Get found on Google

To get started

What is this about?

Step 1 of 4

Open a private browser window

This way your own earlier searches influence the result less. On an iPhone: tap the tab icon at the bottom and switch to “Private”. On an Android phone: the three dots at the top right, then “New Incognito tab”. On a computer: the menu at the top right, then “New Incognito window”.

Step 2 of 4

Search like a customer

Type what a customer who does not know you yet would type: your service plus your town — for example “made to measure built-in wardrobe dornbirn”. Not your company name.

Step 3 of 4

Note your position

Where do you appear — in the map section, on page 1, further back, not at all? Write it down.

Step 4 of 4

Repeat twice

The same for two more services. Three searches, three positions, plus the date — that is your starting point.

What it looks like

Example: What a starting point looks like

Watch out

Common mistake: Searching for your own company name — and being satisfied

Your turn

Do this now

To get started

What is this about?

Step 1 of 6

Write down your services

Note five to ten services you earn money with — in the words a customer would use on the phone.

Step 2 of 6

Use Google’s suggestions

Type each service slowly into Google and wait before you press enter: the suggestions that drop down are real, frequent searches. Note the ones that fit you.

Step 3 of 6

Scroll to the end of the results

Below the results Google shows “Related searches” — these too are real entries by other users.

Step 4 of 6

Collect customer questions

In the middle of the results there is a box with follow-up questions, called “People also ask”. It shows what Google considers important on the topic. Note five questions that fit you — you will answer them in lesson 6.

Step 5 of 6

Add your town

Append your town (“built-in wardrobe dornbirn”) wherever customers search regionally. For trades, hospitality and services that is the normal case.

Step 6 of 6

Reach around ten terms and mark the top 3

In the end roughly ten search terms should be on your list. Mark the three that combine both: they are obviously searched for, and they bring you revenue.

What it looks like

Example: Three finds from one entry

Watch out

Common mistake: Technical terms, because they are correct

Your turn

Do this now

To get started

What is this about?

Step 1 of 8

Claim the profile or create a new one

Open google.com/business and sign in with a Google account — the same sign-in as for Gmail or YouTube. If you do not have one, create one there for free. If your business already exists on Maps, claim it (“Own this business?”) — otherwise create it.

Step 2 of 8

Verify that the business is yours

Google checks whether you really are the owner and suggests a way to do so — usually a short phone video of your business, sometimes a postcard by mail. Until approval arrives, it takes a few days to two weeks. Complete the profile in the meantime anyway: as soon as Google approves, everything is visible immediately.

Step 3 of 8

Choose the primary category precisely

As precisely as possible: “Carpenter” instead of “Shop”, “Wedding photographer” instead of “Photographer”. Then add further fitting categories.

Step 4 of 8

Fill in all basic data

Opening hours (including public holidays), phone number, website, address — or your service area, if customers do not come to you.

Step 5 of 8

Write the description

Two or three sentences: what you do, for whom, in which region. Work in your top terms from lesson 2 naturally — as readable text, not as a list.

Step 6 of 8

Add your services

Enter your services one by one — from your list of terms, each with a short sentence.

Step 7 of 8

Upload five genuine photos

Exterior, interior, team, your work. Phone photos in good light are perfectly sufficient — genuine beats glossy.

Step 8 of 8

Remember how to get back in

There is no separate address for the profile: you google your company name while signed in — then your profile management appears directly above the search results. From there everything happens later: answering questions, writing posts, changing hours. Five minutes a week keep the profile alive.

What it looks like

Example: Two cafés, one street

Watch out

Common mistake: Stuffing search terms into the company name

Your turn

Do this now

To get started

What is this about?

Step 1 of 6

Get your review link

Sign in with the account that owns the profile and google your company name. Your profile management appears above the results — the same view as in lesson 3. There click “Read reviews”, then “Get more reviews”. That is where your personal link is, complete with a ready-made QR code.

Step 2 of 6

Save a template

For example: “Thank you for your order! If you have a moment: we would be delighted with an honest review on Google — [your link]. It takes a minute and really helps us.” Deliberately without “if you were satisfied” — that would already be the forbidden pre-selection from above.

Step 3 of 6

Make it a habit

Send the message after every completed job — by WhatsApp, text message or email, to all customers alike. Tie it to something that already exists, such as writing the invoice.

Step 4 of 6

For walk-in customers: put up a QR code

The QR code — the black-and-white square customers scan with their phone camera — comes ready-made from Google right there. If you need it larger, in colour or with a transparent background for a flyer, invoice or sign, turn it into one in two minutes with our free QR code generator.

Step 5 of 6

Reply to all open reviews

Including the old ones. Two or three personal sentences are enough — no boilerplate.

Step 6 of 6

For an unfair review: reply first, then report

First write a calm, factual reply — all future customers read it. If the review really violates Google’s rules (abuse, advertising, obviously the wrong business), you can report it in the profile management. Do not count firmly on it disappearing: one bad review with a good reply does less harm than nothing but flawless five-star entries.

What it looks like

Example: What a good reply to criticism sounds like

Watch out

Common mistake: A one-off collection drive instead of a habit

Your turn

Do this now

To get started

What is this about?

Step 1 of 6

Take stock

Search Google for site:your-website.com (with your address). This gives you a quick impression of how your titles look in the results. The list is deliberately incomplete — a reliable overview only comes from Search Console in lesson 9.

Step 2 of 6

Find the right fields

Open a page of your website for editing and look for the settings of that page. There are two fields: “Page title” (sometimes “SEO title”) and “Description”. If you cannot find them, your website probably runs on WordPress — then it needs an add-on for this, usually “Yoast” or “Rank Math”.

Step 3 of 6

Home page first

New title following the recipe: most important service + town + company name.

Step 4 of 6

Most important service page next

Its own title with the fitting term from your list (lesson 2). No title may appear twice.

Step 5 of 6

Write the descriptions

One or two sentences each: benefit, what makes you special, a call to action (“Enquire now, no obligation”).

Step 6 of 6

Cross-check

On a computer you see the new title immediately at the top of the browser tab. On a phone that does not work — there, search Google for site:your-website.com one or two days later, and the new title will be in the results.

What it looks like

Example: The same business, two shop windows

Watch out

Common mistake: One title for everything

Your turn

Do this now

To get started

What is this about?

Step 1 of 6

One page per top service

Take your most important term. If it does not have its own page yet, create one — and add it to the menu of your website. A page missing from the menu is found reliably by neither customer nor Google.

Step 2 of 6

Heading: what + where

The main heading says immediately what it is about: “Made-to-measure built-in wardrobes in Dornbirn”. No empty phrase, no “Welcome”.

Step 3 of 6

First paragraph: the short answer

Three or four sentences: What does the customer get, from whom, in which region — and why from you?

Step 4 of 6

Customer questions as subheadings

Take three questions from lesson 2 (“How much does … cost?”, “How long does … take?”, “How does … work?”) and answer each directly beneath it in two to four sentences.

Step 5 of 6

At the end: the next step

Say clearly what the customer should do now — call, fill in the form, book an appointment. With the phone number or link right next to it.

Step 6 of 6

The read-aloud test

Read the text out loud. If a sentence does not sound like you, it goes. “A warm welcome to our website” and “Quality is our top priority” stand on almost every website — and say nothing about you.

What it looks like

Example: The price question — answered honestly

Watch out

Common mistake: Writing for Google instead of for people

Your turn

Do this now

To get started

What is this about?

Step 1 of 6

Shrink before uploading

Open squoosh.app — free, runs in the browser, no sign-up, and your images never leave your device. Drag the image in, on the right under Resize set the width to 1600, Quality to about 75, download.

Step 2 of 6

Give it a descriptive name

Rename before uploading: built-in-wardrobe-oak-dornbirn.jpg instead of IMG_4711.jpg — lower case, words separated by hyphens.

Step 3 of 6

Replace the old image

In most systems you do not swap an image but upload the new one, insert it in the same place and delete the old one. That is not a detour, it is the normal way.

Step 4 of 6

Enter the alt text

When inserting, fill in the field “Alt text” or “Alternative text”: “Oak built-in wardrobe with sliding doors in a bedroom”. One natural sentence is enough.

Step 5 of 6

The five most important images first

Home page and most important service page: replace the largest images right there first.

Step 6 of 6

Quick test

Open pagespeed.web.dev, enter your address, click Mobile at the top and note the big number under “Performance”. The score varies from measurement to measurement — it is about the direction, not the decimal point.

What it looks like

Example: Same photo, half the loading time

Watch out

Common mistake: Stuffing the alt text with search terms

Your turn

Do this now

To get started

What is this about?

Step 1 of 5

Set three internal links

Link from the home page and from fitting texts to your service pages — with link text that names the topic of the target page. But not the same term nine times, that looks contrived.

Step 2 of 5

Check your business data

Google your company name and check the first hits: website, Business Profile, directories. Old address, different spelling? Correct it or have it corrected.

Step 3 of 5

Make the About page genuine

A current photo of you or the team, the owner’s name, since when you have existed, what you stand for. Four sentences with a face beat four paragraphs of empty phrases.

Step 4 of 5

Check the contact page

Phone, email, address, availability — and a person as contact. This is the page that brings your enquiries.

Step 5 of 5

Get one genuine mention

Pick an organisation you belong to anyway: the listing with your trade guild or the chamber of commerce (WKO), the club you sponsor, the municipal newsletter. Ask there whether your website can be linked. A single genuine mention is worth more than a thousand bought links.

What it looks like

Example: A link that works twice

Watch out

Common mistake: Buying links

Your turn

Do this now

To get started

What is this about?

Step 1 of 6

Sign in

Open search.google.com/search-console — with the same Google account as for your Business Profile.

Step 2 of 6

Add your website

Google asks which website you want to add and offers two boxes. Take the right one, “URL prefix”. There you type your address exactly as it appears at the top of the browser — easiest: open the website, select the address, copy, paste it here.

Step 3 of 6

Verify

Google wants to see that the website really belongs to you and shows several ways to do so. The simplest is called “HTML tag”: you get a line to copy that is inserted into your website once. Stuck here? We insert the line for you — a free initial consultation is enough.

Step 4 of 6

Submit the sitemap

The sitemap is the table of contents of your website. Try your-website.com/sitemap.xml in the browser; on WordPress with Yoast it is called /sitemap_index.xml. If a list appears there, enter the address in Search Console under “Sitemaps”. If you get an error message, skip this step — Google finds your pages anyway.

Step 5 of 6

After a few days: look at “Performance”

Which terms do people find you with? Which pages get clicks? What surprises you? Note two or three insights.

Step 6 of 6

The monthly ritual

Ten minutes at the start of the month: pick out terms between positions 5 and 20, improve the matching page with lessons 5 and 6 — done. One page a month is enough.

What it looks like

Example: The opportunity at position 11

Watch out

Common mistake: Setting it up — and never looking in again

Your turn

Do this now