Check what the internet says about you. Right now.

Seven things to look for

You can see your listing. What is hard to see is what is wrong with it — none of these are obvious until somebody tells you they are things.

1. 01Does it say “Claim this business”?Then it is not yours yet. An unclaimed listing can be edited by members of the public — Google takes “suggested edits” to your hours and your phone number from strangers, and applies them.
2. 02Is there a website link on it?If there is not, Google has less reason to show you above a competitor who has one — and the person looking has nothing to click except directions to a shop they have not decided to visit yet.
3. 03Are the hours right — today, and on holidays?Wrong hours is the one that actually costs a sale. Somebody drives over on the strength of it, finds you shut, and does not come back. You never hear about it.
4. 04Is there more than one listing for you?Duplicates happen on their own, usually after a move or a phone change. They split your reviews between them, so twenty good reviews look like eleven and nine.
5. 05Whose photos are those?Most are uploaded by customers, which means the first picture of your business a stranger sees is somebody else’s phone snap of a car park. You can replace them; almost nobody does.
6. 06Any reviews nobody has answered?An unanswered bad review reads as though the place has closed down or given up. An answered one reads as a business that is still paying attention — and the answer is for everyone reading it afterwards, not the person who left it.
7. 07Call the number on the listingGenuinely. Old numbers survive on these things for years, and it is the cheapest thing on this list to check.