If you serve customers in a place, your map listing matters more than your website. It is free. It takes about an hour. Most businesses have never filled it in properly.
Why it matters so much
When someone searches for a service near them, the map results sit above everything else. Google research found 76 out of 100 people who search for something nearby on a phone visit a business within a day. That decision usually happens on the map, not on a website.
What to do, in order
Claim it
Search your business name. If a listing already exists, claim it. If not, create one. Google will verify you, usually by postcard, phone or video.
Pick the right categories
Your main category decides which searches you can appear in at all. Get this wrong and nothing else helps. Add every relevant secondary category too.
List every service
Not a summary. Each individual service, named the way customers describe it.
Put in real hours
Including public holidays. Wrong hours cost you customers every single week and generate bad reviews from people who arrived to a closed door.
Add real photos
Your actual premises, your actual team, your actual work. Not stock images. Listings with recent genuine photos get far more engagement.
Ask for reviews properly
Ask once, at the moment the customer is happiest, with a direct link that takes two taps. Never offer anything in exchange. It breaks Google policy and produces reviews nobody believes.
Reply to every review
Especially the bad ones. Reply calmly, quickly, and without arguing. Prospective customers read the reply more carefully than the complaint. A complaint handled well builds more trust than a perfect record.
The one thing that quietly breaks it
Your name, address and phone number must be identical everywhere. Your website, your listing, directories, social pages. Small differences are a constant drag on how confident Google is about who you are.
Outside Nairobi this is even easier
Competition drops fast outside the city. A clinic or a garage in a county town can often reach the top of local results within weeks, because the competitors have unclaimed listings and no website.
If you want this done for you, we do it from KSh 26,000 as a one off. Or do it yourself this afternoon. Either way, do it.
Want this done for you instead?
Send a voice note saying what you sell. You get a price, a start date and a live draft link within 24 hours.
