A 10-minute Google Business Profile checkup for a laundromat covers six things: your hours and holiday hours, a main category of Laundromat, your services, attributes like how people pay and Wi-Fi, a few fresh photos, and replies to your latest reviews.
If our post on the five reasons laundromats go missing on Google Maps is the diagnosis, this is the routine that keeps the problem from coming back. Do it once a season, with a timer if that helps, and do this one before the holidays.
Prefer to watch? Here's the 40-second version.
The 10-minute Google Business Profile checkup for laundromats
We post a short laundromat marketing tip every Tuesday and Thursday on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
More on YouTube →·Follow @freshleadsmarketingBefore you start the clock
Sign in to the Google account that manages your listing. For most owners, the quickest way in is to search your store's name on Google while signed in, or open it in the Google Maps app, and look for the option to edit your profile. Google moves these buttons around from time to time, so if something isn't exactly where you expect, look for the section with the same name.
Have three things handy: your phone, the hours posted on your door, and a list of what you actually offer.
🔑 Can't get in?
If you can't edit your profile, find out who can. It's often a previous owner, a former manager or an old agency. Getting owner access back is a job for another day, but it's the most important one on this page. Nobody can fix a listing they can't open.
Minutes 1 to 3: hours and your main category
Hours (2 minutes). Open your hours and check every day of the week against the sign on your door. Then look for special hours and add the holidays coming up: Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 26 this year), Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Add them even if you're keeping your normal hours, so Google can show people you're open. Nobody should drive to a locked door, and nobody should skip you because they guessed you'd be closed.
Main category (1 minute). Your main, or primary, category tells Google what you are. It should say Laundromat. If it says something close, like Dry cleaner, change it. Add extra categories only for services you really offer. Some edits are checked by Google before they show, so don't worry if a change takes a little while to appear.
Minutes 4 to 5: services and attributes
Services (1 minute). List what a customer can actually get from you, in the words they'd use:
- Self-serve laundry
- Wash and fold drop-off
- Pickup and delivery, if you offer it
Depending on your category, Google may suggest services you can tick, and you can usually add your own. Leave off anything you don't do. A customer who drives over for wash and fold you stopped offering last year is worse off than one who never saw it listed.
Attributes (1 minute). Attributes are the extra details Google shows about your store: how people can pay (cash, cards, mobile pay), Wi-Fi if you have it, parking and accessibility. The options you see depend on your category. Fill in the ones that are true and skip the rest. For a laundromat, how to pay is the big one, because it's a question people want answered before they load up the car.
Minutes 6 to 7: fresh photos
People judge your store by its photos before they ever see it. Take three new ones with your phone, in daylight, with no customers' faces in them:
- Your storefront from the street, so people recognize it when they pull up.
- A wide shot of the clean, bright interior. Turn on every light and clear the folding tables first.
- Your machines, especially the big washers that take a king comforter.
Upload them straight from your phone. If your newest photos are older than a season, this step alone is worth the ten minutes.
Minutes 8 to 10: reply to your latest reviews
Open your reviews and answer every recent one that doesn't have a reply yet, good and bad. For the good ones, a short, human thank-you is enough: "Thanks, Luis! Glad the big washers fit your comforter. See you next time." Use their first name and mention something they said, so it doesn't read like a form letter.
For a bad one, don't rush it into the last minute. Use the four steps in our guide on how to answer a 1-star review: thank them, apologize with no excuses, say what you fixed, and take it offline. If there are too many to finish today, answer the newest ones first and come back to the rest.
Replies are only half of it. A steady flow of new reviews matters too, and the right way to get them is to ask every customer, not only the happy-looking ones, and never offer anything in return. If you'd rather not keep track by hand, review requests after each visit, plus replies, are part of what we do for clients.
⏱️ What ten minutes looks like
Take Cedar Lane Laundromat, a made-up store. On a quiet Tuesday morning the owner, Rosa M., set a timer. Her weekday hours were right, but Thanksgiving wasn't set. Her category already said Laundromat. Services were blank, so she added self-serve and wash and fold. She ticked cards and Wi-Fi, took three photos, and thanked two customers. A 3-star review about a broken change machine took her a few extra minutes, and that was fine. She put the next checkup on her calendar for January.
Mistakes that undo the checkup
- Listing things you don't do. Services and attributes that aren't true turn a found customer into a disappointed one.
- Stuffing your business name. Use the name on your sign. Adding extra words to it breaks Google's guidelines.
- Doing it once. Hours change, holidays come around, and photos age. Put it on your calendar once a season.
- Fixing Google and nothing else. When you change your hours, change them on your website and Facebook page the same day, so every place a customer checks says the same thing.
What to do this week
Set a timer for ten minutes and work through the list:
- Hours, plus holiday hours
- Main category: Laundromat
- Services listed
- Payments and Wi-Fi filled in
- Fresh photos added
- Latest reviews replied to
Then put the next checkup on your calendar for the start of next season. Ten minutes four times a year is a small price for a listing that's never out of date.