How to set up a Google Business Profile

If you run a local business, your Google Business Profile is often the first thing a potential customer sees. It is the panel that appears on Google Search and Maps showing your name, phone number, opening hours, reviews and photos, and for many trades and high street businesses it brings in more calls than the website itself. Setting one up is free and does not take long, but the choices you make at the start affect how the profile performs and how likely it is to run into problems later. This guide explains how to set up a Google Business Profile step by step, based on the current instructions in Google's Business Profile help centre, and then covers how to make the most of it once it is live.

**What is a Google Business Profile?**

A Google Business Profile is a free listing that lets a business control how it appears in Google's local results. It used to be called Google My Business, and you will still see that name used in older articles. Once your profile is verified, you can manage your business name, address or service area, phone number, website, hours, photos and services, reply to reviews and publish updates.

Google's help centre explains that you can have a profile if you have a physical location customers can visit, or if you travel to customers to provide a service. Virtual offices, where you rent an address but do not actually operate there, are not eligible. Each business should have one profile for each location, so if you work from one base and cover several towns you need one profile with a service area, not one profile per town.

**Before you start**

It is worth gathering a few things before you begin. You need a Google Account, and Google suggests that if you create a new one for this purpose, you use an email address on your business domain. Decide on the exact business name you will use, which should be the name you trade under in the real world, as shown on your signage, van, website and invoices.

You should also know your main business category, your phone number, your website address and, if customers visit you, your full premises address. If you travel to customers instead, make a list of the towns or postcodes you cover. Having all of this ready makes the setup quicker and reduces the chance of entering something you later need to change, which matters because changes to key details can trigger a fresh review.

**How to create a Google Business Profile step by step**

To create a Google Business Profile, sign in to your Google Account and go to business.google.com/create. Start typing your business name. Google may suggest matching businesses as you type, and if your business already appears and someone else has verified it, you will be offered the option to request ownership rather than creating a new listing.

Next, search for and select your business category, then continue. Google will ask whether you want to add a location customers can visit. If you have a staffed shop, office or premises that customers can come to during your opening hours, answer yes and enter your address or place a marker on the map. If you do not, for example because you are a plumber, cleaner or mobile mechanic working from home, answer no.

If you serve customers at their locations, you will then be asked to set your service area. Google lets you add towns, cities, postcodes or other areas, up to twenty in total, and its help centre recommends that the area does not extend beyond about two hours' drive from where you are based. Choosing the service area option during setup is important, because Google's guidelines say service area businesses without a customer-facing shopfront should hide their address.

You will then be asked for a phone number and website. Use a number that connects directly to the business and a website page that represents it, rather than a central call centre or a link that redirects elsewhere. Once these are entered, finish the setup and you will be taken to the verification stage.

**How Google Business Profile verification works**

Your profile will not appear to customers until it has been verified. Verification is how Google confirms that you are the genuine owner or an authorised representative of the business. You can choose to verify straight away or come back to it later, but Google recommends checking that all of your information is correct before you start, because changes during verification can cause delays.

Google chooses which verification methods are available to you, and you cannot change that. According to Google's help centre, the options can include recording a short video, receiving a code by phone call, text message or email, joining a live video call with a member of Google's support team, or receiving a postcard with a code. Some businesses need to complete more than one method, and video recording is the option Google recommends where it is offered.

If you are asked to record a video, you will usually need to show your location, such as street signs or the outside of your premises, your equipment or products and something that proves you manage the business, such as keys to the premises or access to staff-only areas. Live video calls work in a similar way but take place with a support representative during your opening hours. Postcard verification is only available to some businesses; Google says most codes arrive within 14 days, codes expire after 30 days and you should not edit your name, address or category, or request a second code, while you wait.

Once you have completed your chosen method, Google says it reviews verification within up to five working days in most cases, with a few taking longer. You will receive an email when it is confirmed. Keep your verification code private, and be aware that Google says it will never ask you for it.

**Getting your categories and services right**

Once your profile is live, the real work begins. Your primary category is one of the strongest signals Google uses to decide which searches you appear for, so choose the most specific option that describes what your business is. Google's guidelines say to use as few categories as possible and not to use categories to list services or products. A roofing company should choose roofing contractor, for example, rather than adding categories for every individual job.

Services are where you describe what you actually do. Add each main service you offer, using the words customers would search for, and include a short description where the option is available. This is the right place for detail such as boiler servicing, emergency call-outs or bathroom fitting, and it is much safer than adding those words to your business name, which breaks Google's guidelines and can lead to a suspension.

**Hours, description and contact details**

Add your regular opening hours and keep them accurate. Google's help centre notes that inaccurate information can stop your profile from appearing for relevant local searches, and nothing frustrates a customer more than turning up to a closed door. Use special hours for bank holidays and Christmas so the profile is always correct.

Write a clear business description in plain sentences explaining what you do, who you work for and the area you cover. Avoid stuffing it with keywords or repeating the same town name over and over. Check that your phone number and website match exactly what appears on your own website and other listings, since consistent details help Google trust the information.

**Photos, reviews and posts**

Photos make a noticeable difference to how a profile looks next to competitors. Add a clear logo, a cover photo and genuine pictures of your premises, your team, your vehicles and your finished work. Google's help centre encourages businesses to add photos and videos to show what they offer, and real photos are far more convincing to customers than stock images.

Reviews are one of the most important parts of a local profile. Google says that prominence, which includes how many reviews a business has and its ratings, is one of the factors in local ranking. Ask happy customers for a review as a routine part of finishing a job, make it easy by sharing your review link and reply to every review, positive or negative, politely and promptly. Never offer incentives for reviews or post reviews on behalf of customers, as this breaks Google's policies.

Posts let you share updates, offers and news directly on your profile. They are a useful way to show that the business is active, to highlight seasonal services and to answer common questions before customers ask them. A short, regular update with a good photo is more useful than an occasional long post.

**Common mistakes to avoid**

The most common mistake is adding keywords or locations to the business name. It may seem like a shortcut, but it breaks Google's guidelines and is one of the main causes of suspensions. The second is showing a home address when customers do not visit you, rather than hiding it and setting a service area. The third is creating more than one profile for the same business, often to cover extra towns, which Google treats as duplicates.

Other mistakes include using a PO box or virtual office as the address, choosing a vague category, leaving hours blank or out of date and making lots of changes to key details in a short time. It is also common to set up a profile and then forget about it, leaving reviews unanswered for months. Treat the profile as an ongoing part of your marketing, not a one-off task, and check it at least once a month.

**Getting help with your profile**

Setting up a Google Business Profile is something most owners can do themselves by following the steps above, and doing it carefully from the start avoids many of the problems we see later. If you would rather hand it over, we can set up your profile as a quoted one-off job, and ongoing profile management is included in our Local SEO package from £350 a month, alongside local citation building and on-page local SEO. If you already have a profile and want to know how it and your website are performing, our free SEO audit is a good place to start.