Get Found, Stay Live: The Google Business Profile Playbook for Higher Rankings & Avoiding Suspensions with Rachael Doukas

Entrepreneurs on Fire

In this episode of Entrepreneurs on Fire, host JLD welcomes Rachael Doukas, founder of Reinstate Labs, to break down the strategies for optimizing Google Business Profiles and avoiding algorithmic suspensions. Doukas details common

Key takeaways

• Rachael Doukas warns that keyword stuffing in business names (e.g., appending '24-7 Emergency Repair' to a legal name) is a primary trigger for Google suspensions.
• Inconsistent NAP data across directories like Yelp, Apple Maps, and Facebook can flag profiles as deceptive content and result in bans.

Main topics

• Google Business Profile suspensions & reinstatement
• Directory consistency & NAP accuracy

Notable quotes

I don't think you have to hustle nonstop to succeed. A lot of some of my ideas that I come up with for my business come to me when I'm just taking a walk or I'm out in nature or just slowing down.

Conclusion

Listeners gain a clear, actionable framework for auditing their Google Business Profiles to

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down how to get found, stay live. the Google business profile playbook for higher rankings and avoiding suspensions. And to drop these vibe bombs, I brought Rachel Dukas into EO Fire Studios. Rachel is an MBA and the founder of Reinstate Labs, helping business owners reinstate, verify, and optimize their Google business profiles so they can get back to growing their business. So we talk about why Google hits the brakes, recovering the right way, the verification advantage, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Rachel and our sponsors. Ready to launch your business and start selling before Black Friday? Shopify makes it easy to get up and running fast. Go to shopify.com slash on fire to start your free trial. That's shopify.com slash on fire to hear your first Speaker 2 (0:58) If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire Speaker 1 (1:17) .com. Highlevelfire.com. Speaker 2 (1:22) Rachel, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Speaker 1 (1:30) Hello, Fire Nation, and thank you so much for having me, John. Yeah, to answer your question, I mean, I don't think you have to hustle nonstop to succeed. A lot of some of my ideas that I come up with for my business come to me when I'm just taking a walk or I'm out in nature or just slowing down. you know, resting a bit. So I feel like that's a little bit different. Sometimes people are very into the hustle culture, but I think you do need to hustle a bit, but you can also take some time to rest. Speaker 2 (2:03) Fire Nation, rest, relax, breathe, meditate, gratitude, journaling. There's a reason why top entrepreneurs do these things on a consistent basis. And today we're talking about getting found. Staying Live, the Google Business Profile Playbook for Higher Rankings, and of course, Avoiding Suspensions. So I want to talk about why, Rachel, why Google hits the brakes. I mean, Google Business Profile Suspensions, they can happen without warning. And of course, they're terrifying when they do. And getting reinstated, it's not always easy. So what are the biggest reasons that Google seems to suspend business profiles? And what can our listeners do to avoid finding themselves in that situation? Speaker 1 (2:42) Sure. Yes. So Google has a set of guidelines and they're not always clear. So sometimes I have business owners come to me and they read the guidelines on Google's site and it's just not very clear what they're doing wrong. Some of the common issues that I've seen is keyword stuffing. So, for example, if you have a company and the legal name of the company is called Joe's Plumbing. Keyword stuffing would be something like Joe's Plumbing, San Antonio, 24-7 Emergency Repair. So I'm basically putting in keywords to get Google to rank my profile higher in search engines. So this is like a tactic that some people use. It's not the right thing to do. Google is very into like high quality. Google business profile listing. So they really want you to use your legal name. So that could definitely cause a suspension. Another big thing that I've seen is just inconsistencies online. So if you have a Google business profile and let's just say your hours on there are listed nine to five, but your Yelp account says that you're open 24 hours, your Apple maps says that you're open eight to four. There's just so much inconsistencies out there that you could get suspended for that. A lot of times they consider that deceptive content. So when people hear that, they kind of freak out and they say, what did I do? What did I do that was deceptive? But it could be something as simple as just inconsistent information. So to avoid that, I highly recommend checking out all of like the directory sites that you're listed on. Big ones are Yelp. Apple Maps, even LinkedIn is now big and Facebook, just all of the same information is really key. Service areas, that's another one where I see people go wrong. So if you have a business, the main point of a Google business profile is to serve your community locally. So I should not be putting you know, that I serve the entire state. I have to put like different cities that I, that I cater to. So if you're putting in, like, if let's just say you're let's say you're a plumber, right. And you want to rank really well in, in in like a tri-state area because you have other people that can go out and, and, you know, do the business for you. They don't want to see that. They don't want to see multiple states. They don't want to see an entire state. They want to see basically the area where you're legally located. So if you have an actual storefront or if you have business documents that say a specific city and then a two hour driving time from that area is what you can put on. And they only would like you to put on about 20 service areas. They don't want you to go over that. This is very important. I sometimes see people putting in so many different places that are just so far away and that can cause a suspension as well. So those are big things. I mean, I've seen everything. I've seen like even if you on your Google business profile, if you're putting like in your description, something like call us today and then you're putting your phone number. They don't like that. They don't like to. putting any kind of contact information. They want the user to be able to just hit the call button. They don't need to see it in a description. They don't like anything about promotion. So like in your business description on your Google profile, you shouldn't say anything like everything is on sale, 50 % off. It just should just be a very basic description of your business. Speaker 2 (6:42) Now that's a lot of stuff right there in Fire Nation. I hope you were taking notes. And the great thing is you do have that rewind 30