Here's something worth knowing: the place where most of your customers actually decide to visit you isn't Instagram. It's Google.

When someone is hungry and looking for somewhere to eat, they open Google. They type brunch near me or best Italian [suburb] and they look at what comes up. They read the reviews. They check the hours. They look at the photos. And then they decide.

That moment (when someone is actively searching, ready to go somewhere) is one of the most valuable moments in hospitality marketing. And whether you show up for it, and how you look when you do, depends almost entirely on your Google Business Profile.

The bad news is most of your competitors are ignoring it.

The good news is if you get this right, you get a real advantage.

Here's where to start.

Fill in every single field

Go through your profile and make sure everything is there: your business name, your category (be specific, restaurant is fine, but Italian restaurant should also be included), your address, your phone number, your website, your opening hours.

Pay special attention to your hours. Wrong hours are one of the fastest ways to lose a customer. If someone drives to your café on a Monday thinking you're open and you're not, they're not coming back.

Also update your hours for public holidays. Google lets you set special hours for specific dates. Use it.

Keep adding photos

Venues with more photos on their Google profile get significantly more clicks and direction requests than venues with few or none. That's not surprising when you think about it. Photos help people decide whether a place feels right for them before they commit to going.

Add photos of your food, your space, your coffee, your team. Show what it actually feels and looks like to be there. And add new ones regularly. A profile that was last updated two years ago sends a quiet signal that the business might not be active anymore.

Respond to every review

Every single one. The good ones and the hard ones.

For positive reviews, a genuine, personal response goes a long way. Not a copy-paste thanks for visiting but something that sounds like a real human wrote it. It takes thirty seconds and it makes the person feel seen. It also shows everyone else reading your profile that you care.

For negative reviews, take a breath before you respond. Acknowledge what happened, apologise if it's warranted, and show that you take feedback seriously. Don't get defensive. The person who reads that exchange isn't just the original reviewer, it's every potential customer who scrolls through your reviews deciding whether to trust you.

Use the posts feature

Google Business Profile has a posts section that almost no one uses. It lets you share updates directly on your profile, like new menu items, upcoming events, limited-time offers, seasonal changes.

These posts show up when someone finds your profile. They're a free way to give people a reason to choose you this week specifically. Most venues never touch this feature, which means it's an easy win if you do.

Ask for reviews, regularly

Reviews matter enormously to how Google ranks you in local search. Both volume and recency matter. A café with 200 reviews will almost always outrank one with 12, even if the 12 are all five stars.

The simplest way to get more reviews is to ask. Not in a pushy way but at the right moment, for example, after a great table experience, at the end of a booking, in your follow-up email to customers. Something like: "If you enjoyed your visit, we'd really appreciate a Google review. It helps more people find us."

Most happy customers are glad to help. They just need to be asked.

The venues that take their Google Business Profile seriously show up looking credible, current, and worth visiting. It's not glamorous work, but it compounds quietly over time in a way that a single viral post simply doesn't.

If your profile hasn't been updated lately, that's your starting point.