A luxury hotelier in Sukhumvit recently confided in me, frustrated that despite their impeccable service, their online visibility on Google Maps was lagging behind newer, smaller competitors. It’s a common struggle for established Bangkok businesses. Here’s how to transform your digital presence, making your business truly unmissable for potential customers.
Treat Your Google Listing Like a Second Shopfront
As a business owner in Bangkok, you spend a fortune on your physical location, the rent, the decor, the staff. But many owners treat their most important digital location, their Google Maps listing, like an afterthought. According to Google’s own guidelines, the first step to getting found is providing complete and accurate information. This isn’t just about your name and address; it’s about filling in every single field Google offers. If you run a dental clinic, list every service from teeth whitening to dental implants. If you manage a spa, use the ‘attributes’ to specify that you have wheelchair access or require appointments. Think of it this way: every empty field is a missed opportunity to answer a potential customer’s question before they even ask it.
But a complete profile is only half the battle. A shop that is fully stocked but never has new window displays or fresh activity feels stale. The same is true for your Google listing. You must signal to Google, and to customers, that you are active and engaged. This means consistently uploading new, high-quality photos of your business, encouraging genuine customer reviews and responding to every single one (good or bad), and using Google Posts to share updates or special offers. This consistent activity shows that your business is thriving and attentive, which builds trust and improves your visibility when people are searching nearby.
The Reality Check: Google Needs Consistent Clues
Many business owners don’t realize that Google acts like a detective, piecing together clues about your business from all over the internet. The most important clue is what we call your ‘NAP’, your business Name, Address, and Phone number. For Google to trust you and show you prominently on the map, this information must be identical everywhere it appears online, from your own website to your Facebook page to other online directories.
Let me give you a concrete example. A client of mine, a well-regarded law firm in Phloen Chit, moved their office one soi over. They updated their Google profile, but they forgot about an old listing on a legal directory website. For months, Google saw two different addresses for the same firm. This inconsistency created confusion, causing their map ranking to suffer because Google couldn’t be 100% certain which address was correct. Ensuring this information is consistent everywhere is a foundational step that proves your business is legitimate and located exactly where you say it is.
The ‘Profile Strength’ Trap Most Owners Fall Into
Google has a helpful feature on your business profile that shows a little circle or a percentage, indicating how ‘complete’ your profile is. Many owners work hard to fill out every section until they hit 100% or see that satisfying green checkmark. They then dust off their hands and consider the job done. This is one of the biggest traps you can fall into. Reaching 100% profile completeness is not the finish line; it’s the starting line.
A complete-but-static profile will eventually be overtaken by a more active competitor. Google’s goal is to show searchers the most relevant and active businesses. If your profile information hasn’t changed in a year, and you have no new reviews or photos, you appear less relevant than the business down the street that just posted photos of their new equipment or shared a holiday promotion. That ‘green circle’ is simply confirmation that you’ve built the foundation. The real work, and the real results, come from the ongoing activity you build on top of it.
How to Turn Your Static Profile into a Customer Magnet
I recently spoke with the owner of a beautiful luxury spa in Thonglor. She had a ‘perfect’ Google profile, every field was filled out, the photos were professional, but the phone wasn’t ringing from it, and she couldn’t understand why a newer, less-established competitor was appearing above her on the map. The reason was simple: her competitor was active every single week, posting updates and adding new photos, while her own ‘perfect’ profile had been sitting untouched for six months.
This is a struggle for busy owners. You don’t have time to manually upload photos, write posts, and monitor reviews every week. This is precisely the operational headache we built OnEveryMap to solve. Instead of trying to remember to log in and post, our platform allows you to schedule a month’s worth of updates and photos in one session, keeping your profile active without the daily effort. By turning a repetitive manual task into a simple, scheduled workflow, you can ensure your profile is constantly signaling its relevance to Google, turning that static listing into a reliable source of new, walk-in customers.
