Your Google Business Profile in Mallorca: the mistakes that push you off the map

For most businesses on the island the Google listing drives more visits than the website itself, and almost all of them have at least three of these faults. None cost money to fix; all of them cost customers to leave.

When someone searches for "plumber in Inca", "dentist Palma" or "restaurant near me", the first thing they see isn't a website: it's a map with three businesses. That block takes most of the clicks on any search with local intent, and who appears in it is decided above all by the Google Business Profile. The good news is that most listings in Mallorca are half abandoned, so simply doing it properly already makes you stand out. These are the mistakes we see most, in order of damage.

Why the listing outweighs the website in local searches

Google orders the map on three criteria: relevance, distance and prominence. Distance you can't control. Relevance comes almost entirely from the listing: category, services, description, attributes. And prominence is built from reviews, from mentions elsewhere and from the authority of your website — which is where the website does come into play. That's why a business with a magnificent website and an abandoned listing loses to one with an ordinary website and a well-kept listing: in local search, the listing is the shop front and the website is the backing. Ideally the two tell the same story, with the same details and the same services.

1. The wrong primary category

The first is the category. Google gives you one primary and several secondary categories, and the primary carries enormous weight: a dental clinic registered as "doctor" or an accountancy practice listed as "business service" is competing in the wrong search. Choose as primary the most specific category describing what you sell most, and use the secondaries for the rest. It's a two-minute change and we've seen businesses enter the map that same week on that alone.

2. Seasonal hours left unchanged

The second is very much a local one: seasonal hours. Restaurants that close in November and remain "open" on Google, shops showing winter hours in the middle of August, businesses that never marked the local holidays. Every person who arrives at a closed door because Google said it was open becomes a one-star review or, at best, a customer who doesn't come back. Google allows special hours by date; use them as soon as you know your calendar.

3. Old photos, or only customers' photos

The third is photos. Google chooses your cover photo, not you, and it chooses from what's there; if the latest ones are six years old or were uploaded by customers, that's your shop window. Upload your own photos regularly — facade, interior, team, product — and in landscape. You don't need a photographer every month; you need the listing not to look closed.

4. Details that don't match the website

The fourth is inconsistency between the listing and the website: the address written two different ways, an old phone number on one and a new one on the other, a name padded with keywords that isn't your real name. Google cross-checks this data with your website and with directories, and when it doesn't match, it distrusts you. Identical name, address and phone everywhere, and on the website also declared in structured data — which is what we do on every project.

5. Duplicate or unclaimed listings

The fifth is duplicate listings and ones that aren't yours. It's common for a business with some years behind it to have two listings — one created by a former employee, another generated by Google — splitting the reviews and confusing the algorithm. It's also common never to have claimed the listing at all, meaning anyone can suggest changes. Claim it, merge duplicates and make sure owner access sits on a company email, not on the address of whoever created it.

6. Services, attributes and questions left empty

The listing has sections almost nobody completes and that Google uses to judge relevance: the list of services or products with their descriptions, the attributes — terrace, accessible, German spoken, online booking, card payments —, the booking or ordering link, and the questions-and-answers section, where if you don't answer, a stranger eventually will. Filling it in takes an hour and makes more difference against the competition than almost anything else, precisely because nobody does it. Add a post a month too, however brief: a piece of news, special hours, a seasonal dish. It doesn't rank on its own, but it keeps the listing alive and Google notices.

7. Unanswered reviews

The sixth is unanswered reviews, or reviews answered in the wrong language. Replying isn't courtesy: it's content Google reads and a signal that the listing is alive. Answer all of them, the good ones briefly and the bad ones calmly, and do it in the language the customer wrote in — which in Mallorca will often be English or German. If you'd like us to review your listing alongside your website, audit it for free and we'll tell you where to start.

What to check every month

On the bad reviews specifically: reply within a day or two, thank the person for the feedback, address the specific point without excuses and, if there's a real problem, say what you've changed. Never argue in public and never copy-paste the same reply. Future customers read your answers far more carefully than the reviews themselves, because they show how you'll treat them if something goes wrong.

None of this needs doing daily. A twenty-minute monthly review is enough: next month's hours and holidays, new reviews answered, one post, a couple of recent photos, and a glance at any edits Google has applied on its own, because it sometimes changes hours or categories based on user data without telling you. Put it in the calendar like any other business task. It's the habit with the best return per hour invested that we know of in local business marketing. The listing is one of the pieces we look after as part of our SEO services in Mallorca, alongside the website and its content.

Sources: Google Business Profile Help: tips to improve your local ranking · Google Business Profile Help: guidelines for representing your business on Google · Google Business Profile Help: how to set special hours · Google Business Profile Help: manage customer reviews