Local competitor recon
Owners usually know their competitors by name and by reputation. What they rarely have is a side-by-side record of what Google actually shows for each one: the primary category, the rating and review count, whether an address appears, the hours, the phone number, and the website. I build that record from Google's own data, put your profile in the same table, and point out where the differences are worth acting on.
Who it's for
- Local businesses that slipped in the map results and want to see who moved past them.
- Service-area businesses deciding how to present a hidden address, a set of service areas, and their reviews.
- Multi-location businesses comparing each branch with the competitors around it.
- Agencies that need a clean evidence table before they advise a local client.
How it works
First you and I settle on the searches that matter, such as "roof repair" plus the towns you serve, and the businesses you consider rivals. I query Google's Places data for those searches and record what comes back for every listing: name, primary and secondary types, rating, number of reviews, whether a street address is shown, opening hours, phone, website, and the business status Google reports. The raw responses are kept with the date they were pulled, so anyone can check the table against its source.
Your own profile goes through the same pull. That is often where the most useful findings are: a phone number on the listing that differs from the website, a category that undersells what you do, hours that stopped matching reality, or a profile that shows in public but has never been verified.
What you get
- An evidence table of every listing in the comparison, with the date of the pull.
- A short written read of what the table shows: where you lead, where you trail, and which gaps you can close.
- A checklist of changes to your profile and website, in order, with the ones Google's guidelines require marked separately from the ones that are only good practice.
- The method written down, so the same pull can be repeated later and compared like for like.
Ground rules
Recon reads public listing data. It doesn't create profiles, contact competitors, or post reviews, and it never adds anything to a listing that isn't true of the business. Any changes to your own profile come after the read, with your approval. If the profile turns out to be unverified, verification comes first; see Business Profile verification help.
Related reading
The setup questions behind most findings are covered in my guides to service-area businesses, Apple Maps and Bing Places, and Business Profile performance reports. Broader local work sits under local SEO and Google Business Profile.
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