What the primary category does
The primary category decides which set of searches a profile can appear in at all. If a business is listed under "building contractor" while its revenue actually comes from roofing, it will not appear when someone searches for a roofer — however complete the rest of the profile is and however many reviews it has.
Additional categories help, but they demonstrably carry less weight. In our own tests we repeatedly saw a profile rank lower for a search that matched one of its additional categories exactly than a profile that had that same category as its primary one, even when the first profile was better set up and closer by.
The mistake almost everyone makes
The most common mistake is choosing the broadest category, because the business "does more than just that". That is understandable, and it backfires. A broad category does not deliver broader visibility; it delivers weaker relevance for every search within that area.
The second mistake is choosing the category the business identifies with, rather than the category that matches where the revenue actually comes from. Surprisingly often those are two different things, and that conversation is more useful than filling in the field itself.
How we choose it
We do not start in the category list; we start with revenue. Which three services generate the most income, and what words do the customers who call for them actually use? Only then do we search the category list for the closest match, and only after that do we look at what primary category the competitors sitting in the local pack have chosen.
That last step is informative and risky in equal measure: copying what the top result does only works if that business has the same revenue mix. Usually the real conclusion is simply that you are seeing which category Google apparently considers a fit for that particular search.
How to test it without guessing
A category change is reversible, so it can be tested. We change one category at a time, measure for two weeks from the same measurement points, and record what happened. One thing to know: a change can temporarily trigger a verification request from Google, and a profile under verification is less visible. So do not schedule a test in the busiest week of the year.
We run this kind of test on our own locations and on test profiles first, not on a client's profile. It is slower, and it avoids some awkward conversations.
With multiple locations
At an organisation with several locations, the primary category almost always ends up inconsistent after a few years, because each location was originally set up by someone different. That is not a disaster if the locations genuinely differ; it is a problem if they do the same thing yet are listed differently, because then they compete with each other in one place and not in another.
Cleaning that up is dull work, and it is usually the single biggest win with a new client. How we approach it is on the Google Business Profile management page.
Bronnen
- Google, guidelines for representing your business on Google, and the business profile category list — support.google.com/business.
- Our own tests on our own locations and test profiles, ongoing.