This is the most common question we get, and the answer is almost never the one people expect. It is rarely a penalty and rarely anything mysterious. It is usually one of six things, and they are worth checking in this order because the first two account for most cases.
1. Your primary category is wrong
This is the single most important field on your profile and it is wrong more often than it is right. Google uses it to decide which searches you are eligible to appear for at all. A workshop listed as "Car dealer" will not surface for "mechanic near me", no matter how good the rest of the profile is.
Check what your closest competitors use. If theirs differs from yours, that is your first fix and it takes two minutes.
2. Your profile is incomplete
Google will not put a half-filled listing in the top three. Missing hours, no description, no photos, no website link — each one is a reason to rank someone else instead. Completeness is not a ranking hack, it is the entry requirement.
3. You are further away than you think
Proximity to the searcher is a major factor and you cannot change your address. If you are ten kilometres out of town, you will struggle for searches made in the town centre. This is not a fault to fix, it is a constraint to plan around — usually by competing on the searches where you can win.
4. You do not have enough reviews
Review count and rating both feed prominence. If the businesses around you average sixty reviews and you have four, you are not competing on equal footing. This one is slow to fix and worth starting immediately.
5. Your details are inconsistent across the web
If your phone number is different on your website, your Facebook page and three directories, Google has less confidence that the business is what it claims to be. Consistency is unglamorous and it matters.
6. You are checking from the wrong place
Searching your own business name from your own office, logged into your own account, tells you almost nothing. Results are personalised and location-dependent. Ask a customer across town what they see.
Where to start
Categories and completeness first. They are free, they take under an hour, and between them they resolve most cases we see.