A customer searches on a phone for air conditioning installers nearby. A map appears at the top with three companies, their ratings, opening hours and a Call button. He rings one of them and never looks at a website. If you are not in that group of three, having a nicer site than all three put together will not help you.
This article is about the Google Business Profile, the entry that appears in search and in maps. It is written for companies that serve an area: trades, servicing, clinics, shops, restaurants, installers, garages. For a company selling nationally or abroad it is a marginal matter, and it is fair to say so at the start.
Short answer
- The profile is free and for a local service it often brings in more phone calls than the whole website, because it sits above the search results.
- Google says itself what decides the ranking: relevance, distance and prominence. It also says a better ranking cannot be bought.
- The strongest lever you hold right now is the right primary category. The second is reviews.
- Keywords in the business name are not a clever trick but a policy breach and a reason for the profile to be suspended.
- Rewarding people for reviews is banned. Asking for them is allowed, and it is the most underrated activity in small company marketing.
- In Czechia a listing on Firmy.cz belongs with it, because roughly one search in seven here does not go through Google.
Why bother with it at all
For a local service the buying journey has shrunk to one screen. People are not looking for information, they are looking for somebody who will come out. The map with three companies sits above the organic results, so your position in search is settled before the website even gets a turn.
The uncomfortable conclusion for an owner: you can have an excellent website and be invisible. And the other way round, a profile without a website works for surprisingly long, it is only harder to sell more expensive services from it, because there is nothing for the customer to read.
The way I see it, the profile and the website do different jobs. The profile makes sure you are found and called. The website decides whether they pick you when they are comparing three quotes. Neglecting either one for the other makes no sense.
What decides the ranking in maps
A lot of nonsense can be avoided by reading what Google itself says about it. There are three things and for each one it is clear what you can do and what you cannot.
| Factor | What it means | What you can do about it |
|---|---|---|
| Relevance | How well the profile matches what somebody searched for | Complete the profile and above all pick the right primary category. This is the fastest improvement there is |
| Distance | How far you are from the person searching | Almost nothing. You cannot invent an address and nobody moves premises for maps. All you can set is the service area |
| Prominence | How well known the business is, including review count, ratings and links to the site | Collect reviews steadily, get mentioned locally and have a site somebody links to |
The primary category: half an hour that decides more than a year of copy
The category determines which searches the profile is even considered for. If a garage is set to “car dealership”, it will not appear for “brake repair” however many reviews it has.
How to check it in practice: search for the query that matters to you and look at the three companies that appear. Each one shows its category in the profile. If all three have a different one from yours, you have your answer and it is ten minutes of work.
The primary category should be one and precise. Secondary ones are added only for services you genuinely provide. Piling on categories just in case does not strengthen the profile, it only blurs the thing called relevance.
Name: Novak and Son Ltd Zlin, air conditioning, heat pumps, installation and service. Category: Construction company. Description: We are a family firm with a tradition and an individual approach to every customer.
Name: Novak and Son. Primary category: Air conditioning contractor. Secondary: Heat pump service. Description: We install and service air conditioning and heat pumps within 40 km of Zlin. We attend breakdowns within two working days and the installation price list is on our website.
Reviews: what is allowed and what is not
After the category, reviews are the second strongest thing you can influence, and the only part of the profile where you can get into trouble with the law.
- Asking for a review is allowed. Google explicitly permits it, as long as it is a genuine experience and you are not trying to influence what the review says.
- Rewarding it is not. Money, a discount, a gift or a small token in exchange for a review breaches the policy, even when the review is honest.
- Buying reviews is an unfair commercial practice, and since 2023 Czech consumer law addresses it directly. Anybody publishing consumer reviews must be able to say how they verify that the reviews come from real customers.
- Reply to all of them, good and bad. The reply is not read by the person who wrote the review. It is read by the person deciding whether to call you.
The cheapest way to collect reviews is to ask while the customer is happy, which means straight after the job is done. Not by email a month later, but on the spot, with a link sent by text message. The profile has its own short link for exactly this.
- 1Check whether you have a profile at all and whether you can access it. Plenty of profiles were created automatically or set up by a former marketer, and claiming them takes a few days because of verification.
- 2Set one precise primary category and only those secondary ones you genuinely offer. Check it against the companies that appear for the query that matters to you.
- 3Set the service area if you travel to customers. A business without premises customers visit should have one profile for its registered office plus a defined area, not a profile in every town.
- 4Fill in opening hours including public holidays, a phone number somebody answers, and the website link. Tag that link with parameters so your analytics can tell how many people came from the profile.
- 5Upload ten to fifteen of your own photos: finished work, people, the van with your logo, the premises from outside. Stock photos do not belong here, they are recognisable and they cost you trust.
- 6Write down a routine for reviews and put it into daily operations. Who asks, when they ask and where the link comes from. Without a routine it dies within two weeks.
- 7Reply to reviews within three days, including the bad ones. Briefly, factually, without endless apologising and without arguing.
- 8In Czechia, list the company on Firmy.cz as well, because some people search somewhere other than Google. It is a one off job of twenty minutes.
- 9Once a month look at the profile performance report: calls, direction requests and clicks to the website. Without that you do not know whether anything changed.
Why Firmy.cz belongs with it in Czechia
Google has most of the searching here, but not all of it. According to StatCounter, in July 2026 Google held roughly 81 per cent of search in Czechia and Seznam 14 per cent. That means about one search in seven goes elsewhere, and among people looking for a tradesman or a shop nearby that is not a negligible group.
Listing on Firmy.cz is a one off job and it feeds Seznam's maps too. It is not done for search rankings, it is done so that people who do not use Google can still find you.
Search engine share in Czechia
Values in per cent
DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Yahoo and the rest
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| 81.1% | |
| Seznam | 14.1% |
| Bing | 3.7% |
| Others | 1.2% |
How to tell whether it is doing anything
The profile has its own performance report and three of the numbers in it matter to a business: how many people called, how many asked for directions and how many clicked through to the site. For a local service, calls are the main conversion, and ordinary web analytics will never show them, because they happen off the website.
Two things worth setting up, because without them the measurement lies:
- Tag the website link in the profile. Without that, a visit from the profile hides among all the other visits from Google and you never learn how many the profile brought.
- Write down where each call came from. One question at the start of the conversation and a column in a spreadsheet. It is primitive and it is the only way a local company finds out what works.
When it is not worth your attention
I am putting this before the offer on purpose, because half the companies who find this article belong here.
- When you sell nationally and have no premises anybody visits. Set the profile up for completeness and spend your energy elsewhere.
- When your customer is a large company and business is done in meetings. A purchasing manager will not be looking for you in maps.
- When you export. A foreign customer cares about language and technical documentation, not about the distance from your workshop.
- When you have no capacity for the work you already have. It sounds odd but it is a real case: the profile brings calls nobody can handle and the company only disappoints people.
In those cases the profile is a two hour job and then you need not return to it for a year.
For a local company, two hours on the profile pay back faster than two months on the website. That does not mean you do not need the website. It means the order is different from what most people assume.
How we handle it
The Google profile is not our main service and we will not pretend it is. We deal with it as part of marketing, when an audit shows it is the cheapest improvement a company has available.
- We start by checking, not by creating. Most companies already have a profile, it just has not been touched since it appeared on its own.
- Category and service area get set from what actually sells, not from what is in the trade register.
- The review routine is handed over as instructions for your people. Reviews have to be collected by whoever is with the customer, not by us.
- We tag the website link so the measurement shows what the profile brought. Conversions are measured on the server, not by a script in the browser.
- If it turns out the profile is not your problem, we will say so and deal with whatever is.
Frequently asked questions
What decides the order of businesses in Google Maps?
According to Google's help centre three things decide it: relevance, meaning how well the profile matches the search, distance from the person searching, and the prominence of the business, which includes reviews and links to the website. Distance you cannot influence; relevance you can through the right category and a complete profile, and prominence through reviews and mentions.
Can a better position in maps be bought?
No. Google states in its help centre that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. You can buy advertising, which appears in maps labelled as paid, but that is different from the organic order. Nobody can deliver on an offer of a guaranteed first place in maps.
Can I add my town and services to the business name?
You should not. Google's guidelines say the name must match how the business actually represents itself, and adding keywords is a breach that leads to suspension. A suspended profile takes weeks to return and meanwhile you are not in maps at all, which is the worst possible ratio of risk to benefit.
Am I allowed to ask for reviews?
Yes. Google explicitly allows asking for a review as long as it reflects a genuine experience and you are not trying to influence the rating. What is not allowed is rewarding it: money, discounts, gifts or small tokens in exchange for a review are all prohibited. Bought reviews are additionally an unfair commercial practice under consumer law.
How do I handle the profile if I travel to customers and have no premises?
The guidelines say such a business should have one profile for its office or headquarters with a defined service area, rather than separate profiles in every town. The address can be hidden. Fake branches at virtual office addresses are the most common reason profiles disappear.
Is a profile enough instead of a website?
For a simple local service a profile alone works for surprisingly long. It stops being enough when a customer is comparing three quotes and needs to read what exactly you do, at what price and with what guarantee. The profile makes sure you are found and called; the website decides whether they pick you.
Is Firmy.cz worth bothering with in Czechia?
For a local company yes. According to StatCounter, in July 2026 roughly one search in seven in Czechia used something other than Google, mostly Seznam. The listing is a one off twenty minute job and it feeds Seznam's maps too. For a company selling nationally online it is marginal.
Summary
- For a local service everything is decided on one screen: the map with three companies sits above the search results.
- Relevance, distance and prominence decide the order. You can influence the first and the third, not the second.
- The right primary category is the fastest improvement a profile can get.
- Keywords in the business name breach the guidelines and risk suspension.
- Asking for reviews is allowed, rewarding them is not. Bought reviews are a matter for consumer law too.
- Calls from the profile never show in ordinary web analytics. They have to be tracked separately.
- One search in seven in Czechia does not go through Google, so a Firmy.cz listing belongs with it.
Not sure whether the profile is your problem
Tell us what you do and where. We will look at how you stand in maps against your three nearest competitors and send you the cheapest change available to you. If it turns out the profile is fine and the problem is elsewhere, we will tell you that and say where.
Sources
Checked in August 2026. Google's rules change, so check them again for the step you are taking.
- Google help: how local ranking is determined
- Google: guidelines for representing your business, including the rules on names and service areas
- Google contribution policies: incentives for reviews are prohibited
- StatCounter Global Stats, search engine share in Czechia, July 2026
- Act No. 634/1992 Coll. on consumer protection as amended with effect from 6 January 2023 (Act No. 374/2022 Coll.), obligations for published consumer reviews
Search engine shares move by a few percentage points month to month. Treat the figure in the chart as an order of magnitude rather than an exact value for your trade.