Google Business Profile: set it up so local customers find you

When someone nearby searches for what you do, Google shows a map and a short list of businesses before any website. If your business isn’t in that list, or its listing has the wrong hours and no photos, the customer picks someone else without ever seeing your site. That listing is your Google Business Profile. It’s free, and setting it up properly takes an afternoon.

Add or claim your profile

Your business may already have a listing that Google created from public information. Check first: search your business name and suburb on Google Maps.

• If it’s there, select Claim this business, then Manage now, and follow the steps.
• If it isn’t, go to business.google.com/add and choose Add your business to Google.

Either way, Google then asks you to verify that the business is yours. Adding or claiming a profile costs nothing. Google’s Business Profile Help has the current steps for each.

Verify it

Google chooses the verification options for you, based on your business type, public information, region and hours, and you can’t change them. The options include:

• Phone or text: a code sent to the business number. A person has to answer, because automated phone menus won’t pass the code on.
• Email: a code sent to the address shown on the screen.
• Live video call: a short call during your business hours. Not every business is offered it.
• Postcard: a five-digit code by mail. Google says most arrive within 14 days and the code expires after 30. While you wait, don’t edit your name, address or category.

After you verify, Google can take up to five business days to review it.

Get the basics right

These details decide whether you appear, and whether the listing looks trustworthy.

Your name. Use your business name exactly as it appears on your signage, website and invoices. Google’s guidelines forbid adding extras like “best plumber Brunswick”, taglines or phone numbers, and a stuffed name can get the profile suspended.

Your category. Pick the one primary category that best describes the business, then up to nine more for distinct services. Google’s guidelines say to use as few as possible. The primary category matters most.

Your address or service area. If customers come to you, show your address. If you go to them, as most trades and mobile services do, hide the address and set a service area instead: up to 20 suburbs, postcodes or regions, within about two hours’ drive of your base. Google doesn’t allow a radius.

Hours. Enter your regular customer-facing hours, and set special hours for public holidays and closures. A customer who turns up to a locked door on Easter Monday remembers.

Description. Up to 750 characters on what you do, who for and where. No links, and no prices or promotions: Google’s rules keep those out of the description.

Contact and website. Your main phone number and your website, plus a booking link if your booking software provides one.

Make it worth clicking

A complete listing competes; an empty one doesn’t.

• Photos: the outside (so people recognise it), the inside, your team and your work. Real photos, taken on a phone, are fine.
• Services or products: list the main ones in the words customers use.
• Reviews: ask every customer, and reply to each review. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking. My guide to getting more Google reviews has the templates and the rules.

How Google decides who shows up

Google’s help page on local ranking names three factors:

• Relevance: how well your profile matches the search. Accurate categories and a full description help.
• Distance: how far you are from the searcher or the place they searched.
• Prominence: how well known the business is, including reviews, ratings and links to your website.

Google also states there’s no way to pay for a better local ranking. Anyone who promises a guaranteed spot in the map results is selling something Google says doesn’t exist.

Keep it current

A profile goes stale fast. Once a month, check:

1. Hours, including the next public holiday.
2. That the phone number rings someone and the website loads.
3. New reviews, each with a reply.
4. One or two new photos.

If the business closes for a week or more, mark it Temporarily closed rather than leaving normal hours up.

Where it connects to your website

Your profile and your website should agree: the same name, phone number, address or service area, and hours. Point the profile’s website link at a page that says what you do and makes it easy to call, enquire or book. If the profile brings visitors but the site loses them, my checklist on why a website isn’t bringing in enquiries covers the usual leaks.