When someone searches for a plumber, a café or a damp specialist near them, the first thing Google usually shows is a map with a short list of businesses under it. Those entries are not websites. They are Google Business Profiles, and they are free, set up by the business itself, and checked by Google before they appear. A Google Business Profile is what used to be called Google My Business: Google renamed it in 2021, and the steps below are the same whichever name you search for.
Setting up a Google Business Profile: check whether you already exist
Search Google Maps for your business name and town before creating anything. Google sometimes builds a listing from public information, and a former owner, an old employee or a previous marketing company may have made one years ago.
If a listing exists and nobody has claimed it, Google’s help pages describe the route: open it in Maps, choose Claim this business, then Manage now, and follow the verification steps. If it has already been verified by someone else and you are entitled to manage the business, there is a separate process to request ownership from the current owner.
If nothing exists, go to business.google.com/add and follow the prompts. Google states that adding or claiming a profile is free. Anyone charging you for “a Google listing” is charging for their time, which may be worth paying for, but not for the listing.
Do not make a second profile because the first is awkward. One business gets one profile, and duplicates are one of the things Google acts on.
Choose the primary category carefully
You are asked for a primary category early, and it does more work than any other field. Google’s guidelines ask you to choose the fewest categories that describe the core business, and to pick the ones that complete the sentence “this business is a…”, rather than listing everything it does or has.
A damp proofing firm is a damp proofing service, not a builder that also does damp. A café that sells cakes is a café. Google’s own bulk-upload guidance allows up to nine additional categories beyond the primary, and they are optional. The services list, covered below, is the better place for the detail.
Storefront, service area, or both
This is the decision that trips up most tradespeople, because it decides whether your home address is shown.
Google separates businesses into three kinds.
If customers do not come to you, Google’s guidelines say to remove the address from the profile and list a service area instead. Their own example is a plumber working from home. You still give Google the address for verification; it is not shown publicly. Google’s help pages allow up to 20 service areas, set by town, city or postcode rather than by a radius, and say the overall area should not extend beyond roughly two hours’ drive from where you are based.
A storefront needs permanent signage. A business without it is told to list itself as a service-area business. A PO box, or an office rented as a mailing address and not worked from, is not eligible at all.
Verification
Google will not show the profile until it is verified, and you do not choose the method: Google’s help pages say the options are determined automatically and cannot be changed. Depending on the business, you may be offered:
- Phone or text. A code sent to the business number. Automated call menus will not receive it.
- Email. A code or link sent to an address shown on the verification screen.
- Live video call. A Google representative watches while you show the location and proof that you run the business. Only available in your local business hours.
- Recorded video. You film and upload a continuous clip from your phone.
- Postcard. A five-digit code posted to the address. Google says most arrive within 14 days and the code expires after 30.
The recorded video has the most specific rules, and they are worth reading before you press record. Google asks for footage captured live, at least 30 seconds, unedited and in one take. A storefront should show the street and nearby landmarks, the business name on a permanent sign, and something only staff can reach, such as the till. A service-area business should show the street or landmarks where it is based, its tools or branded workwear, and you doing the work or opening something only the business uses, such as a signwritten van. Leave out bank or ID numbers and other people’s faces.
Google says verification reviews take up to five working days, and occasionally longer.
Name, address and phone: the same everywhere
Google’s guidelines say your name should reflect the business’s real-world name, “as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery”. That rules out adding a town or a service to it.
- Name “Smith Plumbing” is a name.
- Not “Smith Plumbing Emergency Plumber Liverpool” is a name with keywords attached.
Google lists exactly that kind of addition as grounds for suspension.
Make the website say the same thing in the same way: the same name, the same phone number, the same address or service area. Google asks for a phone number that reaches that location, preferably a local one, and says premium-rate numbers are not acceptable. The website should be one that represents this business, and Google does not allow links that redirect elsewhere.
This is the point where a profile and a website start helping each other rather than contradicting each other, and it is one of the reasons a tradesperson’s site should carry its contact details on every page. There is more on that in what a tradesperson website needs.
Hours, photos and services
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Hours
Hours should be the hours customers can reach you. Google’s guidelines say businesses that work by appointment only should not list opening hours at all. Set special hours for bank holidays, because a customer who drives out to a shut door on Boxing Day remembers it.
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Photos
Photos must be JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB, and Google recommends at least 720 by 720 pixels. Its photo guidance says the image “should represent reality”: no heavy filters, no significant alterations. For a storefront, the outside of the building is the most useful picture, because it is what people look for when they arrive. For a trade, finished work and the van. Photos only appear once the profile is verified.
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Services
Services sit under Edit services on the profile. Google suggests common services for your category and lets you add custom ones, with an optional price and description. Custom services containing prices or phone numbers in the name are rejected automatically, so keep the name to what the service is.
Why profiles get suspended
Google’s help pages say it may suspend profiles that do not follow its guidelines, and a serious violation can restrict the whole account. In practice the causes are usually ordinary:
- Keywords or a town added to the business name.
- A home address shown when customers never visit it.
- A virtual office or a PO box used as the address.
- A second profile for the same business.
- A phone number or website that redirects somewhere else.
If it happens, the route is the appeals tool. Google’s advice is to fix whatever broke the guidelines first, then appeal once with evidence whose name and address match the profile, such as a utility bill or business registration. Google is explicit that appeals can only be submitted once, and that you should not create a new profile for the same business while you wait.
What none of this does
Setting up a profile properly makes you eligible to appear. It does not decide where. Google’s own page on local ranking says results depend mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Complete, accurate information and genuine reviews help, which is the subject of how to get more Google reviews.
If you want someone to look at your profile and website side by side, the free audit does that, and it will tell you where they disagree.
For what happens once a new site is live, there is how long until it shows up on Google, and for choosing who builds it, how to read a website quote and Wix or a studio. If you trade in Cheshire, our pages on web design in Warrington and web design in Chester show a site written around the towns a business covers, the website’s half of a service area.
Official sources
Google’s own pages for the points above:
