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Three businesses appear in the Google map pack. Everyone else is behind a tap that most people never make. The gap between position two and position four is usually not budget. It is a wrong primary category, a phone number that disagrees with itself across the internet, and a profile that has not been touched since it was claimed.
Start Here
Your primary category is the single biggest lever on the profile, and it is the one most often set wrong at claim time. Google uses it to decide which searches you are even eligible for. A dental clinic filed under Doctor competes in the wrong race and loses it.
Choose the category that describes exactly what you do, not the broadest one that includes it. Specific categories have less competition and clearer intent. If you fit two equally, pick the one whose searches you actually want to win, and add the other as a secondary.
Look at the businesses already ranking in the map pack for the search you want. Their primary categories are visible on their profiles. If all three use a category you do not, that is your answer, provided the category is honest for your business.
Secondary categories widen the searches you can appear for, but they dilute the signal if you add ten. Add the ones that describe services you genuinely sell and would happily take a call about.
Under each category you can list individual services with descriptions. Most businesses leave this empty. It is free text that tells Google what you do, and it takes twenty minutes.
Consistency
Google cross-checks your profile against every other mention of your business online. When your phone number on Justdial differs from the one on IndiaMART, and both differ from your website footer, Google trusts the whole set less. This is the least interesting work on the list and it is often the thing holding a profile back.
Keyword stuffing the business name is common, it does work briefly, and it is against Google guidelines. Competitors can and do report it, and the profile gets suspended rather than demoted.
Proof Of Life
In India that is usually WhatsApp rather than email. Ask once, immediately after the work is done and while the customer is still pleased. A steady trickle of reviews reads as a live business. Forty reviews arriving in one week reads as a purchase and can get them filtered.
Including the bad ones, especially the bad ones. Reply without arguing, state what you will do, and move the conversation off the review. Prospects read the replies to judge how you behave when something goes wrong.
Photos of the actual premises, staff and work, taken on a phone at the location. Stock photography is obvious and does nothing. Adding a few every month is one of the clearer signals that the business is still operating.
Google Posts expire, so an empty Posts tab is normal on abandoned profiles and rare on maintained ones. The Q and A section is public and anyone can answer, so answer the common pre-sales questions yourself before someone guesses wrong.
Off The Profile
Distance from the searcher is a ranking factor you have no control over. A business four kilometres away will beat you for someone standing next to it, whatever you do. Optimisation decides whether you win the searches where you are genuinely a reasonable answer.
FAQ
Category and NAP fixes can move things within two to four weeks. Review velocity and citation work take longer. Ninety days is a fair window before judging whether the approach is working, assuming the profile is being maintained weekly rather than set up once.
Usually proximity to the searcher, a better-matched primary category, or a stronger website behind the profile. Review count is one signal among several, and it is rarely the one that decides a close race.
Not reliably, and faking an address is the fastest route to a suspension. If you serve an area without premises there, set up a service area business and win that market through your website rather than through the map pack.
There is no clear direct ranking effect. They affect whether the profile looks active to a person deciding between three options, and an abandoned Posts tab is visible to anyone who scrolls. Treat them as conversion work rather than ranking work.
Keywords stuffed into the business name, a virtual office or home address presented as a storefront, a service area business listing a fake premises, and sudden bursts of reviews from accounts with no history. Reinstatement is slow, so it is not worth the short-term gain.
Send the business name and city and we come back with what is wrong and what to fix first. No obligation.