A Google Business Profile controls what shows up about you in Google Search and Maps: what you do, where, when you are open, how to reach you. A good one matches the real business and stays current. Your website does the deeper explaining. Having a profile does not buy you a spot in the results, and not every business or feature qualifies.
Eligibility and who owns it
Google’s rules cover businesses customers can visit, and businesses that travel to customers. Online-only does not qualify the same way. There are exceptions, so read the current guidance before you set one up. Google’s guidelines for representing your business.
Use your real trading name. Pick categories that describe the core business. Stuffing services or town names into the name misrepresents you. Your address and service-area settings should match how you actually work.
Know which account owns the profile and how a provider gets access. Do not depend on a login only a former employee had. If a profile already exists, claim it — do not create a second one.
Answer the immediate questions
Check the phone number, website link and hours while signed out, as a customer sees them. Set special hours for holidays and closures. Do not let your hours imply emergency cover you do not offer.
Choose the right categories and describe services in the fields provided. Be specific, but do not cram the website in. Link to a page that carries on the explanation.
Photos help people recognise you or picture the work. Use current, genuine ones, with permission. If you work in people’s homes, keep private details out of shot. A few meaningful pictures beat fifty vague ones.
Reviews sit on the profile too, and need their own routine. Ask for honest feedback, reply with care, and act on what repeats. The reviews guide covers requests and platform rules.
Example: a profile audit
A fictional mobile carpet-cleaning firm that visits customers and has no shopfront. The owner signs out and walks through what a customer sees.
- Identity
- Name matches the real trading name. The category describes what the firm does now, not what it hopes to sell later.
- Location
- Service areas match where the team actually goes, and the address follows Google’s rules for this kind of business.
- Contact
- The phone reaches the right team. The website link opens a useful page on a phone.
- Hours
- Next month’s closure is already in. No pretence of 24-hour call-outs.
- Evidence
- Photos show real jobs. A recent review about a delay has a considered reply.
That produces a short list of fixes. It does not need a made-up office, a profile per town, or a daily post. The point is information people can rely on.
Someone has to keep it current
When the business changes, the profile should change. New number, new hours, dropped service, new premises — check the profile and website together. Reviews and Google notifications need an owner too.
Features vary by business type, region and account, and Google changes them. Use what is actually in your profile. Do not build a process around something you saw in an old tutorial.
Job Growth Lab supports Business Profile work as part of local marketing. You supply accurate details and access, and tell whoever maintains it when things change. A tidy profile cannot make up for the service behind it.
Read the numbers carefully
Google reports performance for verified profiles. Its “calls” figure counts taps on the call button — not conversations, and not work won. Website clicks and direction requests are actions, not sales. Google’s explanation of Business Profile performance.
Read those figures next to your own enquiry records. If call-button taps rise but the team notices nothing, check the contact route before deciding either number is wrong.
Visibility is not just a complete profile. Google describes local results as relevance, distance and prominence, and says you cannot pay for a better organic local ranking. Google’s local-ranking guidance. Accurate details represent you well. They guarantee no position.
Check your profile
- Does the public profile describe the business customers can use today?
- Do the links and hours match reality?
- Do you still have access, and does someone maintain it?
- Are you comparing profile taps with real enquiries and real work?