Search “electrician Bognor Regis” or “cafe near me” from anywhere in West Sussex and the first real results aren't websites — they're the three businesses in the map pack. Those three get the calls. The strange part? The listing that puts you there is completely free, takes an afternoon to set up properly, and most local businesses have either never claimed theirs or abandoned it years ago. This guide walks through doing it right.
Why Your Google Business Profile Matters More Than Your Website (For Local Search)
For searches with local intent — “plumber Worthing”, “dog groomer Selsey”, “accountant near me” — Google shows the map pack above the normal results. Your website still matters enormously (it's where the profile sends people, and Google reads it to understand what you do), but the profile is what appears in Maps, powers the map pack, shows your reviews, opening hours and photos, and gives people a call button before they've ever seen your homepage.
In a market like West Sussex — lots of small trades and independents, relatively low competition compared to London — a properly completed profile can move you into the map pack in weeks. It is comfortably the highest-return hour-for-hour marketing work a local business can do.
Step 1: Claim and Verify
Go to google.com/business and search for your business. If a profile already exists (Google often auto-creates them), claim it rather than creating a duplicate. Verification is usually by video these days — Google asks you to film your premises, signage, or proof you operate the business — though postcard and phone verification still appear for some categories.
If you work from home and travel to customers — most trades — set your profile up as a service-area business. You hide your home address and instead list the areas you cover: Chichester, Bognor Regis, Littlehampton, Arundel, wherever you actually work. Don't list the whole of the UK; Google trusts tighter, honest service areas more.
Step 2: Complete Every Single Field
Most profiles I audit in West Sussex are perhaps 40% complete. Google explicitly rewards completeness, and customers notice it too. Work through all of it:
- Business name — your real trading name, exactly as it appears on your signage and website. Do notstuff keywords in (“Smith's Plumbing — Best Plumber Chichester Emergency 24/7”). It works briefly, then gets your profile suspended.
- Categories— the primary category is the single strongest signal on the profile. Pick the most specific one that matches (“Bathroom remodeler” beats “Contractor”), then add secondary categories for everything else you genuinely offer.
- Description — 750 characters. Say what you do, where you do it, and what makes you different. Mention the towns you serve naturally, once. No keyword lists.
- Services— list every service individually with a short description and, where sensible, indicative pricing. These feed the “services” searches directly.
- Opening hours— keep them accurate, including bank holidays. “Permanently closed” rumours start with wrong hours.
- Photos — real photos of real work: jobs, premises, van, team. Profiles with regularly-added photos get significantly more direction requests and calls. Stock imagery actively hurts trust. Add a few every month.
Step 3: Reviews — The Tiebreaker
Once several businesses in a town have complete profiles, reviews decide the order. Quantity, recency, star rating and whether you reply all feed the ranking — and more importantly they decide which of the three map pack results a human actually picks. Reviews deserve their own system, so I've written a separate guide: How to Get More Google Reviews(linked below). The short version: ask every happy customer, at the moment they're happiest, with a direct link — and never buy or incentivise them.
Step 4: Use the Features Nobody Uses
- Updates (Posts) — short updates with a photo: recent jobs, seasonal offers, new services. They show on your profile and signal to Google the business is active. Once or twice a month is plenty.
- Q&A — anyone can ask (and anyone can answer!) questions on your profile. Seed it yourself: add the five questions customers always ask, and answer them properly. Check occasionally for stray public answers.
- Messaging — optional, but if you turn chat on, reply quickly. A profile that ignores messages looks worse than one without messaging at all.
Step 5: Connect It Properly to Your Website
The profile and your website reinforce each other. Three things to get right: point the website link at the most relevant page (a Chichester profile for a multi-town business should link to your Chichester page, not the generic homepage); make sure your name, address and phone number match exactly everywhere they appear — profile, website footer, directories; and have LocalBusiness structured data on the site so Google can connect the two confidently. If your website is the weak link — slow, dated, not mobile-friendly — the profile gets people to the door and the website turns them away.
The Mistakes That Get Profiles Buried (Or Suspended)
- Keyword-stuffing the business name — the most common trick and the most common suspension cause.
- Fake or incentivised reviews — against Google's policy and, since 2025, UK consumer law. Not worth it.
- Inconsistent details — different phone numbers or old addresses scattered across the web quietly erode trust.
- Set-and-forget — a profile with no new photos, posts or review replies for a year looks dormant to Google and to customers.
- Creating duplicates — claim the existing listing; duplicates split your reviews and confuse the algorithm.
What To Expect
This isn't instant. After completing a profile you'll typically see movement within a few weeks — the profile's own performance stats show you calls, direction requests and website clicks, so you can watch it work. In smaller West Sussex towns the map pack is genuinely winnable for most trades and independents; in Chichester or Worthing city-centre categories it takes longer and reviews matter more. Either way, the businesses that treat the profile as a living channel — photos monthly, reviews steadily, replies always — are the ones that stay in the pack.
Want Your Business In The Map Pack?
I help West Sussex businesses get found locally — Google Business Profile, local SEO and websites that convert the clicks into calls. Tell me where you are and where you want to be.