Internet Marketing Services
5.0 Rating on GoogleThree setups
Show the address, keep the hours exact and put your effort into photos, reviews and the services list. This fits restaurants, salons, dentists and shops near campus or the hospital campuses, where people compare you by walking time and reviews.
Hide the address if customers do not visit, and list the places you serve by name. This fits plumbers, landscapers and cleaners who work across Auburn, Opelika and the east side. The list should name only places you will really drive to.
A second location only counts if it has a staffed address that customers can visit. Otherwise one profile with a clear service-area list is safer. We advise against inventing addresses to cover another zone.
Where Maps searches cluster
| Place | Kind | Why a Business Profile should know about it |
|---|---|---|
| Auburn University | university | Chartered in 1856, the state's first land-grant university since 1872, on a 1,841 acre campus. Auburn's wire service reported just over 35,000 students in fall 2025, and the university employed 13,545 people in 2024. |
| East Alabama Medical Center | hospital | In Opelika, with 316 general acute care beds, serving an 11 county area. East Alabama Health has about 4,200 employees and is described as Lee County's second largest employer. |
| East Alabama Medical Center North | hospital | A freestanding psychiatric hospital in Opelika with 40 private inpatient beds. |
| Auburn Medical Pavilion | hospital | East Alabama Health's Auburn site with a freestanding emergency department, outpatient imaging, an ambulatory surgery center and a breast health center. |
| Jordan-Hare Stadium | venue | Opened in 1939, with a published capacity of 87,451, and the center of football weekends in Auburn. |
| Neville Arena | venue | Auburn University's arena, seating 9,121. |
| Southern Union State Community College | university | Has campuses in Opelika and Valley, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. |
| Opelika SportsPlex and Aquatics Center | venue | A city built, 32 million dollar sports and aquatics complex opened in 2009. |
Reviews and turnover
With about 35,000 students and a median age of 33, Lee County restarts part of its customer base every year. A student who arrives in August does not know which dentist, tire shop or pizzeria to choose, so the profile with recent reviews, current photos and accurate hours often wins the tap. Parents do the same from a distance.
That means a review routine should run all year, with a stronger push in late summer. Ask when the customer is happy and the visit is fresh, and respond to every review in a calm, specific way. Health practices need extra care: do not discuss a patient's care in a public reply, and let your provider's rules guide what you may say. We do not offer to buy reviews, trade favors for them or filter who can leave one, because that breaks Google's rules and risks the listing.
Roads and gateways
| Route | What it changes in a profile |
|---|---|
| Interstate 85 | Runs southwest to northeast through both cores, so a business near an exit is found by travelers as well as residents. Name the exit or road in your description. |
| US 280 and US 431 | Split at Opelika and lead southeast to Smiths Station about 19 miles away. Service-area lists for this side should name the road and the town. |
| US 29 | Serves Auburn and Opelika and links the two cores. A business on it can reasonably show up for both. |
| US 80 | Crosses the southern panhandle at Marvyn, running east to Phenix City and west to Tuskegee. Customers here may compare you with options outside the county. |
| State Route 14 | Passes Loachapoka just west of Auburn. It matters for event-day directions and for service-area lists that include the small towns. |
| State Route 51 | Runs north to south through Opelika, Beauregard and Marvyn. Useful for a service business covering the middle of the county. |
| Auburn University Regional Airport | Owned by the university, with no commercial airline service. Travelers who search for a ride or a hotel usually route through Columbus, Georgia, about 40 miles away. |
| Rail through Opelika | A historic driver of the city; useful as a landmark in a description but not a way customers travel today. |
| Chattahoochee River and Columbus, Georgia | The eastern edge of the county. Smiths Station and the Phenix City part keep Central Time officially but follow Eastern Time in practice, so confirm your listed hours with how your customers actually plan their day. |
Setup order
Decide with a straight answer whether you are a storefront, a service-area business or both. Google can suspend a profile whose address does not match how the business works.
The main category does most of the work. Add secondary categories and a services list in the words customers use.
List the places you will drive to: Auburn, Opelika, Smiths Station and so on. Leave out places you would turn down.
Photos of the storefront and work, exact hours including holidays and game weekends, and accurate attributes.
Make the name, address and phone match across directories. Small mismatches between Auburn and Opelika addresses are a common cause of weak map results.
Start the review routine and fill in the questions and answers before a stranger asks them.
Seasonal updates
| When | What to update | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Late summer | Hours, photos, a move-in offer, new reviews | Students and parents arrive and compare businesses for the first time. |
| Fall home weekends | Special hours, a game-day post, parking details | Visitors search by the stadium and need to know whether you are open. |
| Late fall and holidays | Holiday hours and events such as downtown holiday weekends in Opelika | Residents and visitors search for open businesses and gift options. |
| Late winter to early summer | Storm-ready hours and closure notices | Severe storms with damaging wind or hail are common in this season, and a closed profile that says so saves a trip. |
| Summer | Seasonal services, new-customer offers | Fewer students are in town and residents become the main audience. |
Three kinds of map search
A campus search is short and impatient. Someone near the university types a need and a word like open or near, glances at three results and taps the one that looks current. Photos, hours and a recent review matter more than a long description. A clinic search is slower and more careful. The person may be anxious, may be comparing which practice takes new patients, and reads reviews more closely, so the services list and the way you respond to feedback carry weight. A commute search sits between them: a driver on US 280 or 431, heading home, who wants the closest open business and a clear route.
The same profile cannot be perfect for all three, but it can be clear for each. List your services in the words each group uses, keep your hours exact, and make the description say who you serve and where. For a business that draws on more than one group, such as a pharmacy near the Opelika medical campus or a restaurant that fills on game weekends, the description should lead with what the largest group needs and let the rest follow.
Cost
Maps questions
Only if customers do not visit you. A business that welcomes walk-ins, such as a restaurant or a clinic, should show its address so people can find the door. One that works at customers' homes should hide it and list its service area by name, so Google does not treat the address as a storefront.
Profile setup, citations and review management come with each Organic Growth plan, at $1,495 a month for Silver, $2,495 for Gold (which adds a managed website) and $3,495 for Platinum. There is no setup fee and no contract. Paid ads are priced separately, so the map work never depends on an ad budget.
Yes, as a service-area business with those places listed by name and with a real base address you keep private. A second profile needs a real, staffed address in the other place, with hours and signage. Making up an address to cover another zone risks a suspended listing, and we advise against it.
If customers do not come to you, hide the address and use a service-area list. Beauregard has no city boundary, so list the roads and nearby places you serve, such as the stretch of State Route 51 toward Opelika, and make sure your website says the same thing in plain text.
Your hours display in the time zone of the address. Smiths Station and the Phenix City area keep Central Time officially but follow Eastern Time in practice, so if many of your customers come from Columbus, state the hours clearly in the description and on your website to avoid a missed visit.
Reply politely, name the place the customer mentioned and thank them without arguing. A visitor or a parent who left the review may never return, but other visitors read your replies and judge you by them. Keep health or legal details out of any public reply, and answer in a way that suits a stranger.
Yes, since people who are referred look you up first. A patient or a client who hears your name will search it, and what they see decides whether they call. A complete profile with current hours, clear photos and honest reviews turns a referral into an inquiry, and it costs less than losing one.
Further reading
Get in Touch
Send the name of your profile and the places you serve, and we will tell you what to fix first. Call 610-825-4363 or email hello@getphound.com.