Category, and the profile nobody finished
Your primary category needs to be Tattoo shop. Studios listed as “Body art”, “Beauty salon” or a generic “Store” are excluded from the search that matters most. Check it first.
Then look at the profile as a stranger would. Most studio listings have three photos, no services, no description and hours that were entered at opening. Google notices engagement, and a listing nobody interacts with drifts down — while the studio across town with a hundred photos climbs.
Your Instagram grid belongs on Google too
This is the single biggest quick win in the trade. You already produce the content — healed pieces, work in progress, the studio itself — and it sits entirely on a platform that does not affect your Google ranking at all.
Adding photos regularly to the Business Profile does two things: it gives the customer comparing three studios something to judge you on, and it signals an active listing. It costs nothing but the minute it takes to upload.
Reviews, and the awkwardness of asking
Artists are often reluctant to ask, and the result is studios with superb work and eleven reviews losing to average studios with two hundred. The natural moment is the check-up or the healed-photo message a week or two later, when the client is pleased and the piece looks its best.
Reviews that name the artist and the style rank for those searches and convert the next person looking for exactly that. Never offer a discount for a review — it breaches Google's rules and risks removal of the reviews you already have.
Walk-ins, hours and the searches you are missing
“Walk in tattoo near me” is decided in minutes from a phone, and Google matches it against your published hours and whether your profile says walk-ins are welcome. Studios that are appointment-only should say so just as clearly, because the wrong enquiry wastes everyone's time.
Cover-ups deserve a mention too. It is a steady source of larger work, people search for it specifically, and almost no studio has a page or a profile service naming it.