3 Google Business Profile Mistakes That Are Costing You Calls (And the Fix)

What if the thing costing you calls isn’t your competition, but your own Google Business Profile?

After checking over 500 profiles, the majority had at least one of three mistakes sitting there unnoticed. In this post, we’ll walk through what those mistakes are, why each one costs you calls, and how you can check and fix your profile yourself in under 10 minutes.

Table of Contents

• Mistake 1: Your Primary Category Doesn’t Match Your Website
• Why Your Website Has to Prove Your Category (The Bounce Signal)
• Mistake 2: Inconsistent or Unbelievable Opening Hours
• Mistake 3: A Slow Mobile Website
• The Bigger Picture: These Signals Are in Your Control
• Your Action Plan and Next Steps
• FAQ

Mistake 1: Your Primary Category Doesn’t Match Your Website

This is the most common of the three by a long way. It came up on a Zoom call with an HVAC contractor in California. He’d been watching his competitors carefully, checking which categories they used and who was ranking well. He did his homework and changed his primary category based on what he saw. It was working for others, so logically it should work for him.

The problem? When I looked at his website, it told a completely different story. The category he’d chosen on Google wasn’t mentioned anywhere on his site. Not in the headlines, not on the service pages, not in the metadata. Nowhere.

So Google looks at his profile and sees one thing, then goes to his website and finds it doesn’t exist. Every time that happens, Google loses a little more confidence in your business.

Why copying a competitor’s category doesn’t work

He’d done what most owners do: followed the leader without checking whether the leader’s path was worth matching in the first place. The competitor he copied might be ranking for completely different reasons. Their website might have 50 pages of content supporting that primary category, plus citations, reviews and years of authority building.

Copying one thing, the category, without the 200 other things they’re doing well is like putting on a Formula 1 helmet and expecting to drive your car faster and win a race.

Why Your Website Has to Prove Your Category (The Bounce Signal)

Stop thinking of your category as something you pick for a search engine. Think of it as a promise you’re making to customers. If your primary category says you’re an HVAC contractor, your website needs to prove it. Not bury it, and not mention it once in a footer.

That means your homepage, your headlines, your language, and even what your customers say should all support your primary category.

Here’s what happens when they don’t:

1. Google sends hundreds of customers your way because of your primary category.
2. They land on your website and can’t immediately find what you do, or it isn’t what you said you did.
3. They hit the back button and return to Google.
4. Google notices all those customers coming back and concludes: “We sent 100 your way and they all came back. We won’t be sending you any more.”

That’s known as a bounce signal, and Google picks it up. It’s a major reason many businesses lose calls. Often it isn’t because the category is wrong, but because the website doesn’t back it up. Once the HVAC contractor saw this and made changes, it worked straight away.

Mistake 2: Inconsistent or Unbelievable Opening Hours

The second mistake is one almost every business owner I speak to has made, and most have no idea it’s there.

The 24-hour temptation

I spoke with a car hire business owner who noticed that the competitor ranking above him was open 24 hours a day. He was tempted. “It made logical sense to me,” he said. “If Google rewards businesses that are open 24 hours, then surely I should be open 24 hours too.”

What he didn’t know is that Google doesn’t just look at the hours you claim. It looks at whether those hours are believable. A small car hire business on an island claiming to be open 24 hours, when no reviews mention late-night pickups, the website says nothing about 24-hour service, and nothing in its history supports it? Google notices that kind of contradiction. A contradiction is a trust signal, just the wrong kind.

The one-hour difference

I also looked at a heating engineer in the UK whose profile said he closed at 6:00 p.m., while his website said 7:00 p.m. One hour doesn’t sound like a big deal, but Google likes consistency. When it finds different answers to “when are you open?”, it doesn’t know what to say.

The fix: say the same thing everywhere

Both businesses had hours problems, and both were tempted to game the system. Don’t sell your trust signals for the sake of an extra hour or a service you can’t fulfil. Your Google Business Profile, your website, your Facebook page and your directories should all say the same thing, everywhere. If they don’t, you send the wrong signals back to Google.

Most owners know that being open can get you shown more often, but chasing it this way isn’t the right approach. Just check your hours, fix them, and make them consistent. That’s how you build trust across all the other signals Google is looking at too.

Mistake 3: A Slow Mobile Website

The third mistake surprises owners when I go through it with them. It has nothing to do with your Google Business Profile directly. It’s about your website, and it connects back to those bounce rates.

The question is: how long does your website take to load on a mobile?

18 seconds vs. 2 to 3 seconds

I recently ran a speed test for a UK heating engineer, on mobile with a fresh browser and no cache, exactly the way a new customer would come across it. It took 18 seconds to load. Even if you think your site loads quickly, customers aren’t patient enough to wait 18 seconds. Every one of them bounces back to Google, Google sees that no one is staying, and it stops sending customers.

Compare that with the HVAC contractor in California. In a fresh browser with no cache, his site loaded in 2 to 3 seconds. Clean, fast and immediate. Google was sending him customers. That’s the difference between the two.

Google sees your site like a brand-new mobile visitor

Most business owners don’t realise that Google doesn’t view your website the way you do. It views it the way a brand-new customer on a mobile does. Many websites were built 5 or 10 years ago and were only adjusted to work on mobile, but that’s not how Google works anymore. Google ranks websites based on the mobile version. If your mobile experience is slow, Google knows it, and every time someone bounces back to the results, Google knows that too.

Once the speed issues were identified and some changes were made, those businesses saw strong results straight away.

The Bigger Picture: These Signals Are in Your Control

When you look at all three checks together, something becomes clear. The way Google sees your business, the conclusions it draws, the trust it gives and the calls it sends aren’t decided by Google alone. They’re decided by you. Every signal Google uses to judge your business comes from choices you’ve made: your category, your hours, your website speed. Every one is within your control.

Many owners get frustrated and convinced that Google is unfair, that it hates them, or that the algorithm is against them. Sometimes that may be true, but on nearly every profile I’ve looked at, that’s not the case. Google may have a few issues, but you can fix most of them yourself.

The 100-customer test

Ask yourself: if Google sent 100 customers your way right now, what would their experience be like?

• Would they bounce back?
• Would your category prove you do what you say?
• Would your hours say the same thing everywhere?
• Would your website look decent when viewed for the first time?

If the answer to any of those is no, that’s down to the signals you’ve been sending back, and only you control those. Get the adjustments right, in the right order, and your profile can become the one Google trusts and ranks in your area, because it knows customers sent your way get well looked after.

Your Action Plan and Next Steps

Of the 500 profiles I’ve looked at, almost every one had at least one of these three things wrong. As soon as they were fixed, calls started coming back. The hard part for most people is that they can’t see the factors Google is looking at, or the order in which to fix them.

That’s why I do a one-to-one audit to show you exactly what to fix next, in the right order, so you get the calls back. I’ve done this with hundreds of businesses.

• Work with me: I’ll give you the first 3 steps to get more calls from Google Maps
• Fix your Google visibility with 2 minute weekly tips (free)

In the next video, I’ll share the exact system I use to fix Google Maps visibility, step by step, so keep an eye out for it.

FAQ

What are the three Google Business Profile mistakes that cost you calls?

The three mistakes are a primary category that your website doesn’t support, opening hours that are inconsistent or not believable, and a website that loads too slowly on mobile.

Should I copy my competitor’s primary category?

Not without checking the bigger picture. A competitor might rank for completely different reasons, such as 50 pages of supporting content, citations, reviews and years of authority. Copying only the category without everything else is like wearing a Formula 1 helmet and expecting to win a race.

What is a bounce signal?

It’s what happens when Google sends customers to your website, they can’t quickly find what you do, and they hit the back button to return to Google. Google picks up on this and may stop sending you customers.

Will opening 24 hours help me rank higher?

Not if it isn’t believable. Google looks at whether your hours are credible, for example whether reviews, your website and your history support them. Contradictions send the wrong kind of trust signal.

Do small differences in opening hours matter?

Yes. In one example, a profile said 6:00 p.m. closing while the website said 7:00 p.m. Google likes consistency, and conflicting answers leave it unsure what to show. Keep your hours identical across your Google Business Profile, website, Facebook page and directories.

How fast should my website load on mobile?

In the examples shared, a site that took 18 seconds to load lost customers, while one that loaded in 2 to 3 seconds was getting customers sent to it. Test on mobile in a fresh browser with no cache, the way a new customer would experience it.

Can I fix these issues myself?

Yes. Your category, hours and website speed are all within your control, and you can check and fix them yourself in under 10 minutes for the initial review. If you’d like help knowing what to fix and in what order, a one-to-one audit is available.