Google Business Profile: a setup guide for service businesses

For a business that serves customers in a local area, the Google Business Profile controls how it appears in local search results and on Google Maps. For many service businesses it brings more calls than the website does.

Create or claim the profile

1. Search for your business on Google Maps. If a profile already exists, claim it; otherwise create one.
2. Use your real business name, exactly as customers see it on signs, invoices and your website. Adding keywords or locations to the name is against Google's guidelines and a common reason for suspension.
3. Verify the profile. Google offers verification methods depending on the business, such as a phone call, text, email, video or postcard. Edits do not go live until the profile is verified.

Address or service area

• If customers come to you, show your address.
• If you go to customers (plumbers, cleaners, consultants who visit), set a service area and hide the address. Only businesses that serve customers in person should have a profile; a purely online business is not eligible.

Categories

The primary category is one of the most important settings: choose the most specific one that describes your main service ("Emergency plumber" rather than just "Plumber", if it exists and fits). Add secondary categories only for services you really provide.

Fill in everything that helps a customer decide

• opening hours, including holiday hours;
• services, with short descriptions;
• photos of your work, team and premises (your own, not stock photos);
• a link to the most relevant page of your website;
• a business description in plain language.

Reviews

Ask every satisfied customer for a review, with a direct link, at the moment they are happiest. Reply to all reviews, good and bad, briefly and professionally. Do not offer incentives for reviews, review your own business, or ask staff to: these are against Google's policies, and reviews can be removed or the profile restricted.

Keep it active and accurate

• Update hours and services when they change.
• Answer questions customers ask.
• Check the profile's performance data: searches, calls, direction requests and website clicks.

Common reasons for suspension

• keywords or locations added to the business name;
• a virtual office, PO box or address where the business does not operate;
• several profiles for the same business at one location;
• a business that does not serve customers in person.

For the wider picture, see Local SEO for service businesses: a starter guide. Listing an agency that does local SEO? Add it to the SEOgenz business directory.