Should Coaches Have a Google Business Profile?
Social media asks you to show up every day and perform. Google Business Profile works in the background while you are with clients. For a coach already doing the deep work with people, those two things are not equally sustainable.
By Eva Petrakova · Local Business Systems
Most coaches assume Google Business Profile is old news. Social media is where clients seem to be, where everyone else is posting, where visibility feels immediate. GBP is the thing you set up once and forget about, if you ever set it up at all. Nobody talks about it working. So it feels like it does not.
That assumption is exactly why most coaches in Kingston are invisible to the people who are ready to book right now.
The treadmill nobody mentions
The problem with social media is not that it does not work at all. Some coaches do get clients from Instagram. The problem is that it never stops. The moment you step away, a demanding period with clients, illness, a stretch without capacity, you are gone. No recent posts, no algorithm showing you to anyone, back to zero.
That is a particular problem for coaches. You are already doing intensive work with people every day. Adding a daily content performance on top of that is not a strategy. And when life intervenes, as it does, the whole thing collapses and you start again from scratch.
If that loop of collapse and restart feels familiar,there is a reason it keeps happening, and it is not that you are not working hard enough.
There is a difference between busy work and work that has a long-term impact on your bottom line. Social media delivers immediate feedback: likes, comments, a spike in reach after a good post. With growing awareness of neurodivergence and how different brains respond to fast versus delayed reward, it is worth being honest about which activities are feeding the need for quick results and which are building financial stability. If social media is working for you, keep going. But start your SEO at the same time. One gives you an audience today. The other builds an asset that keeps working long after you stop posting.
Google Business Profile works differently. You do not have to produce content every day. You do not have to be entertaining. You maintain it consistently. One focused session a week is enough, and it compounds. Each review, each post, each update builds on the last. Take a week off and your profile is still there, still working.
The clients looking for a coach right now are not scrolling for one. They are searching. Those are two completely different moments.
What happens when someone decides they need help
Someone searching for a coach does not go to Instagram to find one. They go to Google and type what they need: "health coach Kingston," "life coach near me," "nutrition coach Kingston upon Thames." They are not browsing. They have already decided they want support. They are now choosing between a short list of people.
AGoogle Business Profileputs you in front of that moment. Directories might too, but they sit below the Google local pack in search results. The three businesses in that box are seen first and clicked most. Whether you are in that box depends on how your profile is set up and maintained.
Personal trainers in Kingston face the same dynamic. Seehow PTs in Kingston get more clients without paid ads.
What the profile actually needs to do
A coach's profile needs to answer four questions before a potential client will reach out: what do you do, who is it for, where are you based, and how do they contact you.
Category set to the closest match: Health Coach, Life Coach, Nutritionist. Not a generic health category.
Specialism clear in the description: what you work with, who you work best with
Location or service area (service area works if you prefer not to display a home address)
Online or in-person options stated if you offer both
Price or price range included: removing that friction up front saves both of you time
A booking or enquiry link so someone can act in the moment they find you
Posts updated regularly: brief, relevant, not a daily performance
If you try to appeal to every kind of client with every kind of difficulty, the profile reads like every other coach in the area. The more specific you are about who you help and what you help them with, the more useful you are to exactly the right person.
On reviews
Google reviews show whatever name the reviewer has on their Google account, and clients control that. Many use a first name only.
What a coach's reviews actually say is not what most coaches fear. Not "I came here because I was struggling with X." They say things like: "I can see the changes in my body." "My clothes fit differently." "I am now someone who works out, and a few months ago I would never have thought I would be that person." The experience and the result. Never the reason they came. That is what matters to someone reading reviews before they book.
The ask does not have to feel intrusive either. A short, personal message with a direct link to your review page, sent at the right moment after a session, gets responses without the awkwardness of asking face to face.
Where to start
Set it up. It is not complicated, and that is exactly why it outlasts every social media strategy most coaches have tried and abandoned. Potential clients who are ready to reach out are already searching. Whether they find you depends on whether you are there. If you would rather it ran without you having to think about it,this is what I set up and run for coaches and personal trainers in Kingston.
If you want a guide through every setting, including the parts that are not obvious the first time,download the GBP setup checklist.
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