Google Business Profile Guide for Local Businesses

A Google Business Profile is the listing Google shows when someone searches for your business by name, or searches for what you do near them. On a phone it appears in the map results at the top of the page, with your phone number, a call button, directions, your hours, photos and reviews. On a computer it also appears as a panel on the right of the results when someone searches your name.

For a local service business, this listing is often the first thing a customer sees and the place they decide whether to call. Many people never visit the website at all. They see three businesses on the map, compare the reviews and photos, and tap the call button on the one that looks most trustworthy.

How Google decides who shows up

Google says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence (Google Business Profile Help). Your profile feeds all three:

• Relevance comes from your categories, your services, your description and what customers say in reviews.
• Distance comes from your address or service area. You cannot change where the searcher is standing.
• Prominence comes from reviews, how well known your business is around the web, and how your website ranks.

On the same page, Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are easier to match with the right searches. That is the whole argument for doing this properly.

It is yours, not Google's and not your agency's

The profile belongs to the business. Whoever owns it on Google can change your phone number, your hours or your website link. If a past agency or employee set it up under their own account, get ownership moved to an account you control and give others manager access instead. Of everything in this guide, that is the step people most often regret skipping.

Your profile is one part of local SEO. Our complete local SEO guide covers how it fits with your website, citations and links.

Many businesses already have a profile they never created. Google builds listings from public information, and customers can suggest places too. So before creating anything, search Google Maps for your business name and your phone number.

If a listing exists

Open it and look for the option to claim or manage it. If nobody owns it, you can start the claim straight away. If someone else already owns it, Google lets you request access, and the current owner gets a set period to respond. If you cannot work out who owns it, the request process is the way through. Do not create a second listing to get around it. That creates a duplicate, and duplicates cause more trouble than they solve.

If no listing exists

Go to business.google.com, sign in with a Google account you control (ideally a business account rather than a personal one), and add your business. Use your real business name, your main category, and either your address or your service area.

Verification

Google will ask you to prove you run the business before your edits go live. The methods it offers depend on your business type and location. You might be asked to record a short video showing your signage, your workplace or your tools and a vehicle, or to verify by phone, text, email or postcard. You do not get to pick the method; Google offers what it offers.

A few things make verification go smoothly:

• Use the same name, address and phone number that appear on your website and your signage.
• If you are asked for a video, show proof the business is real and operating at that location: signage, branded vehicles, equipment, the inside of your premises, and something that ties them together, like opening the door with a key.
• Do not edit the profile repeatedly while verification is pending. Changes can restart the process.

Once verified, keep the account secure. Turn on two-step verification and add a second owner you trust, so you are not locked out if one account is lost.

Your primary category is the strongest relevance signal on the whole profile. It tells Google what kind of business you are, and it decides which searches you are even considered for.

The primary category

Pick the most specific category that describes your main line of work, the thing most of your revenue comes from. A business that mainly fixes air conditioners is better described as "Air conditioning repair service" than "Contractor". A family dentist is "Dentist", not "Health". If you are unsure, search for your main service in your area and see what category the businesses in the map results use. It shows under the business name.

Additional categories

You can add further categories for other real services you offer. Google's guidance is to use the fewest categories it takes to describe your core business (Google Business Profile Help). Add the ones that describe genuine, regular work. Do not add categories for things you do once a year in the hope of appearing for more searches. It dilutes what the profile says about you and can attract the wrong calls.

When to change them

Categories are worth revisiting when your business changes, when Google adds a more specific category that fits you better, or when you notice a competitor ranking for searches you are not. Change one thing at a time and watch what happens over the following weeks, so you can tell what helped.

Changing your primary category can sometimes trigger a fresh review by Google. That is not a reason to avoid a necessary change, but it is a reason not to experiment with it casually.

Our guide to Google Business Profile categories explains how to find the current list and change categories safely.

How you set your location depends on where you serve customers.

• Customers come to you (a dental office, a restaurant, a shop): show your address.
• You go to customers (a plumber, a cleaner, a mobile mechanic): you are a service-area business. Hide your address and set the places you serve.
• Both (a garage that also does roadside work): show your address and add a service area.

Service-area businesses

If you work from home and travel to customers, Google says you should hide your business address (Google Business Profile Help). Showing a home address that customers cannot visit breaks the guidelines and is a common reason profiles get suspended. The same page says your service area should not extend farther than about two hours of driving from where your business is based.

Set your service area as the cities, towns or postal codes you genuinely cover. Listing places far beyond where you work does not make you rank there; your location still matters to Google even when the address is hidden.

Addresses Google will not accept

A P.O. box, a mailbox at a shipping store or a virtual office you do not actually work from is not eligible for a profile. Shared coworking spaces are allowed only in narrow cases, such as staffed premises with your own signage during your listed hours. If you are not sure your address qualifies, read Google's guidelines before you rely on it; a suspension can take weeks to sort out.

More than one location

Each real location with its own staff and its own hours can have its own profile. A business with no storefront is allowed one service-area profile, not one per town it serves. Creating extra listings for towns where you have no premises is one of the fastest ways to lose all of them.

Our guide to Google Business Profile for a service area business walks through setup and the mistakes that get service-area profiles suspended.

Once the profile is verified and the categories are right, fill in every field that applies. Each one is a chance to tell Google and customers what you do.

Your business name

Use your real business name, exactly as it appears on your signage, your website and your paperwork. Google does not allow extra words in the name, such as services, cities or slogans (Google Business Profile Help). "Smith Plumbing" is right. "Smith Plumbing - Emergency Plumber San Diego 24/7" is not, and competitors can and do report it. Stuffed names get edited by Google or get the profile suspended.

Phone number and website

Use a local phone number that you answer. If you use call tracking, put the tracking number as the main number and your normal number as an additional one, so your details stay consistent. Link to the most relevant page of your website. For a single-location business that is usually the homepage; for a multi-location business it is that location's page.

Hours

Set your regular hours and keep special hours up to date for holidays and closures. If you offer emergency service around the clock, say so only if someone really answers the phone. A customer who calls at midnight and gets voicemail will say so in a review.

Services and products

List each service you offer with a short description in the words your customers use. "Water heater replacement: same-week installs of tank and tankless heaters" tells a searcher far more than "Plumbing". Products work the same way for businesses that sell things.

Description

Write a few plain sentences about what you do, who for, and where. Mention your main services and the area you cover. Leave out links, prices that change and lists of keywords.

Attributes and booking

Attributes are the small tags like "wheelchair accessible", "online appointments" or "women-owned". Add the ones that are true. If customers can book online, add your booking link.

Photos

Photos are what people look at first. Add your logo and a cover photo, then real photos of your work, your team, your vehicles and your premises, inside and out. Show finished jobs, before-and-after pairs, and the kind of work you want more of. Stock photos add nothing and can make a listing look fake. Keep adding new ones as you do new work.

A word on Google's old free websites: in 2024 Google shut down the simple websites businesses could build from their profile. If your profile still points at one, it is sending people to a dead page. Replace it with a real website. If you do not have one, we will build you a free website and show it to you privately first.

A profile that is set up once and then forgotten slowly falls behind ones that are kept current. Google can see when a profile was last updated, and customers notice photos from years ago and posts that stopped long ago.

Posts

Google Business Profile posts let you add short updates directly to your listing. There are a few types:

• Updates: news, a recent job, a seasonal reminder.
• Offers: a discount or promotion, with dates and terms.
• Events: something with a start and end date, like an open day or a workshop.

Posts can appear on your profile in Search and Maps. They are not a ranking shortcut, and nobody outside Google knows exactly how much weight they carry. What they do reliably is show customers that the business is active and give them a reason to call now. A short post with a real photo of a recent job, a sentence about what you did, and a button to call or book is enough.

A simple routine

Most businesses can keep their profile current with a few minutes a week:

1. Add photos from jobs you are proud of.
2. Publish a post when you have something worth saying: a seasonal service, an offer, a recent project.
3. Reply to every new review.
4. Check your hours before any holiday.
5. Look at the profile as a customer once a month. Is anything out of date? Has anyone suggested an edit?

Watch for edits you did not make

Anyone can suggest changes to a business listing, and Google sometimes applies them. Check the profile regularly for changes to your hours, phone number, website or categories that you did not make. Google usually notifies the owner, but the email is easy to miss.

Our guide to Google Business Profile posts covers which post type to pick, how to publish one and how to tell whether it did anything.

Reviews do two jobs. They are part of how Google judges prominence, and they are what customers read when deciding which of the businesses on the map to call. Recent, detailed reviews often win the call even when a competitor ranks a little higher.

Ask at the right moment

The best time to ask is just after the job is done and the customer has told you they are happy. Ask in person, then follow up the same day with a direct link by text or email. People who meant to leave a review often forget by the next week.

Use your review link

Your profile gives you a short link that opens the review box directly. Find it in your profile under the option to ask for reviews, then put it everywhere a happy customer might see it: the follow-up text, your email signature, invoices and receipts, and a QR code on a card you leave behind. Test the link from a phone before you send it to anyone. Our guide to finding and sharing your Google review link shows each step.

Stay inside Google's rules

Google's policy is clear on a few things (Maps user-generated content policy):

• No incentives. Do not offer discounts, gifts, free services or payment in exchange for a review.
• No gating. Do not ask only the customers you expect to be happy, and do not use a survey to filter people before sending them to Google. Ask everyone.
• No conflicts of interest. Do not review your own business or have staff, family or friends do it.
• No scripts. Do not tell customers what to write.

Breaking these can get reviews removed, and repeated problems can get restrictions placed on the profile. Buying reviews is never worth it.

Let customers say it in their own words

Do not tell customers what to write or ask them to include particular details; Google's policy does not allow requesting specific content. Just ask for an honest review. Customers who had a good experience often mention the job and the place on their own, and a review like "They fixed our leaking water heater the same afternoon" helps the next customer far more than anything you could script.

Make asking a habit

The businesses with the most reviews are not the ones with the happiest customers. They are the ones who ask every time. Make it part of how a job ends, the same as sending the invoice. Our guide on how to get more Google reviews for a plumber shows what that looks like in a real trade, with wording you can borrow.

Reply to every review. Customers read the replies, and a profile where the owner answers each one looks cared for.

Positive reviews

Thank the person, mention the job, and keep it short. "Thanks, Maria. Glad the new water heater is working well, and thanks for being so flexible on the install time." Avoid pasting the same reply on every review; it reads as automatic.

Negative reviews

A bad review feels personal, but the reply is not really for the person who left it. It is for everyone who reads it later. They want to see how you handle a problem.

1. Wait before you reply. Do not answer while you are angry.
2. Check the facts. Find the job, talk to whoever was there.
3. Reply once, calmly. Thank them for the feedback, acknowledge the problem without arguing over details, and say what you will do or have done.
4. Take it offline. Give a name and a number so they can reach someone who can fix it.
5. Never share private details about the customer or the job.

If you resolve the problem, the customer may update their review. You can ask, but you cannot pressure them or offer anything in return.

Reviews that break the rules

Some reviews are not from real customers: spam, a competitor, someone who has confused you with another business, or content that is offensive or off-topic. You can report those through your profile for Google to check against its policies. Google removes reviews that break its rules, not reviews that are merely unfair. Reply politely to any review you report, because it may stay up.

Keep a short policy

If more than one person replies to reviews, write down how you handle them: who replies, how fast, what tone, and when to escalate. It keeps replies consistent and stops anyone answering in anger.

Our guide on how to respond to negative Google reviews has example replies and a simple response policy you can adopt.

Two problems account for a lot of lost calls: duplicate listings and suspended profiles.

Duplicate listings

Duplicates appear when a business moves, rebrands, changes its phone number, or when someone creates a new listing instead of claiming the existing one. They split your reviews and confuse Google about which listing is real.

There is no merge button. What you can do:

1. Search Maps for your business name, old names, old addresses and old phone numbers to find every listing.
2. For a duplicate you manage, decide which profile to keep, usually the one with the most reviews and history. Removing the other from your account is not enough on its own: Google says a removed profile might still show up on Search and Maps (Google Business Profile Help).
3. Report every duplicate on Google Maps, whether you manage it or not, by suggesting an edit and marking it as a duplicate. Google reviews these reports, and a profile it treats as a duplicate stops showing on Search and Maps (Google Business Profile Help).
4. If reviews are split across listings, contact Google Business Profile support. In some cases support can combine duplicates; it is their decision, not yours.

To stop new duplicates appearing, keep one consistent name, address and phone number everywhere, and update your existing listing when anything changes instead of creating a new one. Our guide on how to merge Google Business Profiles and fix duplicates has the detailed steps.

Suspensions

Google suspends profiles it believes break its guidelines. The common causes are:

• Extra words in the business name.
• A home address shown for a business that serves customers at their location.
• An address that is a P.O. box, a mailbox or a virtual office.
• More than one listing for the same business at the same place.
• Sudden large changes, such as a new name, address and category at once.

If your profile is suspended, do not create a new one. Fix whatever broke the guidelines, gather proof the business is real at that location (a business license, a utility bill, photos of signage), and submit an appeal through Google's official process. Then wait. Repeated appeals do not speed it up.

The best defense is boring: follow the guidelines from day one, and do not take advice from anyone who suggests a shortcut.

Your profile includes a performance report. It shows how many people viewed the profile, which searches they used, and what they did next: calls, website clicks, direction requests and bookings where those apply.

What to look at each month

• Calls and website clicks. These are the closest thing to leads the profile reports.
• Direction requests, if customers visit you.
• The searches that found you. Are they the services you want more of? If people find you for something you rarely do, your categories or services may need adjusting.
• Reviews: how many new ones, and what they say.

Look at the trend over several months rather than reacting to one week. Seasons, weather and holidays move the numbers more than most changes you make.

Where you rank

The report does not tell you where you appear in the map results, and that depends on where the searcher is standing. Search for your main services from a few different parts of your area, or ask someone who lives there to. A business can be first on the map a mile from its office and absent five miles away.

Ask customers

Numbers only go so far. Ask every new customer how they found you, and write it down. If "I saw you on Google Maps" keeps coming up, the profile is earning its keep.

The profile and AI answers

Google's own AI features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, draw on Google's local data, which includes Business Profiles. Google lists keeping your Business Profile information up to date among its advice for those features (Google Search Central). Other assistants such as ChatGPT do not read your Google profile; they rely on their own web searches and other listings. Our AI search guide covers both.

Everything in this guide can be done by an owner. The setup takes an afternoon. The upkeep takes a few minutes a week, plus the habit of asking for reviews. If you have that time, do it yourself.

Where owners struggle is the long tail: a suspension, a duplicate that will not go away, a profile someone else controls, or simply keeping it current through a busy season. That is where help is worth paying for.

If you hire someone

• Keep ownership. The profile should be owned by an account you control. An agency should be a manager, never the owner.
• Ask what they will actually do each month. Photos, posts, review replies, monitoring for unwanted edits.
• Be wary of anyone who offers to stuff keywords into your business name, create listings for towns where you have no office, or supply reviews. Those are the shortcuts that get profiles suspended.

How we help

Our monthly SEO plans are Starter at $195 a month (on-page optimization for your core pages, technical SEO fundamentals and monthly reporting), Pioneer at $495 a month (adds ongoing blog content and backlink building) and Blast Off at $995 a month (expanded content and backlink volume), all month to month, cancel any time. Pioneer and Blast Off come with a money-back promise: if we do not improve your monthly rankings, you get that month's payment back. The plans and pricing page shows what each includes.

Your profile works best alongside a strong website and the rest of local SEO. Our complete local SEO guide covers the whole picture, and if you would like us to look at your profile and site first, ask for a free SEO audit.