How I got my suspended Google Business Profile Back | 76

After nearly two months in the dark, my Google Business Profile is finally back—but it came with a few hard lessons. I break down what went wrong, how I got it reinstated, and what you need to know to avoid the same headache. 

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Transcript

 Quick grab that fucker by the collar Alfie, who the fuck owns him? Welcome to Simplified Sparking Marketing. Yesterday I caught a dog. Yes, that's correct. I've caught a dog. I was working next to my van and I. I heard a yelp coming from a park down the hill, and then I seen this little pug making a beeline up the hill.

So I seen him running towards me and I presumed that the owner didn't just let him off the leash, so I kinda waited as he ran towards me, gave him a little bit of a sidestep, mugged him off, and then grabbed him in a headlock and very weird interaction. From there, I caught him in the headlock and I said, okay, the owner should be on any minute now.

And I was crouched down with the dog in my hands and this youth pulls up next to me and I was like, is this your dog? And she said, no, I seen the dog running outta the park. I throw him in here and I'll bring him back down to the park and I was like, this is suspicious. This is like one of these people that steals dogs for a living.

So I threw the dog into the ute because those fucking lights weren't gonna install themselves. And then, no, I kept, I kept eyes on her and what she was doing, and she drove back down to the park and I could see her talking to the owner of the dog. I presume it was very strange that he didn't even like scurry after the dog.

I think he just must be extremely unfit. What really pissed me off about this situation was he did not come up and thank me for bringing his dog back. , I should have let him run amok in the inner west.  People on the road, people in general, manners are gone out the window just to say, thanks for capturing my dog.

But anyways, more importantly, Google business profile, it is back, it has been. Nearly two months and it has come back. And I want to run through on this podcast a quick debrief of the original, what happened. , then we are gonna move into basically how I got it back and just kind of everything in between.

So to start with, it was the 6th of May. I've done , a full podcast on this as well, a few episodes back, and I got home from doing five aside soccer. Came back. Threw open the laptop and seen, I had an email from Google and it was titled Profile Suspension. So I kind of looked at it, I was like, what the fuck is this about?

, your Google business profile has been suspended. And then there was like an appeal button. So I was like, what the fuck? Weird. So then I just clicked on the button selected appeal, which is a number one rookie mistake because that was my opportunity to submit documents there and then, and add things that I should have sent in with it.

So if this does ever happen to you hopefully it never does,  don't panic when you see that email. Don't hit submit or don't try and appeal yourself until you get all your stuff together. Now, all I had to do was submit a few documents, but what I did was I went, I did a few things. I thought, being an electrician, I can do anything.

So I was like, I'm just gonna appeal this myself because it'll be easy. So what I did was I submitted all the documents that I could possibly submit, and I got another rejection back. But it was very confusing whether it was a previous rejection or if it was that rejection. It's very hard to speak with Google.

So what I did next was I went to get somebody to. Reinstate this profile, essentially. So I went across to a website, fiverr.com, and I engaged with a gentleman on it. So I searched for Google business profile or Google my business reinstatement or suspension lifting and all of this. And then I got in contact with a guy, he had 13, I think 12 or 1300 positive reviews that he was the go-to in the space. Now, my dealings with this guy were quite odd. He, firstly, when it initially happened, I sent him a, a DM and basically told him the situation and he was like, give me a login to your account without asking about any money or anything like that.

He was like, gimme a login. And I was like. No. So I left it for a bit. I was in Japan in between, and then I came back, I was like, fuck it. I do need this guy. So I, I asked him again, he goes, what's the story? And he goes, oh, just add me as a manager in your account. And at this stage I was like, I've got nothing to lose.

So I added him as a, a manager, and then I, he requested only a handful of documents. He only requested, the business registration details, which was just A PDF. I submitted a business name registration as well, because my business name is slightly different. It doesn't have electrical on it. That's registered, so I have a trading name with electrical on it, which is a lesson to you.

When I started the business, I just went as a single name thinking everybody knew what the hell I did. And that's a big marketing mistake as well as put whatever you do after your name, for example, electrical, plumbing, air con, et cetera. It's silly presuming that people know what you do. Make it as easy as possible for people to know what you do.

Anyway, I digress. So I sent that document. I sent the business registration, a BN details. And that was really it. I didn't send, give him much more documents. That's all he requested. And I gave it to him and I was like panicking, when will this be? Back up? What's the story with it? And he was like I'm working on it very blunt dude.

Very like two word answers, literally. And I was like, can we speed this up? Anything we can do? And he was like, oh, I can prioritize you. So that was fine. This will come into part and later in the story. I was like, yep. Perfect. Yeah, so thanks very much you legend for prioritizing me. So I think it was like 15 days had passed or something and I questioned, I said, what's any more updates and stuff?

And the weird thing was he had received emails, but I hadn't he sent me a screenshot of an email saying, he said It's in a certain stage now. So he goes, 110%, it'll be back. And I was like, do you know when? And then sure enough, like two days later, you're alive. But it was really weird again, because I didn't receive those emails.

He did. I. Now, this is my theory behind it all, is I feel like that guy's got someone on the inside that he was able to speak directly to or just speed the process up.  He did a few things in the profile that pissed me off, but long story short about this is when it came to payment, our initial agreement was 200.

US dollars, I think, which is cheap as chips. Even if he said 2000, I'll guarantee to get it back, I would've paid it. But what pissed me off when it came to the invoice was he sent me an invoice and it was like 450 US dollars. And I was like, Hey dude, we agreed on, 190 or 200 US dollars. And he was like, oh yeah, but I prioritize you.

  Well and good, but this is exactly what we do to clients as well. If we don't quote up front. And what I received was bill shock because what I was led to believe I was paying and what I was paying was two totally different things. And I said it to 'em, I goes, look, I am happy to pay that because you've got it back.

That's brilliant. But I said, somebody else will fly off the fucking handle. If you do that to them and you don't tell 'em the price upfront, because I was happy to have it back, but it was just more so the principle that he didn't say that, okay, I'm gonna prioritize you. It's going to be an extra $200. Do you want to do that?

That's all he had to do. So that was one flag that I had with him that I didn't like the experience it. Secondly, what he did was he went in and he changed a lot of stuff in the profile that I didn't like, like he changed the name back to the, the company name Proprietary Limited. And I was like,, why did you do that?

I said I've given you a document with the trading name is on it. He goes, that, and then again, like he didn't really explain himself. It was just one sentence back. That's what was on the document. I was like, yes, but on the other document it's got the trading name. So there's one thing he did. Secondly, he wiped out all the service areas, which is basically why the fucking profile is there.

So my address isn't on it, it's just service areas. So it just has locations where I service, and that is what I believe gets you reach in those areas. So he wiped that out of it and just put it down to one suburb. He changed the hours that it was in 24 hour. And this is a very important note and something that I found out recently that if your Google Business profile doesn't have 24 hours on the  listing, it will not show up on some occasions.

So, for example, if your hours are. Seven to 3:00 PM and somebody is watching TV at 6:00 PM on a Sunday night, and they want an electrician and they're happy to send a form to your website and   they're searching the maps, but your business isn't there because you've your hours set.

That you are shot at such a time. So it's very important where possible to leave the business wide open, have it at 24 hours. And because you're an electrical business it's perfectly legit that you are an emergency service to leave that open for 24 hours. Because yeah, as I said, I, I. I now have limited hours on it.

And to be honest, I don't wanna fuck with any of the settings right now because it's so freshly back. But I will end up trying to change that again. So he changed the hours. He ch he had the incorrect name, he removed the service area, he removed the full description. He basically pulled it back to bare bones, which is fair enough.

But he didn't tell me he was doing any of this or say like, Hey, I'm gonna change the name. Is this okay? Like he just kind of went in and wreaked havoc and then got it back listed. And as I explained in a previous podcast, it's like when somebody dies in a movie and they bring them back to life, but it's not the same person.

That's the stage I'm at now. Now the business listing is up and running again, and I've even noticed in the last, it's probably up maybe four days or five days or something. And from the initial. Reinstatement or when it actually did come live for the first few days, it wasn't visible. For the second few days it was starting to appear again.

And now I think it's starting to gain momentum and get back to where it was. So it could be a week or two weeks, or it could even be a few months until it's fully back in action again and reinstated it properly. I would recommend this guy, but I would say. Go in with your guard up and just be saying things like that.

You don't want this change. You don't want that change. Or perhaps asking upfront, even if you're not using this guy, you're using another freelancer, that you do question what they're gonna do and change. Because if they wipe  your service area like you did to me, that could take another six months to reinstate it.

Therefore. What was the fucking point in bringing it back to life again?  Luckily mine has retained the area, but what he. Had on it and what's there. It's like it may flick back to just one suburb shortly. Again, I don't know, it's just witchcraft with Google. But that would be my advice is if you are getting a freelancer to bring back your business profile, I would be definitely stating what you don't want change or just having a little micro meeting about what he's gonna do and the repercussions of what he does do, because it's gonna have a massive effect on your business if you're basically not showing in the areas you do want to show him.

When the profile was down, it was quite noticeable that , I was missing out in a few leads, and that was devastating.

As I've stressed before, this is the best form of marketing that you can have it's essentially free. Your time is put into it, obviously, so that's not free, but that listing itself is free and if you look after it, maintain it. Get your reviews, keep it up to date  the best form you can have.

So when that is taken down, it is a real kick in the balls, but it's something that I've learned as well as don't, if you want to change your address on the listing or if you want to change something. Don't try and take the piss, don't do something that is a bit sketchy and untrue because you could get pulled down like I am.

I know it's, I'm on the ladder again, just trying to climb that, that back up or get that ranking again.  It's after getting very strict of notice before you could make a change in your profile and it would change almost immediately, like hours or description or. Service areas, it would immediately appear.

But now it's like it has to go through a little system that I feel like the security is up more. I think just because of AI and spam. A lot of guard is up, so always be cautious if you are. Making changes to your profile, in particular, the address, it could really, really fuck you up.

If you're willing to run that risk and you're willing to change your address, you better have the correct documentation in regards to the business being located there and all the, all your bills and stuff at that address as well, because they may say that you can't pull that back up again.

The lesson really is here with your Google business profile is like the last podcast, having your eggs in one basket. It's all about planting little seeds everywhere else that you can have backup. Now, I was very fortunate that I have the systems in place in my business, and I planted those seeds many years ago that I had SEO in action, and the website is ranking well, and the website has done well.

And that was bringing in leads and also just, , email nurturing that existing clients were coming back again. So it's always very important to have that backup and have those seeds planted throughout your business that you're not just relying on that one source. Or hypothetically, if your website's ranking dog shit and you're purely hoping that you're getting leads through Google Business profile and that thing goes down, it's just, it's detrimental to your business.

So always have backup plans and different avenues of income into your business. If you are a victim of this and it has your profile, may currently be done as we speak and you've happened to be listening to this podcast, head over to Instagram, shoot me a dm. I'm happy to share the guys' details from Fiverr.

If you wish. All the links to the podcast are underneath and catch you next week.