Author: Ryan Walsh

Date: 21/08/2025

 

 

It’s a wet and windy Monday morning, and you’re frustrated that the company isn’t generating the sales you had hoped for.
You have shouted at the sales staff and slammed the door a few times, but now you have decided to be more practical.

That’s to check your business’s search appearance. This means checking your organic rankings and where you appear in Google Maps.

It’s then that you spot a dilemma: you’re not appearing in Google’s three pack. You also notice that you’re back on page four in the organic search results. This means that your business’s local and organic search engine optimisation is weak.

It’s time to apologise to the sales staff, mend the door you’ve been slamming all day, and get down to some real work.

 

 

What is Google Business?

Google Business has been assigned many names; it’s known as Google My Business, Google Maps, the “3-pack,” and so on.

In short, it’s when businesses appear next to a map of your city or your town in Google’s Business results. If your business appears here for your company’s most important keywords, well, then your business will have struck it lucky, as you can then reap the rewards of a lot more visitors coming towards your company website.

Yet there is a catch, so don’t get too excited just yet…

It’s not a piece of cake to get your business ranked here anymore; in fact, it’s getting harder and harder.

That’s because Google once placed seven businesses here (Google Business results), so you had a much better chance of being shown here, even if your SEO was poor when there was a 7-pack of results.

The Google Business results have been drastically reduced, from 7 businesses to just 3!

Plus, businesses have become better at search engine optimisation, which means the fight has become more serious. It used to be like getting in the ring with Mr Blobby, but now, because businesses’ SEO is so strong, well, it’s like fighting Mike Tyson in his prime to take those top spots in Google’s organic results.

We hear you loud and clear – you’re shouting, “How do I get my business to appear on Google My Business?”

Let’s look at some of the main reasons why so many businesses are not getting displayed in the Google Business results:

 

 

You haven’t put in the work.

We all look to save time, cut corners, and find efficiencies – whatever you want to call them!

However, filling in your Google Business account and then leaving work early is not a good marketing strategy.

Take your time, fill in your Google Business account and add as much detail as possible. Then keep refining and updating it.

 

Here are the basics, you must get this right:

– NAP– fancy way of saying name of business, address and phone number
– URL- list the homepage
– Opening hours
– Pictures of the business premises, staff or products
– Unique business description (don’t copy and paste from your Facebook)

NAP must be correct; it must match the company website. If it doesn’t, consider this: if you rushed to get to the pub earlier on a Friday, missed part of the business address (like 17a), or wrote “17” instead of “17a” or “Street” instead of “Street” due to haste, this could be reason number one.

Take your time, and add as much detail as possible to your business Google Business account. Adding as much detail as possible is what makes the difference between a business getting regularly displayed in the top 3 Google Business results and a business which never gets shown.

 

Suspended

Right, it’s not the 1990s, so don’t keyword-stuff the business description with keywords- that’s just going to lead to the Google Business listing being removed.

Don’t claim to be in a prime city centre location unless you are- that’s another critical point.

Just play by Google’s rule book, or they will remove you faster than you can say, “Where’s my Google Business listing gone?”

 

You’ve made a hash of the category tabs.

This is a more common problem than you might actually think. This occurs when a business sets up a Google Business account but incorrectly categorises its business.

For example, a building company that specialises in loft conversions may have just listed itself as a landscape gardener to save time.

 

This doesn’t save time!

It means your business category is incorrect, which means you’ll be displayed for the wrong keywords.

Which means you’re attracting the wrong business!
And breath…

Don’t rush it; choose the right business category. If you enjoy building lofts, look for the loft conversion category.

It’s simple, really, but so many get it wrong because they’re in a rush to get to the pub.

 

You are unreliable and offer a poor user experience.

If your website is unreliable, it’s likely because it’s slow and often offline due to hosting issues, which can lead to a high bounce rate. It’s simply unreliable.

Google prefers reliable websites that provide a good user experience.

Good UX means a simple, smooth, and effortless buying experience. This means that your company website should be fast.

It doesn’t mean slow, making someone short of breath with frustration.

Can you create a picture of a street in Cardiff, and you’re looking up at a substantial high-rise office block,

 

P.O. box addresses

Let’s say your business has paid for a P.O. box in a prestigious location in the city centre.

That P.O. box address will often be shared with numerous other businesses, potentially thousands of different companies.

Google knows it’s a PO box address, so does the dog walking down the street; he knows it too.

Which means it can be excluded from Google Business results, because, well, your customers are unlikely to get served there. They’re likely to see tons and tons of mail being crammed into small post boxes all over the place.

 

 

Out of date

You’re busy running your business, we get it.

Often, businesses get so bogged down with daily tasks that it’s really hard to take care of things like keeping their Google Business account up to date.

However, in Cardiff and other cities, to increase your business’s visibility on Google, you need to keep its Google Business profile up to date. This can mean updating the business hours, NAP information and responding to customer reviews.

 

Don’t buy fake business reviews 

Don’t go casting your net too far.

It’s all well and good for a business to be super ambitious and state a service to a vast area; however, as any good SEO agency will tell you, it’s better to be laser-focused on a smaller area.

If you have multiple stores, they can naturally serve different surrounding areas. Therefore, you can cast the net much wider because you have physical premises to serve customers from.

However, if you’re a small business, try to concentrate on just one city or section of the town. The reason is simple: the wider the geographic area you try to market your goods and services in, the more competition you will face.

The more competition your business faces, the harder it becomes to get your business ranked high in the Google Business results.

Take, for example, some of Britain’s megacities; it’s far better to advertise your services in just one section of a large city than to try to span the whole city and face perhaps 10 times the amount of competition.

Being laser-focused on a specific area allows you to concentrate on servicing customers closest to you, making them more likely to appear in

Google Business results due to your focused approach on a smaller geographic area.

Try to span the whole city; it’s possible, but it requires significantly more effort.

 

Have you got enough business citations?

Googlebot crawls and indexes your business’s NAP information.

For those businesses that have never heard of NAP, it’s what SEO agencies use as an abbreviation to describe mentions of your business name, address, and phone number. These are mentioned off-page, on websites such as Wales Online, Thomson Local and on Yellow Pages.

Googlebot indexes this NAP information.

If, for instance, 100 websites, such as Wales Online, all have the same NAP information, then this means that Google will have a tremendous amount of confidence that the NAP information is up to date and correct. This means that this can massively improve your business’s local SEO.

However, let’s say you’ve recently changed your business address in the last 12 months. You’ve had a busy time on your hands, switching business premises, utilities, landlords, etc.

Yet, what might have slipped your mind is updating your business citations, and even your Google Business account.

This has meant that you now have conflicting NAP information which does not match. This means that it confuses shoppers as to where the business premises are, but it also massively confuses Google, because it also doesn’t know where the company is based. Is the business still located at its old address, as indicated by 75% of the NAP information, or are you now operating from your new company address?

This confusion suggests that Google lacks confidence in the business’s NAP information, likely leading to your business being swapped with another that has stronger SEO.

 

 

Customer reviews

What has a dramatic effect on your business’s local SEO is the number of positive business reviews you obtain.

For example, if a business based in Cardiff were to accumulate a lot of positive business reviews, it could help to improve the business’s local search engine optimisation.

When we are talking about business reviews, we mean reviews which are left on your Google Business account.

For companies that obtain genuine customer reviews, which are accumulated over a long period, this can have a positive impact on the business’s local SEO.

For example, companies with a lot of positive reviews, far exceeding the competition, often get displayed more.

From a business perspective, this makes perfect sense. Google aims to reward businesses that provide excellent customer service by displaying them more frequently in Google Business results.

 

Don’t buy fake business reviews.

However, we must make this point crystal clear: never, as a business, buy several fake reviews.

We understand that it can be challenging to obtain positive reviews, even when customers have had a great experience at your restaurant.

Often, they may not leave a review simply because it takes time.

Now, if you run a brand-new business, it’s even harder to build up enough positive reviews because your direct competitors might have been running for over 10 years.

But here’s our top advice to you: never buy business reviews.

We are talking about purchasing fake positive reviews here.

The reason why we advise against this is simple: Google is very clever at detecting if businesses are trying to fool its algorithms.

Whether it’s copying someone else’s text, or say buying fake reviews, in an instant Google algorithms will spot this.

It can mean that the Google Business account is sometimes removed. Additionally, duplicated text on your website can result in it being deindexed. This means totally and completely removed from Google’s organic results. If the business is also removed from Google Business results, it means your business is not visible on Google.

 

At Walsh & Partners, we only recommend white hat SEO methods to our clients in Cardiff.

 

How established is your business?

You may have noticed that earlier, we mentioned that businesses with a large number of very positive reviews often appear more frequently in Google Business results.

Now, often, the businesses that have accumulated a vast number of positive business reviews have been trading for an extended period.

Obviously, sometimes this is not the case; sometimes a business will be a massive success within a short period.

However, most of the time, say for a hospitality business, they have to be running for an extended period before they can gain 100+ positive reviews.

Therefore, if your business is established, then you will have an advantage when it comes to improving your local SEO.

 

 

Add pictures

Add pictures of your business, such as the food you serve, your team, or the business premises.

This helps customers better understand your business, including the products or services you offer.

What it also does is tell Google that you’re keeping your Google Business listing up to date.

For example, you might add a new item to the menu, such as a range of tasty dishes. Consider adding a promotion picture to your Google

Business profile that says 10% off the new menu range.

Also, your team might have rapidly expanded in recent years. Why not refresh the team photo standing outside the business premises?

This instantly communicates more about the business to the customer. For example, on your Google Business profile, if you have all your staff standing outside the solicitor’s practice, then this can instantly communicate that, for example, you have a large team of staff in a good business location in Cardiff.

Also, if you regularly sign into your Google Business account throughout the year, this tells Google that you’re keeping your Google Business account up to date.

If a competitor’s Google Business account hasn’t been updated for 10 years, Google may consider the information outdated and replace it with another business.

So do log in from time to time and keep your account up to date.

 

Semantic web

Also, what many SEO companies don’t talk about much is the semantic web.

However, the semantic web is critical. If Google’s Google Knowledge Graph indicates that your business is well-known and respected locally, having been cited in reputable publications like The Guardian newspaper for offering quality service, you will have an advantage.

By “advantage,” we mean that businesses widely cited and discussed online often rank higher organically and in Google Business results.

What we mean by this is that businesses that have won awards, been featured in national newspapers, or are linked to by well-known brands tend to rank higher organically and appear more frequently in Google Business results.

Envision an SEO agency where a woman is building backlinks on her laptop to enhance a business’s SEO.

 

Backlinks

As you might expect, businesses with strong, high-quality links from top-quality brands tend to rank higher on Google.

For example, let’s say you run a nice restaurant and win national food awards, taste awards, and awards for the best chefs. This means that you could get links from say BBC, The Guardian and also say Wales Online.

This could bring in high-quality links and attract a lot of visitors to your company website. As a result, your business will be widely mentioned online due to the business awards you have won.