She Moves removals: Boosting their local profile with Google My Business

She Moves is a female run removal company based in South Wales, founded by Donna Evans in 2017. They offer an alternative to the traditional ‘man with van’ service for both domestic and commercial moves, employing an all-female team to carry out jobs across the United Kingdom.

Before starting She Moves, Donna was employed in a logistics role at another firm where she was paying weekly rental fees to hire a van. She started offering simple, single-item removals on her days off to cover her rental costs, and the idea for She Moves was born. After doing some research into the removals industry, Donna decided to make a move of her own.

“I’ve always wanted to work in a trade, and I just thought ‘why not’,” explains Donna. “After completing some smaller jobs, I had the confidence to start doing full house moves. I’m strong, and I’ve always been a hands-on girl so there’s no reason why a woman couldn’t do this job. Once I had the idea for a female-only company, I just ran with it.”

Since launch, She Moves has enjoyed steady growth since then, even in spite of the COVID pandemic, but success hasn’t been without its obstacles. As a new entrant to a competitive industry, one of the early challenges Donna faced was being perceived as a legitimate business. “There are some cowboys out there that try and pretend they know what they're doing, and they can mess jobs up” explains Donna. “As a new removals company, it’s critical to establish trust early on.”

After completing a few jobs and receiving nothing but positive feedback, Donna was looking for a place where her customers could share their experience with her business, and help her put it on the map. Crucially, she needed a place where her positive reviews could be seen by more customers, so she turned to Google My Business.

Donna manages every facet of the business – from marketing and the admin to actually performing the work – so knowing her Google My Business profile is always on has been a big benefit.

As a female-only company, it was a logical step for She Moves to add the ‘Women-led’ icon to their profile, which Donna says has helped promote She Moves’ unique selling point. “I think customers think we’re going to be more delicate with their belongings!” jokes Donna. “We found that a lot of customers feel more comfortable with our female-only team, but honestly most customers don't care – they go by our reputation.”

Establishing and promoting that hard-earned reputation has been a clear objective for Donna, and she used her Google My Business profile to help translate the positive local sentiment into positive online reviews. “Our customers often praise our work and our professionalism,” says Donna. “We needed a way for that positivity to be visible online, and getting reviews on our Google My Business listing has been a great way to do that.” Donna says it’s helped convert more leads into customers, too: “Potential customers still want to look us up to see our website and our reviews – that’s where Google My Business has been invaluable”

Since 2017, She Moves has grown from a one person and one van operation to a company of eight employees and four vans. She Moves’ Business Profile boasts a number of 5-star reviews from happy customers, which Donna describes as a ‘seal of approval’.

“Being an all-female company in a male-dominated industry wasn't something that scared me.” says Donna. “People choose who they want to have around them, and Google My Business has helped those customers find us.” In fact, She Moves’ Google My Business profile has received over 50% more views compared to last year, with the number of potential customers either calling directly or visiting the website increasing by 15%.

This positive sentiment has resonated throughout the She Moves brand. The company’s growing fleet of vans are wrapped in She Moves’ branding and act as “moving billboards”, as Donna puts it. “People will often see our vans and ask us about the business, but the reality is we can't be everywhere at all times”, Donna explains. “Our Google My Business profile is one of the main places people find us, with over 40% of our leads coming directly through there from Google Search. The other 60% are word of mouth, and most of them will have visited our Google My Business profile before getting in touch.”

Donna believes Google My Business also helped establish the company locally – and that this has been a critical part of She Moves’ success: “More and more customers say they would rather use a smaller, local business than one of the bigger firms. Some people will say: ‘I put in ‘local services’, and that’s how they found you”. Armed with this insight, Donna plans to use Google Local Services to help drive further business growth. “If it wasn’t for us being on Google, we wouldn’t be as known as we are. We’re looking forward to becoming even more established locally”.

Whether working locally or further afield, there’s no denying that She Moves is heading in the right direction.