Episode 39: Are you Ignoring the Most Powerful Free Tool for Local Visibility?

In this episode, Jennifer sits down with Geoff Schalow to demystify the Google Business Profile (GBP) and reveal how local business owners—whether brick-and-mortar or home-based—can optimize their presence on Google Maps and search results to attract more clients and outrank big-box competitors.

From avoiding profile ownership mistakes to simple habits that boost visibility, this is your go-to episode if you’ve been guilty of the “set it and forget it” strategy.

Geoff breaks down GBP best practices and how consistency (not complexity!) is what really moves the needle.

Top Takeaways & Actionable Tips

• ✅ Always be the primary owner of your GBP
  Never give primary ownership to employees or agencies—retain control of your digital real estate.
  
  
• 📸 Work toward 100 images
   Start with photos of your business exterior, signage, and team. Then add behind-the-scenes, events, and even networking shots over time.
  
  🔁 Post weekly updates
   Like social media—but more informative than promotional. Don’t add your phone number or website in posts—Google could penalize you.
  
  ⭐ Ask for reviews consistently
   Recency and frequency matter more than volume. Ask when the client is already expressing gratitude.
  
  
• 🎥 Use short videos
   Videos under 30 seconds showing your space, staff culture, or behind-the-scenes help humanize your brand and improve engagement.
  
  
  

Meet our Guest: 

Geoff Schalow is a digital marketing consultant specializing in Google Business Profile optimization, verification, and maintenance. Before founding Horizon Business Strategies, he was a Sales & Marketing manager for a large local franchisee. He used online marketing forensics to discover where the franchise's competition was winning market share and developed an SEO plan that helped the franchise break sales records year after year. Geoff uses that same passion for supporting local companies across West Michigan. When he is not working, Geoff loves to spend time with friends and family, walking Lake Michigan's beaches, downhill skiing, and golfing. 

https://www.horizonseogr.com/
Connect with Geoff: https://calendly.com/geoff-hbs/consultation

About the Host: 

Jennifer Kok has been a business owner for over 25 years and now is a business coach.

She turned her first business into a franchise and successfully sold it 20 years later.  She was passionate about building a business and a family at the same time.

And if you’re ready to go beyond visibility and truly grow your business, I invite you to check out the Earn More Stress Less Growth System. It’s designed to help creative business owners like you increase revenue, improve profits, and finally pay yourself more—without burning out.

You have three options to join, depending on where you're at in your journey—and all of them are built around real-world strategies that work.

The time is now. No more waiting, no more guessing. Let’s build a business that not only grows, but gives you more freedom and fulfillment.

3 Keys to Growing a Profitable Business Free Masterclass Replay
And how to fix them so their business can actually support their life

Curious about the Earn More…Stress Less Program?
Here’s the breakdown:
💻 Learn more: Program Info
🎧 Prefer to listen? Podcast episode here
📞 Want to talk it through? Book a call

Transcript

Jennifer Kok (00:01.59)

Hey, Jeff, welcome to the show. Today I'm excited to really talk to you and dive into Google Business Profile.

Gegoff Schalow (00:08.257)

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Jen, for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Jennifer Kok (00:11.938)

So I consider you an expert in Google Business Profile, but take us back to how you got here. What is your story of entrepreneurship? Give us the quick version.

Gegoff Schalow (00:22.446)

Sure, absolutely. Yeah, I started in sales and marketing all years ago for a local franchise company. And we did some great things together and they didn't really understand why they were having issues with their specific territory because franchises are often, you know, and what we ended up finding out was that it was because the one of the other

competitors was kind of sneaking in on their territory, their specific geographic area online. And so we were able to figure that out. it was, and I really quite, I got fascinated with all that you can do online without even stepping a foot into someone else's area or into a business or whatever. And it kind of snowballed from there and I ended up going on my own. And I had a few people, even when I just started, they're like, Jeff.

We'd love to work with you. We'll be your first client." I'm like, okay. And so it just kinda, it wasn't really planned, but that's the way it happened.

Jennifer Kok (01:26.552)

You know, I always love how the trajectory of something we're doing might open the door into something else. And like you said, it wasn't really planned, but your curiosity got the better of you. And here you are running a business strategies. So you focus really heavy on Google Business Profile. And I'm excited to talk to you about this because, like you had said, here was local franchises.

and other somebody else was creeping into their territory because they weren't paying attention to their online. And I think we all know, as most of us know as business owners, we need a Google business profile. That's how our maps are out there and all of it. But I know my own personal experience when I owned a brick and mortar and just talking to a lot of different business owners, I think it's one of those things we kind of the fix it and forget it mentality. We stick it out there and then we just think it's going to do what it needs for us.

to do without paying a lot of attention to it. And I am guilty of that. So that's why I really want to dive in. So let's start with the basics of it. What is really the purpose of the Google Business Profile? Give us kind of the basics of why every business, whether you are a home office business like myself or a brick and mortar, need this.

Gegoff Schalow (02:41.028)

Absolutely. A couple of primary purposes. One is to be able to be found for what you do online. So what you'll find is a lot of businesses can rank for their own names. So when someone Googles them directly, they should be coming up at the top of the search list for that, ideally, depending upon what they name their business. But it's much more difficult to rank your website in a traditional SEO setting for a more generic.

search such as the service that you provide. There are a lot of details I could go away into. I won't do that right now because it'd take too long. But the business profile is a way that these businesses can rank for something that their website's not necessarily ranking for. So when someone's looking for a generic service or product, they can come up for those things. And even in some cases,

they can outrank some of their larger big backs competitors in their area for those things. So that's really a sweet spot for small businesses.

Jennifer Kok (03:43.17)

And you know what's interesting about that is

I got to believe most of us, really don't remember the specific name of a business that, we're inundated with so much information and so many different choices. And so that's really curious that if we just say, let's say I'm looking for dog food, you know, I can't remember the locally owned business down the street. I can't quite remember their name, but I know I want a natural dog food. So that, I guess I never thought of Google business profile in that area. I always felt like that was more of a, need to invest heavily in SEO, which we

Gegoff Schalow (03:49.571)

Right.

Jennifer Kok (04:15.119)

is super expensive to do.

Gegoff Schalow (04:17.186)

It is. And in something else too, that, and, the business profile, anything having to do with SEO. When I first started Horizon, I started as a traditional SEO company and I wasn't necessarily focused on the business profile like I am now. but the reality is all these things work together. None of them are siloed in and of themselves. So the better your website's doing, the better your profile is doing or vice versa.

And even paid ads come into that for those that are able to afford a more comprehensive strategy, they all work together. So, yeah, that's an important thing. So when someone comes to me they've got an amazing website, but their business profiles underperforming, it's easier for me to help them say, okay, what are we tailoring? What are we targeting? Because your website's doing well already. Now we can just kind of easily bring that profile up to what your website's doing.

Jennifer Kok (05:13.709)

So it's kind of all the puzzle pieces. You know, I was just talking with a marketing agency and she specializes in website development. And she said to me that the first thing she will do is look at her potential clients Google business profile. And if it is not up to where the standards and where it needs to be, she'll tell them, go focus on that and then come back to me. So what you just said reiterates that how everything has to kind of work together. So what are some of the most common mistakes you see with

Gegoff Schalow (05:15.384)

Yes.

Gegoff Schalow (05:33.604)

Nice. Yes.

Gegoff Schalow (05:39.289)

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Kok (05:43.626)

smaller businesses, you businesses that are probably in their first five years, you know, they're growing, they're expanding, they maybe haven't quite hit a million in revenue yet. So they're not the big guns. They don't have this massive website. They don't have, you know, like you said, a comprehensive SEO strategy. What are you seeing are some of the common mistakes we're making with our profile?

Gegoff Schalow (06:03.812)

That's a great question. So one thing that business owners do well is a lot of times they will, they'll have somebody, they'll delegate, that was what I'm looking for. They'll delegate that, whether it's to a marketing company or whether it's to someone in their office, because they're busy doing what they're doing. However, one thing that they fail to do,

is make certain that if they're working with their employee that their employee makes them the primary, the business owner, the primary owner of that profile. Or if they're working with a marketer, they're not looking at the IP clause in intellectual property to make sure that they're gonna be owner of that profile or any content that they create for them. And so as a result, when they part ways with the, you know, with the marketing agency, if they haven't been made,

that primary owner, then they have to try to wrestle it away. Or, you know, if the employee is great, but they just found a spectacular opportunity, they couldn't, you know, they couldn't pass up. The employee's gone. The last thing they're thinking of is that profile. They get rid of the email address that created it. And if they're not on it, now they've got to try to regain ownership of that. And that's tough.

Jennifer Kok (07:19.849)

Okay, so make sure as the business owner, you are the primary owner of your Google Business Profile. Okay.

Gegoff Schalow (07:23.576)

Yes. And never give it away to anybody. If someone's trying to say, yeah, we'll work with you. All we need is just primary ownership. Never give that away. Ownership is okay. And I don't like that they call it ownership. have primary owner, owner and manager. I wish they would call owner admin. It's more of an admin role, but never give primary ownership away to anyone. Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (07:45.91)

OK, good to know. What about the way we're listing or the information we're putting on our Google Business Profile? Are you seeing things that are missing a lot or any mistakes that we could tighten up and do a little better with?

Gegoff Schalow (08:00.034)

Yeah, there's a couple of things on that. So one you touched on it is a set it and forget it that happens so frequently. And the reason that's a problem is because we have to think about who we're working with. We're working with Google and what's their objective. Their objective is to be the best search engine there is out there. And to do that, they need to be able to provide their clients with, or their searchers, their clients, with the most up-to-date and accurate information. And so if we're not updating that,

profile and keeping it active, Google has to wonder if that information is in fact up to date. So things such as our business hours, you make sure that when those holiday notifications, and they do send notifications, when those come through, make sure that you're either confirming, yes, we're open, or if you're closed, know, mark yourself as closed for that holiday, and save it. And that's just one of those little signals to Google that, hey, this company is on top of it. And so if I...

someone's searching it, I can confidently give them that profile as a reference. And then the second thing is if a business owner is creating it on their own, Google does a good job at walking people through it, but when they're done with the walkthrough, they kind of consider that as being done. And there's actually quite a bit more that can be done beyond that. And that varies.

what options there are from industry to industry. They call them business categories. But that varies from industry to industry what you can put on there, but there's quite a bit you can do. And even if nothing else, load that thing up with images. And I'm actually, I struggle with that, doing what I do. I don't have products that I can take pictures of and stuff. So I struggle with that myself. But your first goal,

If you will, as a milestone should be like a hundred images. So when someone's like, I got a lot, I got 20. Okay, that's good. You know, first milestone, try to get, try to get to it. Don't do it overnight, but try to get to that hundred. You know, make that a goal for yourself.

Jennifer Kok (09:56.542)

wow.

Jennifer Kok (10:06.631)

Okay, that's interesting, because I think I have five. So images of like, help us kind of get our heads around that. This is, are we going on Canva and are we creating like a post like we would for Instagram or Facebook and repurposing it on Google Business Profile? Do we write captions for all these images?

Gegoff Schalow (10:14.137)

Mm-hmm.

Gegoff Schalow (10:25.764)

That's a good question. When it comes to the photo section itself, I wouldn't necessarily do that. There are, here are a few that are really a big deal to Google. One, an image of the outside of your building. Why is this? Well, remember that we are, the business profile is located on the maps. And so when someone's looking something up on a map, they want to make sure that they're at the right place. Especially if there are a lot of businesses, even within a suite. So what I'll do,

is I'll take images of the outside of the building and then for my own business even, I'm in a suite. So I'll take an image of the like the little placard in the lobby that says this way, that way. And then I also take a picture of the outside of my door, which I have a little sign by, right? But the idea is always constantly keeping that searcher, keeping them in mind and having images of you and your associates if they're comfortable with it.

is really important. So then when they walk in the door, someone's greeting them, they know, yes, this is the place that I intended to go to. So those are just a few ideas that a business can do. But anything special you're doing, hey, if you're having a fun time, even if you're at a networking event, which is where I'm trying to really lean into getting pictures, if you're at a networking event, those are good ideas to put on your profile.

Jennifer Kok (11:32.384)

Okay.

Jennifer Kok (11:47.308)

Especially probably for businesses like you and I where we're not, customers aren't coming into our offices so much. You know, we are servicing people online. So for businesses like us, photos of ourselves, photos of us, maybe this, we should take a screenshot of you and I podcasting and networking event, things like that is what you're suggesting. Okay. And do you write captions for all these photos? Is it kind of like a social media post?

Gegoff Schalow (11:54.071)

Exactly.

Gegoff Schalow (12:06.934)

Absolutely. Yep. Yep. And then.

Gegoff Schalow (12:13.1)

I don't, now there are updates and updates are important to do. You wanna do an update once a week is good. If you wanna do more, you can, absolutely. Once a week is good, but there are a few different types of updates and one is the primary, they just call it an update, is like a social media post. The big thing with that, here's, these are two, I'll give you three. There are three things that you wanna absolutely make sure you don't do and this is,

This is something that's common. So a big, big pitfall to avoid never put your phone number in an image or in the text. Like with a social post, you got your picture and you've got, your con, your, your text, don't put a phone number in any of those. There's a call now button you can use and they're good with that. want you to do that. Never put, um, a web address in any of those things. Um, again, image or.

or the text. then thirdly, this is a little bit more of a bonus one. It's not as critical, but be careful when you're doing an update on how salesy you are. Make sure it's a little more informative. I mean, you can definitely, if you want to, you can have a call to action. Make sure it's soft. Don't lean in too hard on that. Otherwise it may get flagged or it just may be, it may be denied.

Jennifer Kok (13:37.089)

OK, so I'll be honest with you, it's probably been months since I've added anything to my Google Business profile. So once a week is kind of a good habit for us to maybe just start there if we've been ignoring it.

Gegoff Schalow (13:49.834)

Mm-hmm, absolutely. Yep. Start with once a week. See what difference that makes. And if you do have a special or something, there's a special offer. There's like an offer type of update that you can do. Now, when you do an offer or you do an event, those won't be visible in your update. So when someone's looking at your profile and they go to the update section, they can see the images and all the stuff that you've done. Those won't be visible there. But they're

are within the map, you can get different little symbols that let know, hey, this business has a special offer going on now or whatever the case is.

Jennifer Kok (14:29.395)

Okay, so good to know. So first of all, load it up with images. But like you said, don't just, you know, hit end this podcast after listening to this podcast and go throw up 100 images. Google's probably got to flag that. be okay. So do so many trickle it out. Make sure that we're posting once a week and it's okay to kind of repurpose our other social posts. Just do it in a way that's not salesy.

Gegoff Schalow (14:40.012)

Right, don't you? Yeah, they will. Yeah.

Gegoff Schalow (14:52.504)

Yep, you can repurpose them, but yeah, the danger in that though is it's good practice to have a call to action with maybe a link or a phone number in that social post on other platforms. Just make sure that when you're copying and pasting, you take that out. Yeah, if you do a phone, yeah, yes. Well, if you do specifically the phone number or the web address in your text or whatever, that will get flagged and they may take away your ability to do updates.

Jennifer Kok (15:05.919)

Okay. All right. So informative only is kind of the thought.

Jennifer Kok (15:22.087)

Okay.

Gegoff Schalow (15:22.124)

if you do that. So those two are considered egregious. The promotional salesy one, it's more of a slap on the wrist.

Jennifer Kok (15:31.468)

And I feel like I've heard that from some people before they get kind of put in Google business profile jail. You know, I've known businesses that their listing couldn't get verified, their addresses couldn't get verified, and that is just a challenge. I'm going to say, if you run into something like that, just to contact the expert like you and have you help us walk through that. Because that happened to me when I owned my bakery.

Gegoff Schalow (15:52.1)

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Kok (15:52.618)

And I had to request postcards that were coming in the mail. And you just feel like you never get a hold of the right person. And it went on and on and on forever. So it really took a lot of my time. And I was probably wasting time because I really didn't know how to navigate it properly. Let me ask you about video. Video is so hot right now in other social platforms. Are we supposed to be putting video on our Google Business Profile?

Gegoff Schalow (16:03.396)

Yes.

Gegoff Schalow (16:11.278)

Yes.

Gegoff Schalow (16:16.504)

Yeah, you can. You can upload videos and stuff to your photo section, whatever you'd like. You wanna keep them below 30 seconds. That's kind of the cutoff. And last I checked, your file size should be no more than 75 megabytes. That may still be the case. That may have changed. I don't know. I don't really test the limits on those, because I don't wanna have to redo something. So I tend to keep it safe. I keep it less than 30 seconds, and then, you know, for the most part, if I'm doing that.

Jennifer Kok (16:24.906)

Okay.

Gegoff Schalow (16:45.188)

and I'm not doing a big old time lapse thing where I'm cramming a ton of information in there, then I'm going to be good on the file size. But I would say keep in mind what your goal is and then just do a 30 second or less video on that.

Jennifer Kok (16:57.157)

So let's talk about that. What is your goal? Like is it, like we, I feel like the word informative keeps coming up for me when it comes to Google, where when we talk other platforms, social platforms, we talk about adding value and Instagram, we talk about Reels, we're entertaining people. So what is kind of the goal with what we should be doing with Google Business Profile? I feel like Reels probably, that's not the appropriate place.

Gegoff Schalow (17:19.684)

Correct. I mean, yeah, thinking about the goal of the business. So I was contacted by somebody I thought was very interesting. They wanted help with their business profile because they want to do some recruiting. So if that's the case, then have a short video of some of the employees having a good time, whether it's at an employee picnic or if they're just kind of just taking a little bit of a dance break during the day or whatever, having something that does show that the company is engaging.

You know, people are allowed to have a little bit of fun and enjoy the work that they're doing. If you, you know, if your purpose is just like, Hey, I'm opening this new business. And if only people could see the inside, they would be amazed and they'd stop by. You know, you take a quick, you know, little tour, do a little quick tour of, know, just so that's kind of what I mean by, you know, what's your, what's your purpose in it?

Jennifer Kok (18:09.065)

OK, very good, very good. All right, lastly, let's dive into reviews. I teach my clients to ask for reviews to make that part of their regular cadence. And it seems to be.

Gegoff Schalow (18:14.222)

Yes.

Jennifer Kok (18:23.903)

hard for business owners. think they feel a little funny asking or sometimes they do it once and then people forget and then they think, they didn't enjoy my service. You know, we start playing mindset games. So what are your thoughts? How important are Google reviews?

Gegoff Schalow (18:41.412)

They're critical. there's no marketer out there has access to Google's algorithm. We don't know exactly how much of a factor each thing is, but we do a lot of testing as a community. from what we can tell of the top 15 ranking factors for a Google Business Profile, reviews take up three of those top 15 slots. So there's...

Jennifer Kok (19:09.357)

Okay.

Gegoff Schalow (19:10.958)

how many reviews you have. So that is going to potentially err on the side of, you know, to favor well-established profiles or businesses. Not necessarily, but it can. How frequently or consistently are you getting reviews? And what's your star rating? So reality, I have seen it many times. You can have a business that doesn't have that many reviews, but they're getting them consistently and they have a good star rating. They can outrank someone with hundreds.

So, I like the way that they kind of have that, that trifecta, if you will, there's more than one way to do it, but really keeping them consistent is the way to go. Don't try to get a hundred reviews all at once. I'm it's in never buy reviews, never buy reviews, make sure that they are genuine.

Jennifer Kok (20:01.911)

So do you work with clients and kind of give them systems that they can put in place to ask for reviews or teach people the best way to do that? Do you have any words of wisdom for us there?

Gegoff Schalow (20:13.284)

Yes, absolutely. do. include training with anyone that I work with who's building a profile or maintaining it. And the reason for that is because the better they do, the more they're going to want to work with me. So yeah. So one thing that I tell people, a lot of times people are uncomfortable to ask for a review. So one thing I do is I'll say, okay, know, timing is important. Well, someone's having

Jennifer Kok (20:27.228)

Hahaha!

Gegoff Schalow (20:39.99)

a bad day, whether it has anything to do with your service or not, that may not be the time to ask for review. Or if you made a mistake, that may not be the best time to ask for review. But if someone's literally saying, like, for insurance, my word, you saved me several hundred dollars, I don't know what I would do without you, I'm so grateful, that's a great time to ask for review. And it seems obvious, but the reality is we're enjoying that moment for what it is, which is good, and we're not thinking like, yeah, you know.

By asking this is another thing too is people don't want to put their clients out But in that moment when they're saying, you know I just you've made such a huge impact in my business or whatever when they're doing that Asking for that review and attacked full way gives them an opportunity to reciprocate in the moment and It costs them nothing to do and it makes them feel better So in reality, we're really doing a service to our client by asking a root for review

in moments like

Jennifer Kok (21:39.662)

Well, and I think, as non-business owners, they don't understand the importance of the Google review. And so most of your clients are probably not, if you're working business to consumer, are not business owners. And so they don't even, they don't get it. And it's up to us to, like you said, kind of.

Gegoff Schalow (21:50.552)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

Jennifer Kok (21:57.548)

You know, educate them on that in a tactful way. And a lot of times I say, just be heartfelt. Like I would really appreciate this. This helps more people like you find me. You know, be honest, be transparent with that. So good stuff. So the word that I think I really want to lean into is consistency. You know, we hear that all the time. Building a business is not an overnight rocket. It is a consistent one step at a time, one day at a time. And I feel like that's drilled into us as part of our habits for social media on other platforms, but it's not.

Gegoff Schalow (22:05.397)

Absolutely.

Gegoff Schalow (22:12.782)

Epsilon.

Jennifer Kok (22:28.441)

I don't see it as part of our habits on the Google Business Profile. So I just want to thank you today for really kind of opening our eyes to what's out there for the Google Business Profile, what we should be working towards. Work your way to 100 photos, not overnight, but over the next few months, over the course of the year. And be consistent. And that means asking for those reviews and posting weekly. So thank you so much. If this is one of those, my gosh, one more thing I have to do as a business owner,

Gegoff Schalow (22:52.43)

Yeah. You're welcome.

Jennifer Kok (22:58.537)

Tell us what you do and how you help people if they don't want to do this on their own.

Gegoff Schalow (23:02.368)

Absolutely. Thanks. Yeah. we take care of anything from building one from scratch, a business profile from scratch to developing them that maybe one that's already done, but you know, needs a little bit more. and we also help businesses specifically with verification. So if they're like, I don't want help building one, I don't want help maintaining it, but I just need to get verified. Maybe they changed their address or they changed, you know, their name, they're doing a DBA. They're going to have to go through a verification. can be tough.

So we offer that as a standalone as well. Anything that anyone needs help with on their business profile will help them out with it. And I'll tell you this too, let me give this one last tip. There are a lot of scams going on right now where people will call businesses on the phone and they'll say, your business profile is not verified and you're losing business. You got to call us right away. All right, first of all, don't listen to them.

But second of all, if you want to know how your business, if your business profile is in fact verified or if it needs attention, just log into one of the emails that manage it. And then on the top left hand side, just below your logo, there's either going to be like a little blue burst with a white check mark, or there's going to be a round circle, red circle with a shield. If you see the shield with the red, there's something wrong. And if you see that little

blue burst with a white check mark, just ignore that call. Ignore those calls anyway, you know that. You can at least check on your own and know. So avoid the scams. Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (24:30.933)

Yeah, no kidding. Thank you for that reminder, because it is. It's everywhere. So yeah, I just feel like in today's world, you know, we are trying to be found online. We need all our puzzle pieces to work. And this is a big, important puzzle piece. So I hope.

After today's conversation people go and check and see how their Google profiles looking like you said But also take the steps to even make it more robust so they can be found So thank you so much for your words of wisdom and I will put your links To the show notes so that others can reach out to you if they just want help with it or have any questions

Gegoff Schalow (25:02.692)

That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Jen. I really enjoyed our conversation today.

Jennifer Kok (25:05.898)

Same, thanks for your time today.