Google Business Profile.

Why GBP gets its own service#

For multi-location operators, Google Business Profile is the highest-leverage local-search asset the business owns. The SEO playbook treats it as the homepage for the first six months of any local engagement (Part 3). It also gets ignored by 80% of agencies, who post once a quarter and call it managed.

We operate it as a discrete function with its own cadence, its own measurement, and its own compliance overlay where the vertical requires one.

What we operate#

NAP consistency at scale#

Name, address, phone — across the GBP, the website, the 30+ structured citations (Yelp, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places, Yext sources, industry directories), and any third-party data providers. Inconsistencies tank ranking. We monitor and remediate continuously.

Primary-category accuracy#

The single biggest GBP ranking lever per Sterling Sky’s research. We pick the most specific category that accurately describes the practice, not the most general one. Specificity wins. Generic categories (“Law Firm,” “Marketing Agency”) lose to specific ones (“Personal Injury Attorney,” “Search Engine Optimization Company”).

Practitioner listings#

For verticals where the platform supports them (legal, medical, financial advisory, real estate), practitioner GBPs are the highest-ROI single move available. A firm with three practitioners running their own properly-configured GBPs typically surfaces four listings in the Map Pack ecosystem instead of one. The published data from Sterling Sky’s Lovely Law case study quantifies the lift at hundreds of additional inbound calls per practitioner per year.

Photos, posts, Q&A, reviews#

Photos: 30+ at launch, real (not stock), with location-specific landmarks where relevant. Posts: weekly cadence, on real news from the business — not platitudes. Q&A: monitored and seeded with the questions buyers actually ask. Reviews: review-velocity strategy that complies with whatever vertical-specific bar rules apply (per our legal & compliance overlay).

Apple Business Connect, in parallel#

iPhone Siri queries pull from Apple’s local index, not Google’s. We maintain Apple Business Connect listings alongside the GBP. Same NAP discipline, same photo strategy, same level of attention.

What we measure#

GBP Insights (impressions, profile views, direct vs. discovery searches, actions). Joy Hawkins’ published data shows GBP-driven clicks declining across categories, so we don’t lead with click counts alone — we measure inbound calls (with dynamic number insertion via CallRail or CallTrackingMetrics), direction requests, and conversion-to-signed across the funnel.

Vertical compliance#

Several verticals impose constraints on GBP work — review-incentive bans, advertising-content rules, practitioner-listing requirements. We coordinate with the firm’s compliance partner where the rules require it. See legal & compliance.

Frequently asked questions#

Can you do this for a single-location business?

Yes, but GBP-only single-location engagements are usually undersized for what we operate at. Most of our value comes from coordinating GBP with the broader SEO, content, and review-velocity workstreams. Single-location with no other work is often better served by a focused local-SEO specialist.

How fast do you turn around photo and post additions?

Within 48 hours on the scheduled cadence. Faster for time-sensitive items (a real news event, a press mention worth amplifying).

Do you handle review responses?

Yes — drafted by us, sent under the firm’s named accounts, on the cadence that maps to the vertical’s review-response best practice. We do not deploy automated AI replies to reviews; the visible response is from a named human at the firm.

What about Bing Places and Apple Business Connect?

Included by default. They’re separate properties, but the operational work overlaps and there’s no extra charge.