Setting up your Google Business Profile properly
It is free, it takes an afternoon, and for most local businesses it brings in more enquiries than the website does.
The short version
Pick the most specific primary category that is true, fill in every field, add real photographs every month, and reply to every review. Then check the listing monthly, because other people can change it.
A Google Business Profile is the free listing that appears on Google Maps and in local search results. When somebody near you searches for what you do, it is often the first thing they see: a map, three businesses, their ratings and their opening hours.
The listing costs nothing, and in most towns it is half-finished at almost every business on it. That gap is the opportunity.
Your listing and your website do different jobs, and you want both. The listing is how people find you and check you are open. The website is what they read before deciding, and it is the one you control. This article is about the listing.
How Google decides which listings to show
Google ranks local listings on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. Google’s own help page defines relevance as how well a profile matches the search, distance as how far the business is from the searcher, and prominence as how well-known the business is.
You cannot move your premises closer to every customer, so distance is out of your hands. Relevance and prominence are not. Relevance comes mostly from your category and the words in your listing. Prominence comes partly from reviews - Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking.
Everything below is about those two levers.
Categories decide what you show up for
Your primary category is the single most important field on a Google Business Profile, and it is the one most often set carelessly. It tells Google what you are, and so which searches you appear for.
Pick the most specific category that genuinely describes you. “Coffee shop” rather than “Restaurant”. “Emergency plumber” rather than “Contractor”, if that is what you actually are. Google’s guidelines put it simply: choose categories that complete the sentence “this business IS a”, not “this business HAS a”.
Then add secondary categories for the other things you genuinely are, and stop. The same guidelines ask you to use as few categories as possible and not to use them as keywords. Extra categories also bring enquiries you have to turn down.
Try this now
Search for your main service in your own town in a private browser window. Look at the three businesses in the map results and check what categories they appear to be using. If they are all one thing and you are another, that is worth knowing.
The fields nobody fills in
A complete listing has a better chance of showing up than a half-empty one. Google says so directly: businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results. Completeness is also the part that is entirely within your control.
- Services or products. Each one is a separate entry with its own description. Most listings have none. It is free space to say exactly what you do, in the words customers use.
- Opening hours, including the odd ones. Set special hours for public holidays before they arrive. A listing that says Open when you are shut produces a review you do not want.
- The description. Write it for a person, not a search engine. Say what you do and where in the first line.
- Attributes. Step-free access, parking, card payments. People filter on these.
- The booking or quote link. Point it at the page where somebody can actually do something, not just your homepage.
If customers never come to you: service areas
A trade that works from home should set up as a service-area business and take the address off the listing. Google’s rule is plain: if you don’t serve customers at your business address, remove your address from your profile.
You then list the places you cover instead - towns, districts or postal codes - and Google allows up to 20. Name the areas you actually want work from rather than a huge radius. A listing that claims the whole region looks less local, not more.
If people do visit you - a salon, a shop, a café - keep the address, and make sure it matches the one on your website and your signage letter for letter.
Photographs, and which ones
Photographs make a listing read as a real business rather than a database entry. They do not need to be professional. They need to be real and recent.
- The outside, from the street, showing your sign. This is the one that helps people find the door.
- The inside, lit, looking how it looks on a normal day.
- The work - the food, the finished bathroom, the cut, the garden.
- You and your staff. A face does more for trust than any amount of copy.
Add a few every month rather than thirty once. A photograph from last week tells a searcher the business is still trading, which matters more than it should. If you are short of pictures, the habits in what to post when you have no time work just as well for a listing.
Reviews, and the questions people ask
Reviews are the part of a Google Business Profile that builds prominence, and Google says positive reviews and helpful replies can help your business stand out. Reply to every one, good and bad, briefly and in your own words. Getting the reviews in the first place is its own subject - how to ask for them without it being awkward covers the timing and the words.
The old questions-and-answers section is going away. Google discontinued the Q&A API in November 2025, and many owners report that the section has gone from their profiles. Google Maps now has Ask Maps, which answers questions in conversation using place information and reviews.
The practical advice is the same either way. Take the five things customers ring up to ask - parking, card payments, whether you do that particular job, how far you travel, whether you need an appointment - and make sure the answers are written down in your services, your description, your attributes and on your website. Whatever tool answers the question next, it can only repeat what is written somewhere. How AI tools decide which business to name goes further on this.
Keeping it right
A Google Business Profile does not stay the way you left it. Google takes information from different sources, like user reports and licensed content, and members of the public can suggest edits - competitors and well-meaning strangers included.
When Google notifies you of a suggested edit, you have 4 days to accept or reject it. If you do not respond, Google may publish the change anyway when other public information, such as your website, supports it. That is one more reason for the website and the listing to agree. The same goes for Apple Maps, which lists your business whether you claimed it or not; the Apple Maps article covers claiming that listing and keeping it matching this one.
- The listing is verified and you have the login
- Primary category is the most specific accurate one
- Every service is listed separately with a description
- Hours are right, and special hours are set before holidays
- There are photographs from the last month
- The common phone questions are answered in the listing and on the website
- Every review has a reply
- The link points at a page where someone can act
- Someone checks the hours and phone number every month
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A few common questions.
Is a Google Business Profile free?
Yes, entirely. Anyone charging a monthly fee simply to maintain a listing is charging for work you can do in an afternoon. Paid help can be worth it for the photography, the writing and the ongoing review habit, but not for access, because access is free.
I have a Google Business Profile. Do I still need a website?
They do different jobs and you want both. The profile is how people find you: hours, phone, map. The website is what they check before they decide: your services, your photographs, your prices and the answers to whatever made them hesitate. The difference is control. Google decides what your listing shows and can change it. Your website is yours.
What if I work from home?
Set yourself up as a service-area business and remove the address. Google's guidelines say to remove your address if you don't serve customers there. You then name the areas you cover, up to 20 of them, without publishing where you live.
Someone changed my listing. What can I do?
Google can notify you about suggested edits, and you have 4 days to accept or reject them before Google may publish a change on its own. You can always correct the details yourself by editing the profile. Check the hours and phone number monthly, because both cost you real calls when they are wrong.
What happened to the questions and answers section?
Google has been retiring it. The API that let software read and post questions was switched off in November 2025, and many owners report the section has gone from their profiles. Put the answers to common questions in your services, description and website instead, where both people and Google's tools can find them.
How long until changes make a difference?
Category and field changes often show within days. Reviews and photographs build more slowly. Give it a month before judging, and change one thing at a time so you can tell what worked.
