SMP
Google Business Profile checklist for SMP clinics
For most prospective SMP clients, your Google Business Profile is the first real impression of your clinic — seen before your website, and often the thing that decides whether they click through at all. A fully built-out profile consistently earns more calls and consultation requests than a "set up once and forgotten" listing, regardless of how good the underlying work is.
The checklist below is ordered roughly by impact — the fields that move a scalp micropigmentation listing the most, first.
Categories and services
Set your primary category to the closest match Google offers for what you do — typically a permanent make-up or tattoo/cosmetic category depending on regional naming — rather than a generic "Hair salon" or "Barber" that dilutes your relevance for SMP-specific searches. Add secondary categories where they genuinely apply, and use the Services section to itemise your actual treatments: shaved-look density, hairline restoration, crown and vertex coverage, alopecia treatment, scar camouflage, and SMP repair or correction work.
Itemising by treatment is not busywork — a prospect searching specifically for "SMP for alopecia" or "scar camouflage micropigmentation" wants reassurance you handle exactly that need, and clinics that list only "scalp micropigmentation" generically routinely under-perform ones that surface for each specific intent.
Photos: healed results, angles, and range
Profiles with more photos, added more recently, consistently earn more clicks and direction requests. For SMP the mix matters: include genuinely healed results (not just fresh, still-red post-session shots), photos from multiple angles and under different lighting so the work reads as real, and examples across a range of skin tones and hair-loss patterns so a prospect can find someone who looks like him.
Add new photos at least monthly. A profile that hasn't posted a photo in six months signals — fairly or not — a clinic that may not be actively operating, which is exactly the wrong impression next to a competitor posting fresh results weekly.
Reviews: volume, recency, and specificity
A 4.9 average built entirely from reviews over a year old reads as less trustworthy than a 4.7 with reviews from the last fortnight — recency signals an active, currently-good clinic. Because SMP results are judged over multiple sessions and months of healing, ask for the review at the point the client sees his settled, final result, when satisfaction is highest and the outcome is fully visible.
Respond to every review, positive and critical. For SMP especially, a measured, specific reply to a negative review — acknowledging a concern about colour, healing, or expectations — does more for a nervous prospect's trust than another five-star review with no clinic response, because it shows someone is genuinely accountable for the work.
Posts and Q&A
Google Business Profile Posts let you pre-answer the questions SMP prospects ask most — "does it hurt," "how many sessions will I need," "will it fade," "does it work if I'm completely bald" — before they ever reach your website. Posts keep a profile looking active and give you another surface to demonstrate expertise. They have a short shelf life in Google's interface, so this only works with a regular cadence, which is exactly the kind of ongoing task RankShark automates rather than leaving to an already-full week.