Marketing Made Easy for Small Business Owners · 2026-01-29 · 12 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
24 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
This episode tackles Google Business Profile optimization, a free yet widely neglected marketing channel for service-based businesses like plumbers, electricians, realtors, and restaurant owners. Speaker A, a 17-year marketing veteran, argues that small business owners leave significant revenue on the table by either failing to create a profile or setting it up and abandoning it. The core strategy involves three high-impact activities: optimizing your profile with accurate hours, services, and keyword-rich descriptions (using ChatGPT to identify search terms like "broken pipe" or "junk removal"); actively collecting reviews from customers, friends, and family to build credibility; and posting regularly with geotagged photos that signal relevance across multiple service areas. The speaker emphasizes that geotagged metadata in photos - taken at job sites or service locations with location services enabled - is the "magic" that demonstrates geographic authority to Google's algorithm. Rather than chasing expensive paid ads or bouncing between platforms, the recommendation is to commit 90 days of focused effort exclusively to Google Business Profile, as this delivers maximum marketing ROI for time-constrained small business owners.
Google Business Profile is free, requires no paid advertising spend, and directly connects businesses with customers actively searching for their services locally. For plumbers, electricians, realtors, and similar businesses, it delivers more return on time investment than paid ads, which waste money compared to this organic channel.
Optimize your profile with accurate hours and services, identify relevant keywords (using ChatGPT if needed) that customers search for, regularly post photos with geolocation data enabled, and actively collect reviews from customers and friends. Focus exclusively on this channel for 90 days rather than splitting efforts across multiple platforms.
Geotagged photos with location data enabled show Google that your business is relevant across multiple areas of the city, not just a single brick-and-mortar location. This widens your geographic relevancy and improves visibility in various neighborhoods where customers are searching for your services.
Post frequency should match or exceed what your competitors are doing - whether that's daily, multiple times per day, or several times per week. Consistency matters more than frequency, but monitoring competitors' posting patterns helps you stay competitive in your local market.
Many business owners treat business setup tasks as "done" items on a checklist and feel accomplished after creating the profile, similar to starting an LLC without making sales. They fail to recognize that consistent effort over 90 days is required to see actual results and revenue impact.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode covers standard Google Business Profile basics (optimize, get reviews, post with geotagged photos) that any local SEO blog post covers. The only marginally non-obvious point is using phone geolocation metadata in photos to signal geographic relevance, but even that is widely known in local SEO circles. The majority of the runtime is filler, repetition, and self-promotion.
I'm going to beat this like a dead horse because this is the simplest, most easily accessible marketing channel that you can use as a small business owner
you turn the geolocation data on your phone, take photos around the job site...And what that geo little location data does inside of that is it shows Google that you're relevant in various areas of the city
Every idea presented - optimize your profile, gather reviews, post consistently, focus on one channel - is textbook recycled local marketing advice with no contrarian or first-principles framing. The 90-day focus recommendation and the ChatGPT keyword tip are generic suggestions that circulate everywhere.
Stop posting on TikTok, stop posting on Facebook. Stop any of that. Take your circle of focus and focus only on your Google business profile for the next 90 days
use ChatGPT. Ah, say hey, this is what I do. What are some keywords that people are going to be searching for?
There is no guest; Speaker B is an assistant explicitly placed there to 'loosen up thoughts' and ask pre-scripted prompts. The host is a small agency owner whose only cited credential is 17 years in marketing, with no verifiable scale, named clients, or measurable outcomes presented.
I'm an expert at marketing. I've been doing it for reporting in progress. I've been doing it for 17 years
I've got a realtor client, they take photos of different houses all around town
The episode names industry verticals (plumber, electrician, dumpster rentals) as illustrative examples but offers zero data, no metrics, no revenue figures, no traffic lifts, and no documented client outcomes. The one anecdote about a realtor client provides no results.
I started an e commerce shop back in 2017
Here's a little tip that I charge a lot of people or a lot of people a lot of money for
Speaker B's questions are leading, pre-planned softballs with zero follow-up or challenge; the host thanks him after nearly every answer. There is no productive disagreement, no probing of vague claims, and the format is functionally a scripted monologue with prompted transitions.
That was really good.
Why do so many business owners leave money on the table by treating Google business like a, uh, set it up and forget about it
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Most small business owners are wasting time chasing ads, social media, and shiny new platforms… while completely ignoring the most powerful free marketing tool they already have. In Part 3 of The 5 Costliest Mistakes of My Career, I break down why your Google Business Profile is the single most important marketing channel for service-based businesses - and why treating it as “set it and forget it” is quietly killing your growth. This episode is especially for plumbers, electricians, restaurants, realtors, contractors, and local service businesses that rely on people in their area finding them when it actually matters.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Dan Sieg: Welcome back to part three. That Marketing Dan business series. This one is all about or this series is about the mistakes that I wish I knew when I first started getting or uh, started out in marketing. And this applies to business owners across the board. You don't have to be a marketer to know marketing. If you watch yesterday's video, we talked about the perils of doing everything yourself. Um, and why you need to wear all the hats at the beginning but learn to delegate them as your business matures and evolves and moves forward. Okay. I'm an expert at marketing. I've been doing it for reporting in progress. I've been doing it for 17 years. Right. This is what I specialize in. You as a business owner need to know enough about marketing, which is why you're watching this so that you can do it yourself. Be in the beginning and then move forward and hire someone like me in the future. It's no brainer. Every business needs a marketing and sales strategy and you're here learning about it today, so I'm super pumped. This is part three of our five part series. Um, the first part was trying to sell to everybody why you don't want to do that. The second part, like I just said, was doing everything yourself why you don't want to do that. And today we're going to talk about Google business profile and the importance of optimizing your page, particularly if you are a small business business owner. Right. Me personally, I run a marketing agency. Okay. I don't really rely on my Google business profile because there's not a ton of people in my town. Searching marketing agency. Do I get some clients from that? Yeah, but it's not as important as if you are a plumber, a restaurant owner, an electrician. Okay. People who do service based business, a realtor, Dumpster rentals, uh, Porta Potty Rentals. If you are any of those particular business owners, this video is 100% for you. If you're not one of those business owners, then you can skip this part and move on to number four. Um, as the other videos, I have my friend Aiden, friend and assistant, uh, here to ask me some questions. I don't do a whole lot of fancy editing. You're not going to see him on the screen. Takes too much time. I don't have it. I'm just here to drop knowledge and he's going to help loosen up some of the thoughts in my brain. So go ahead. Aiden, what do you got for me on video 3?
Aiden: Sounds great. Let's get started then. You've said that posting, getting reviews and uploading photos on Google Business is absolutely free, it doesn't cost any money, and yet there's a lot of owners that do not do it. Why do you think so many owners of these service based businesses underestimate Google business and Google as a whole?
Dan Sieg: Fantastic. Okay, great first question again. That's why he's here, to loosen up the thoughts in my brain. There's two types of people who are not taking advantage of their Google business profile, right? Type one is somebody who doesn't even have one because they think it's too complex. And number two is somebody who got one and then doesn't actually do anything with it because they think it's too complex. All right. I started an e commerce shop back in 2017, right? And as soon as you register your business for something, do you get an ein number? Google is going to see that and they're going to harass you constantly to start a Google business profile. It's a free account, they want you on there because the whole business model of Google is, is uh, attracting their audience, people searching and connecting them with what they're searching for. So if you own an electrician company, electrical business, and you are an electrician doing electrical work around your town, Google wants you to create that uh, free business profile so that when somebody searches for you there, they can connect you, right? I go online, I say electrician near me, Google's going to get that query and they're going to connect me with the most relevant profile, which would be if you do it right. And so we're going to talk about in this video, which would be you, that's free traffic, the profile is free, the service is free. Google offers that because they want you, they want your business on there so they can connect the people searching, right? I'm going to beat this like a dead horse because this is the simplest, most easily accessible marketing channel that you can use as a small business owner. And if you're not leveraging it, you're leaving money on the table. Worse yet, if you're using paid ads because somebody talked you into that, you went about it the right way, you're just burning money. This is a free channel, a uh, free avenue that requires no paid advertising whatsoever. Focus on it, that's what matters.
Aiden: So it is free in terms of cash and it's free in terms of users of the products or services being allowed to go on that platform. What is not free, however, is time. Time costs money and everything has an opportunity cost like you said in the previous video yesterday. So the question is what's the most time efficient while being maximally productive way that someone like a plumber or a restaurant owner or a real estate agent could do with a Google business.
Dan Sieg: Okay, another great question. This is going to be, this is going to be a good video for business owners. Okay so to answer Aiden's question the most because again time is money. You don't want to waste time. And that's what I'm here to help you with. Okay, first and foremost, get your Google business profile set uh up. Just type in Google business profile on Google and it will walk you through it. If you don't have. Right. If you already have one or when you get one. The second most important part is to make sure to optimize your profile and make sure that it is good. Make sure that it is accurate. Make sure that you have a website attached to it, your hours are correct, your services are correct. Go in there and just start clicking around in the settings and make sure everything is smooth. Make sure you're about me. Ultimately treat your Google business profile like a social media page. Stop posting on TikTok, stop posting on Facebook. Stop any of that. Take your circle of focus and focus only on your Google business profile for the next 90 days and your entire trajectory of your business will change. I guarantee that if you are a service based business owner. So to go back on what I said, hours, the keywords think about what are you, what is your target customer searching for? What, what is it that you do that they might be looking for? If um, you do dumpster rentals then chances are somebody's typing in dumpster rental near me. If you are a plumber, somebody's typing in plumber near me. Right? Make sure those keywords are in there. But sometimes uh, they might not be typing in plumber and they might be taking um, uh, a broken pipe. Right. Or plumbing repair is another keyword. Right. Um, junk removal if you're a dumpster rental company. So start getting, you know, use ChatGPT. Ah, say hey, this is what I do. What are some keywords that people are going to be searching for? All right, optimizing your profile is number one. Number two is to make sure you get good reviews. Simply put, Google doesn't want to connect you with anybody, their customer if you don't do a good job or if nobody said that you've done a good job. The only thing worse than no reviews is a bad review. But both aren't as good as reviews. All right, so Work on getting reviews from friends and family and former customers, clients. If you don't have any former customers or clients, ask your friends and family to review your character. As soon as you get a couple, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10. Right. And a lot of people they'll be like, oh well my competitor has hundreds of reviews, I can never get there. Well guess what, that competitor at one point had zero reviews. And the reason they have hundreds or even thousands now is because they're ranked high on Google.
Aiden: Right?
Dan Sieg: M. You don't have to hire an expensive agency to get started, right? Will they supercharge your efforts? Absolutely. But you can get started now and start moving up the ranks just a little bit at a time. And that's what it takes. It takes time, enough consistent effort and you will see results.
Aiden: That was really good. I think so. Consistent effort and getting as many reviews as you can from people that know you or know your service. Now my next question has to do with how often should a business really be updating their Google business profile over this 90 day window that you asked. Uh, the three part taken, how it happened.
Dan Sieg: Let me get to this. The three most important things you can do, I just talked about the other two. Number one, optimize your profile. Number two, get reviews. And number three, the simplest one is post regularly. Whether it's every day, every other day, a couple times a week, Whatever the case, go look at your competitors. What are they doing? Are they posting every day? Then you better be post twice a day. Okay. And don't overthink this either because the photos, the geotag stuff in the photos, the location services on your phone, that is the magic, that's the metadata. Here's a little tip that I charge a lot of people or a lot of people a lot of money for is you turn the geolocation data on your phone, take photos around the job site, take photos around the restaurant, whatever your small service based business is, I've got a realtor client, they take photos of different houses all around town. And what that geo little location data does inside of that is it shows Google that you're relevant in various areas of the city, not just a, ah, brick and mortar location. So that widens out your relevancy. Okay, Relevancy is your, your proximity to that location and those neighborhoods of people that are searching for you reputation are your reviews. Okay, so there's different layers to this and this particular one the photos are a huge thing that a lot of people are missing. So just post regularly with your photos and the geotagged location turned on and don't think much about the photo. You could take a photo of a rock for all anybody cares. It's the geotag, right? And use that opportunity to tell stories. Don't just take photos of rocks because you can take photos of what you're doing. Show people that you're human. That's what marketing is all about.
Aiden: Think. My last question for this video. Why do so many business owners leave money on the table by treating Google business like a, uh, set it up and forget about it. Just make sure it's optimized and not get three views and not post the pictures.
Dan Sieg: A lot of people leave money on the table uh, because they set something up and they put it in the done pile and they feel accomplished. It's like the stay at home mom that uh, creates a business by getting an LLC and a business bank account but has never made her first sale. She feels accomplished because she went through a checklist but she never actually made any sales. Chances are she won't make any sales but she started that business great, right? Don't just create a Google business profile, focus on that Google business profile. Take that last video I had in the circle of focus and focus only on your Google business profile for 90 days and see what happens. Don't just put 45 days into it and then uh, I'm going to go try Facebook ads and then do that for 30 days and like oh, I'm going to go try Google Ads and do that for 45 days. Oh, I'm going to go try TikTok. If you do that you're going to keep bouncing around. You're never going to get any real traction. That's the most important part of this stuff is staying consistent with one specific avenue marketing channel. And in this case if you are a small service based business owner, Google Business profile is going to be the most bang for your buck or in this instance the most bang for your time.
Aiden: The uh, most bang for your time. And I think we'll leave it on that. Bye everyone.
Dan Sieg: That said, thank you guys for watching. Tomorrow we are going to time uh into number four confusing activity with progress which we talked a little bit about on this video. And again this is a five part series of the five things that I wish that I knew when I first started out in the marketing and sales business. And if you're a business owner hopefully you watch the other three. Hopefully you'll check out tomorrow and hopefully we'll do number five as well. Thanks for watching, we'll catch you then.
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