Insights / SEO
How to get found on Google in Nairobi: profile first, website second
Devaltech · · 6 min read
Search for a service plus a neighbourhood and the first thing Google shows is a map with three businesses on it. Most of the calls go to those three. A new website does not put you there on its own, and a business with no website at all can still appear if its Google Business Profile is in order. So the profile comes first.
The three things Google says it uses
Google publishes the factors for local results: relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well your profile matches what someone typed. Distance is how far you are from the person searching. Prominence is how well known you are, which Google ties to links from other sites and to the number and rating of your reviews. You cannot change where you are. You can change the other two.
Relevance: be exact about what you do
Pick the most specific primary category on offer. “Dental clinic” beats “Health”. Fill in every service, the opening hours including public holidays, and a real description of what you do and where. Use photos of your own premises and work, not stock. The same name, address and phone number should appear on your website, your profile and every directory you are listed in. A mismatch costs trust, and it is the cheapest problem to fix.
Prominence: reviews and links
Reviews are the part you can build deliberately. Ask every happy customer, the day they are happy, with a WhatsApp message that carries the direct review link. Reply to every review, including the bad ones, in plain words. On the links side, a mention from a supplier, a chamber of commerce or a local publication counts for more than ten directory listings nobody reads.
Ten genuine reviews with replies will do more for your map ranking than a redesign.
Get a free 12-point audit within 48 hours.
Where the website comes in
Once the profile is sound, the website does two jobs. It gives Google a page that matches each service you list, so the profile and the site agree. And it converts: a map visitor who taps through to a slow site on mobile data leaves, and the ranking you earned is wasted. Give every service its own page, name the areas you serve in the copy where it is true, and add LocalBusiness structured data with your address, phone number and opening hours so the details are machine-readable.
Skip the page-per-suburb trick unless you genuinely serve each one differently. Thirty near-identical pages with a name swapped in is the pattern Google's quality systems are built to ignore.
The order to do it in
Claim and verify the profile this week. Fix the category, hours and photos. Start asking for reviews the same day. Then audit the website against the profile: same name and number, one page per service, fast on a mid-range phone. If the site is the weak link, that is a speed and SEO rescue, not a rebuild. A free audit shows where it stands.