The Google Business Profile setup that gets a gutter company into the map pack
Categories, services, photo cadence, hours that survive a storm week, the Q and A section, and the profile fields gutter companies leave empty.
- Categories: pick the one that matches the money
- Services: write out all four buyers
- Photos are the whole game in this trade
- Hours, and what to do in storm weeks
- The business description
- Questions and answers is a free FAQ nobody uses
- Posts, and what to say in the dead months
- The fields that actually get skipped
- Frequently asked
Your Google Business Profile is the storefront in this trade. A homeowner with a waterfall coming over the corner of their roof opens Maps, types "gutter cleaning near me," and picks from three results. They almost never scroll. Everything below is about being one of those three.
Most of the field is not trying. 56.7% of gutter listings show no hours at all and 16.4% carry no rating. That is the gap you are walking into.
Categories: pick the one that matches the money
Your primary category does more for ranking than anything else on the profile. Google weighs it heavily and you only get one.
Pick it based on where the revenue is, not what you do most often. If cleaning is the volume but seamless installation is the margin, you have a decision. "Gutter cleaning service" is the dominant primary in this dataset, held by the clear majority of the 7,807 listings we track. It brings volume and it brings price shoppers. "Gutter service" is thinner competition and pulls repair and replacement intent.
Then add secondary categories honestly: Gutter cleaning service, Gutter service, Roofing contractor only if you actually roof, Pressure washing service and Window cleaning service if you sell them. Do not stuff. Google ignores categories you do not have evidence for, and an unrelated category can dilute the primary.
Services: write out all four buyers
The services section is free text under each category and almost nobody fills it in. Add every job you sell as a separate service with a real two-sentence description:
- Gutter cleaning: hand-cleaning and downspout flushing, debris hauled away, priced by linear foot.
- Gutter repair: resealing, resloping, fascia board repair, downspout and elbow replacement.
- Seamless gutter installation: on-site rollformed 5-inch and 6-inch K-style aluminum in your color choice.
- Gutter guard installation: micro-mesh and screen systems, installed on existing gutters or with new.
- Downspout extensions and underground drainage.
- Roof debris removal and valley clearing.
These descriptions are read by Google's local ranking and quoted by AI answer engines. Write them like a person, use the words a homeowner uses ("clogged," "overflowing," "pulling away from the house"), and mention price structure where you can.
Photos are the whole game in this trade
91.8% of gutter listings have at least one photo, so having some is not an advantage. Having 200 recent ones is.
Post weekly. The cadence that works:
- Before-and-after pairs, shot from the ladder looking down the trough. These are the images homeowners actually stop on.
- Drone or roof-level shots of finished seamless runs, which sell installation because the customer has never seen their own roofline.
- The truck and the rollformer on site. It signals you are a real crew, not a guy with a leaf blower.
- Two or three faces. Named crew photos raise call rates on any home service listing.
Geotagging photos does nothing that Google admits to. Recency does. A profile whose newest photo is from 2023 looks closed.
Hours, and what to do in storm weeks
Half the trade leaves hours blank. Do not. List real hours, and list Saturday if you work it. Only 27.6% show Saturday and 15.1% show Sunday, which means a Saturday-open profile is genuinely differentiated in most metros.
Do not claim 24 hours unless somebody answers at 2 a.m. Only 6.2% do and most of them are lying, which produces one-star reviews from people who called and got nothing.
The move for storms is a special hours entry plus a Google post. When a front is forecast, post the same day: "Storm coming Thursday. We are holding six emergency slots for overflowing gutters and detached downspouts. Call (385) 832-6175." Storm demand in this trade is a weekend phenomenon and a profile that is technically closed at the moment of panic loses the call. Pair it with missed-call text-back, covered in the follow-up guide.
The business description
You get 750 characters. Use them on facts, not adjectives. Name the metro and the surrounding towns, name the four service lines, name the year you started and the crew size, name the guard brands you install.
"Ridgeline Gutter has cleaned, repaired and replaced gutters in Marietta, Smyrna, Kennesaw and east Cobb County since 2016. Two crews, seamless 5-inch and 6-inch aluminum rollformed on site, micro-mesh guard installation, fascia repair and underground downspout drainage. Residential and property management. Free estimates, no financing pressure, most cleanings scheduled within a week."
That paragraph gets read by homeowners, by Google, and by ChatGPT.
Questions and answers is a free FAQ nobody uses
You are allowed to post questions on your own profile and answer them. Do it. Post eight, answer all eight, and get two customers to upvote the important ones so they display first:
- How much does a gutter cleaning cost here?
- Do you clean gutters with guards on them?
- How often should gutters be cleaned in this area?
- Do you repair fascia damage from overflow?
- What size gutter do I need?
- Do you install guards on existing gutters?
- Do you haul away the debris?
- How soon can you come out?
Answer each in three or four sentences with a real number. This section shows in the map pack panel and it is one of the few places you can put pricing in front of a shopper before they call.
Posts, and what to say in the dead months
Google posts expire and Google shows the newest. Post once a week even in July. Seasonal angles that work: pre-storm availability, leaf-drop scheduling opens in August, guard installation in the winter when crews are free, spring pollen and seed clogs, and the annual "we are booking fall cleanings now" post in late August that fills half the season.
The fields that actually get skipped
Check these on your own profile this week:
- Service area set to the towns you serve, not a 50-mile radius blob.
- Appointment link pointing to your booking page or quote form.
- Products section used for guard systems with prices per foot.
- Public email listed. Only 15.6% of gutter companies show one, and property managers use it.
- Website linked. 37.9% of the trade links nothing, which is the largest single gap in the benchmark report.
Frequently asked
Will a service area business rank in a town it does not have an address in? Less well, always. Google ranks partly on proximity to the searcher. You can improve the odds with a city page on your website and reviews that name the town, but nothing beats being physically nearby, so target the towns closest to your yard first.
Should I use a virtual office to rank in a second city? No. Google's guidelines require a staffed location, and profiles at rented mailbox addresses get suspended in sweeps. A suspension in October costs more than the second city was ever worth.
How long until profile changes show up? Category and service changes usually settle in a few days. Photo and post effects are gradual. Review velocity effects take weeks. Nothing here works in an afternoon.
Local SEO and Google profile management is one of the services in the free 14-day trial. Text or call (385) 832-6175.