09/10/2026
Somebody asked Google Maps for what you sell last week. It named someone else.
Our founder, Chris Raulf, asked Maps for a vegan burger on the drive home from a soccer game in Longmont. It named a place he had never heard of, directions already attached. He runs an SEO agency in that part of Colorado and did not know it existed.
That restaurant had written down what it sells. There were closer options.
Our Senior EEAT Engineer, Fhul Gerald Asoy, has optimized more than 100 Google Business Profiles. The same fields are empty almost every time.
→ Google Maps now answers full questions, not keywords. "Vegan burger on my way back from Longmont tonight" is one query with three constraints in it.
→ Every constraint has to match something written on a profile. Category and address cover two. The third is content you add yourself.
→ Products and services are where that content lives, and most local businesses leave both blank.
→ Posts carry anything current. Seasonal work, new services, availability.
→ Proximity did not win that recommendation. Specificity did.
If you sell a service rather than a product, the move is not more industry terms. It is writing the problem your customer describes on the phone, in their words, before anyone turns it into a service name.
Your profile is no longer a listing. It is the source text for an answer.
Full newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-google-business-profile-longer-listing-input-ff0cc/