with nearly every local client, and the reaction is usually the same: "I think we already have one of those?" Maybe you do. Odds are it was auto-generated by Google, nobody has touched it, half the fields are blank, and the photos are from 2019.
Here's the part that surprises people. For local searches, your Google Business Profile usually outranks your own website.
When someone searches "pizza near me" or "electrician Lewes DE," Google puts a map with three businesses at the top — the local pack. That block sits above every organic result on the page. If you're not in it, you're below the fold for the most valuable searches in your market.
And what determines who lands in that pack isn't your website. It's your profile: how complete it is, how many recent reviews you have, how consistent your details are elsewhere online, and how close you are to the person searching.
You can have a beautiful site and still be invisible in the local pack. Plenty of businesses are.
Go to business.google.com and search for your business name. If a listing already exists, claim it. If not, create one. Google will verify you by phone, email, video, or a postcard to your address — the method varies by business type.
You get one primary category and up to nine additional ones. The primary carries the most weight, so make it the broadest accurate description of what you do, then use the additional slots for specific services.
Resist the urge to fill all ten with a stretch. Categories that don't match what visitors expect can work against you.
Contractors, consultants, agencies, mobile services — choose "service business" rather than "local store." You can enter your address for verification and then hide it from public display, which matters if you work from home.
Then list the towns and counties you actually serve. For Delaware businesses that means naming specific places: Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Milton, Millsboro, Georgetown, Sussex County. Google recognizes those terms; "the Delaware beaches" isn't a geography it indexes.
This is where most profiles fall down. Hours. Phone. Website. Services with descriptions. Attributes. The business description. Opening date. Booking link.
Each blank field is a missed signal. Google measures profile completeness directly, and it's one of the few ranking inputs entirely within your control.
Profiles with current photos get substantially more clicks and direction requests than those without. Logo, cover photo, your work, your team, your space.
Stock images are worse than no images here. People can tell, and the whole point is proving you're a real operation.
Recency counts too. A profile with photos added this month reads as active. One with photos from four years ago reads as possibly closed.
If profile completeness gets you into consideration, reviews are what win the position.
Ask for them. Not awkwardly, and not with an incentive — Google prohibits that. Just ask happy customers at the moment they're happiest, right as a job wraps. Google gives you a short review link you can text or email.
Respond to every one. All of them. A thank-you on a five-star takes ten seconds. More importantly, respond to the negative ones — calmly, without arguing, with an offer to make it right. Prospective customers read those replies closely, and a gracious response to a bad review often does more for you than the review did against you.
Keep them coming. Twenty reviews from last year is a weaker signal than eight from the last three months. Make asking part of your closeout routine rather than a campaign you run once.
Posts. You can publish updates directly to your profile — offers, events, news. They appear in your listing and signal ongoing activity. Almost nobody uses this.
Q&A. Anyone can ask a question on your profile, and anyone can answer, which means a stranger might be answering questions about your business right now. You can also post your own questions and answer them. Seed it with the five things customers always ask.
Products and services. Listing individual services with descriptions and pricing gives Google more to match against specific searches.
One more reason to take this seriously. Your Google Business Profile is a primary source for AI answer engines.
When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity for a recommendation in your area, these systems lean on structured, verifiable business data — and a complete, well-reviewed, consistently formatted profile is exactly that. The work you do here pays off in both traditional search and AI-powered search at the same time.
Twenty minutes. No budget. Hard to find a better return than that.
If you'd rather have someone handle it properly — profile, reviews, local search, the whole picture — let's talk. First consultation is free.
A Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows your business on Google Search and Google Maps, including your hours, phone number, website, photos, and reviews. It is the single most important factor in whether a local business appears in the map results when someone searches nearby.
Yes. Creating and managing a Google Business Profile costs nothing. Google verifies your business by phone, email, video, or postcard, and there is no fee at any stage of the process.
Most businesses appear within a few days to two weeks of completing verification. Ranking well in the local map results takes longer and depends on the completeness of your profile, the volume and recency of your reviews, and how consistent your business details are across the web.
No. Service-area businesses that travel to customers, including contractors, consultants, and agencies, can create a profile and list the towns or counties they serve. You can enter an address for verification purposes and then hide it from public view.
There is no fixed threshold, but most local businesses see meaningful movement once they pass roughly ten recent reviews. Recency matters as much as volume, so a steady trickle of new reviews outperforms a large batch collected years ago.
About the Author: Alex Gold is the founder and CEO of Del Oro Media, a full-service social media and digital marketing agency based in Southern Delaware. With 15+ years of experience spanning Nickelodeon, fintech, and the music industry, Alex helps local businesses across the Delaware Beaches and Delmarva build digital presences that drive real results. Learn more or get in touch.
Del Oro Media helps businesses across the Delaware Beaches, Delmarva, and nationwide build strategies that drive real results.
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