Complete the free profile
Google Business Profile, every field, correct category, real photographs. Frequently produces more enquiries than the ad budget being considered.
26 June 2026 · 6 min read
Fix what is free before buying anything.
Most small businesses buy advertising while the free channels sit half-finished. That order is expensive and it is almost universal.
Short answer
On a limited marketing budget the highest-return work is usually free: completing your Google Business Profile, collecting reviews, fixing conversion tracking and answering enquiries faster. Advertising works considerably better once those are done, and sometimes is not needed yet.
01 The order
The order that gets the most out of a small budget.
The first four cost nothing but attention.
Collect reviews routinely
Asked as part of closing every job, with a one-tap link. Recency matters as much as volume.
Fix the response process
Who sees an enquiry and how fast. Doubling enquiries is pointless if half already go unanswered for a day.
Make the numbers true
Conversion tracking that fires once on the right event. Without it every later decision is a guess.
Then advertise
With a matched landing page, a real radius, and calls tracked. It works far better on this foundation.
02 Why it happens
Why this order is skipped.
The reasons are understandable and they are expensive.
Why it happens
- Advertising feels like action. Money spent produces visible activity. Completing a profile does not feel like progress.
- Nobody sells the free work. There is no commission in telling somebody to fix their Google profile, so few suppliers lead with it.
- The free work is boring. Filling in fields and asking for reviews is genuinely dull compared with campaign strategy.
- It has no clear finish. Reviews and response speed are ongoing habits rather than a project that completes.
- Results are harder to attribute. A profile improvement rarely produces a dashboard anybody can point at in a meeting.
03 Choosing a supplier
What this means for hiring anyone.
A useful test when choosing a marketing supplier is whether they tell you not to spend money on something. A supplier who looks at a business with an incomplete Google profile, eleven unanswered reviews and enquiries going to an unread inbox, and responds by proposing an advertising budget, has told you something about how they work.
It is also worth asking what they would refuse to do. A supplier with no answer to that question has either not thought about it or is unwilling to say — and both are informative.
None of this means advertising is a poor investment. It means advertising into a broken foundation is, and the foundation costs nothing but attention to fix.
— Questions
Common follow-ups.
A complete, active Google Business Profile with recent reviews. It costs nothing but attention and in many local categories produces more enquiries than paid advertising. It is consistently the last thing businesses do.
Work backwards from what a customer is worth and what share of enquiries you close. That gives a figure at which advertising can pay. If your budget is far below it, spend it on the free foundations instead rather than under-funding a campaign.
Advertising brings enquiries this month and stops when you stop paying. SEO takes months and then costs nothing per click. With a genuinely small budget, fix the free foundations first, then choose based on whether you need enquiries now or can wait.
Ask what they would refuse to do, ask where a number in their case study came from, and notice whether they ever tell you not to spend money. A supplier who proposes a budget before looking at your free channels has answered the question.
— More
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