When a new client asks us to “do some SEO”, the Google Business Profile is the first thing we open, and it’s rarely in good shape. Half-filled fields, a category chosen in a hurry six years ago, hours that ignore every public holiday, and three photos, one of which is the logo. Fixing it is often the fastest improvement we can make, and it costs nothing but time.
This guide goes through every part of the profile in the order we set it up. Google changes the interface often, so names of buttons may shift, but the rules underneath have been stable for a while. Where we quote rules, they come from Google’s guidelines for representing your business, which are worth reading in full once.
Before you start
Check whether a profile already exists. Search your business name on Google Maps. Profiles often get created automatically from old directory data, or by a previous owner, a former staff member or an agency you used once. If one exists, claim it rather than creating a new one. Duplicates confuse Google and split your reviews.
Use a Google account the business owns, not a staff member’s personal Gmail. If the person who set it up leaves, you want the profile to stay with you. Add other people as managers later instead of sharing the login.
Go to business.google.com to create or claim the profile.
The business name
Use your real-world business name, exactly as it appears on your signage, website and paperwork. Nothing else.
Google’s guidelines specifically rule out adding locations, service descriptions or marketing taglines. So “Coastline Plumbing” is right, and “Coastline Plumbing Ballina Emergency Plumber 24/7” is not. Keyword-stuffed names do sometimes rank for a while, which is why people keep doing it. They also get reported by competitors and suspended, and then you have no profile at all while you sort it out.
If your registered name includes a place (“Lennox Head Physio”), that’s fine. It’s the real name.
Categories
This is the single most important choice on the profile and the one most often done badly.
Your primary category should be the most specific category that describes your core business. Google’s advice is to use as few categories as possible, and to pick categories that describe what the business is, not things it sells or has. A cafe that sells cakes is a “Cafe”, not a “Cake shop”. A practice of audiologists is an “Audiologist”, not a “Medical clinic”.
Start typing in the category box and look at all the options before choosing. There are often several close matches, and the specific one is usually better. “Electrician” versus “Electrical installation service” versus “Solar energy contractor” can make a real difference to what you show up for.
Then add a small number of secondary categories for genuine other parts of the business. A plumber who also does gas fitting can add “Gas installation service”. Don’t add categories for things you do once a year.
Address or service area
This decision depends on whether customers come to you.
- Customers visit you (shop, cafe, clinic, office): show your address.
- You go to customers and they never come to you (most trades, mobile services): remove the address and set a service area instead. Your address is still used for verification, but it isn’t shown.
- Both (a clinic that also does home visits, a showroom that also installs): Google calls this a hybrid business. Show the address and add a service area.
Google’s service area rules let you add up to 20 areas, using towns, suburbs or postcodes. You can’t use a radius, and the overall area should generally stay within about two hours’ drive of where you’re based. List the places you want work from, not every town in the state.
Two things that aren’t allowed: P.O. boxes and virtual offices you don’t work from. If you rent a mailing address in a bigger town to look local there, that address isn’t eligible.
For a plumbing business like Plumbing Elevation, whose website we built, the service area version is the right one. Customers don’t drop in to a plumber’s workshop.
Hours
List your regular customer-facing hours. If you answer the phone from 7am but the counter opens at 8, use the hours a customer can actually reach you in the way they’d expect.
Then, every year, set special hours for public holidays and your Christmas shutdown. This is the one most businesses forget, and it’s the one that causes the angriest reviews: someone drives across town on Boxing Day because Google said you were open.
Google’s guidelines list businesses that operate only by appointment among those that shouldn’t show regular hours. If your reception is genuinely staffed for calls and walk-ins at set times, those are customer-facing hours and can be listed. If not, leave hours off and make the booking link obvious.
Phone number and website
Use a number that goes straight to your business, ideally a local or mobile number rather than a central call centre. Premium-rate numbers aren’t allowed.
For the website, link to the most relevant page on your own site. For a single-location business that’s usually the homepage. For a business with several locations, link each profile to its own location page. Don’t link to a booking platform or a social profile if you have a proper website.
Tip: if you use Google Analytics, add tracking tags to the website link (a UTM link) so you can see how many visits come from your profile rather than from organic search.
Services and products
Fill in the services section with every service you offer, using the words customers would use. Add a short description to each one. These help relevance, and they show up on your profile when people tap through.
Retail and hospitality businesses can add products or menu items. Restaurants should link a proper menu page on their website as well.
Business description
You get 750 characters. Use the first sentence to say plainly what you do and where. Then cover who you work with, what makes you different and anything practical people should know (parking, accessibility, languages spoken).
Don’t paste in a list of keywords, URLs or promotional offers. Write it like the first paragraph of your About page.
Attributes
These are the tick boxes: wheelchair access, outdoor seating, free Wi-Fi, women-owned, LGBTQ+ friendly, online appointments and so on. Which ones you see depends on your category. Fill in every one that’s true. They show on your profile and help when people search for specific needs.
Photos
Photos make the difference between a profile that looks alive and one that looks abandoned. Aim for at least 10 to start, and add a few every month.
What to include:
- Logo (square, clear on a small screen).
- Cover photo (your best wide shot; Google may choose a different one to display, which is annoying but normal).
- Exterior, so people recognise the place when they pull up. Shoot it from the street, the way a customer sees it.
- Interior, for shops, venues and clinics.
- Your work. Finished jobs, products, dishes, treatment rooms. This is the most persuasive category.
- The team. Real people, with their permission.
Use real photos of your own business. Stock photos look like stock photos, and Google can remove images that don’t represent the place. Phone photos are fine if they’re well lit and in focus.
Verification
Until you’re verified, your profile may not show publicly and you can’t manage it fully. Google chooses which verification methods you’re offered. You might get a phone call or text, an email, a live video call with a Google support person, a recorded video, or a postcard in the mail.
Video verification is now common. For a live call, you need to be at the business during its listed opening hours, and you’ll be asked to show your location (signage, the street, nearby landmarks), your equipment or stock, and proof that you run the place, like keys, a staff-only area or the till. For a service-area business, that usually means showing your branded vehicle, your tools and something with your business name on it.
Tips that save a failed attempt: film in daylight, keep the camera moving slowly, show the street sign or a recognisable landmark, then walk to your door or vehicle without cutting. Have your business documents handy in case you’re asked.
Don’t change your name, address or category in the middle of verification. Even after you’re verified, in our experience, big changes to those fields can trigger a fresh verification, so make them deliberately.
After you’re verified
Get your review link. On a computer, open your profile at business.google.com, go to Read reviews, then Get more reviews, and copy the link or download the QR code. Google’s instructions note that the QR code can only be generated on a computer at the moment, not on a phone. Then put the link somewhere you’ll use it. Our guide on getting more Google reviews covers how and when to ask.
Add managers. Give your marketing person or agency manager access, not ownership. Keep at least two owners from within the business.
Post occasional updates. They’re not as important as people claim, but they show the profile is cared for. See Google Business Profile updates vs social posts for when they’re worth the effort.
Turn on notifications for reviews and edits so you notice when someone suggests a change to your hours or address. Anyone can suggest edits, and Google sometimes accepts them.
The mistakes we fix most often
- Keywords or locations stuffed into the business name.
- A vague primary category (“Contractor”, “Store”) when a specific one exists.
- Duplicate profiles from an old address or a previous owner.
- A service-area business showing a home address publicly.
- No special hours for public holidays.
- Owned by a former employee’s or agency’s account, so nobody can get in.
- Three photos, all from launch day.
- A website link pointing to a Facebook page or a broken URL.
- Reviews left unanswered for months.
Then keep it alive
A profile isn’t set-and-forget. Put a reminder in your calendar for the first week of each quarter: check hours and special hours, add new photos, reply to any unanswered reviews and check nobody has edited your details. Fifteen minutes, four times a year.
For the bigger picture of how the profile fits into ranking, read local SEO explained. Filling in every field and keeping the hours current through holidays is a standard part of our local SEO work, with profile setup from $450 plus GST. And if the website your profile links to is letting you down, our web design team can fix the other half.