Your Google Business Profile is the listing that shows up on Google Maps and in the map block of local searches. For many local businesses, more people see it than see the website. It's free, and most of it gets filled in once and then forgotten.
This is the hands-on version: what to check, field by field, and what to do each week. For the bigger picture of how the profile fits with your website and reviews, read why local SEO is the most underused tool for Bay Area businesses. Set aside an hour for the first pass.
Before you start: check who owns it
Sign in to the Google account you use for the business and open your profile. If you can't manage it, someone else probably owns it: a former employee, an old agency or a relative who set it up years ago. You can request access from the listing itself. Once you're in, add a second owner from inside your business so you're never locked out again, and give anyone who helps you manager access rather than ownership.
1. Name, address and service area
- Use your real business name. The name on your sign and your paperwork. Adding keywords or city names, like "Best Tire Shop Richmond", is against Google's guidelines and can get the listing suspended.
- Show your address only if customers come to you. A tire shop or a supply yard should show its address. A junk removal crew or a mobile mechanic that goes to customers should hide the address and set a service area instead.
- Set service areas you really cover. List the towns or counties you work in, not the whole state.
2. Categories
Your primary category is one of the most important choices on the profile. Pick the most specific one that describes your main business: "Tire shop" rather than "Auto repair shop" if tires are most of what you sell. Then add a few secondary categories for other real parts of the business. Don't add categories for work you don't do.
3. Services and products
Add each service you offer with a short, plain description. If you sell things, like bulk mulch, gravel or used tires, add them as products with a photo. This is where you answer "do they do this?" before someone has to call. Use the words customers use, not trade jargon.
4. Hours, including the odd days
Wrong hours are the fastest way to lose a customer's trust. Set your regular hours, then add special hours for holidays before they arrive. If you close early on winter Saturdays, say so. A customer who drives over to find the gate locked won't try again.
5. Photos of real work
Add the photos people actually want to see: the outside of your building so they can find it, the counter or the yard, your trucks, your team and finished jobs. A phone in good light is fine. Skip stock photos. Add a few new ones each month so the profile doesn't look abandoned.
6. Website and booking links
Link to the page that matches the listing. For a single-location business that's usually the home page; if you have several locations, link each profile to its own location page. If you take bookings online, add your booking link so people can book from the listing. Add tracking parameters to the website link, for example ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp, so your analytics can tell profile visits apart from other search traffic.
7. Updates
Updates are short posts that appear on your profile: a finished job, a seasonal reminder, a new product, a holiday schedule. They don't need to be clever. A photo and two sentences is enough. Once or twice a month is a realistic habit for most owners. The point is that the profile looks looked after.
8. Reviews and replies
Ask every customer for a review in the same way, and reply to every review you get, good or bad. Our post on getting more Google reviews covers the habit and the rules, including why you should never ask only the happy customers.
Your ten minutes a week
- Reply to any new reviews.
- Check the profile still shows the right hours, phone number and website. Anyone can suggest an edit to a listing, and Google sometimes accepts those edits without asking you.
- Add a photo from a job this week.
- Look at the Performance view: searches, calls, direction requests and website clicks. You're looking for changes from month to month, not perfect numbers.
Mistakes we see most often
- Keywords stuffed into the business name.
- Two listings for the same business, often an old one with a previous phone number. Ask Google to remove or merge the duplicate.
- A home address showing for a business that only works at customers' sites.
- A website link that points to a page that no longer exists.
- Owners locked out because the only login belonged to someone who has left.
- A primary category that's too broad, chosen in a hurry the day the profile was made.
Most of this takes an afternoon to put right. If you'd rather hand it off, we do it as part of our local SEO work, and our free website audit will show you what's missing.
We do this for clients: Digital marketing and SEO.