How to get found locally: Google Business Profile and more

When someone in your town searches “plumber near me” or “coffee shop open now”, the first thing Google shows is usually a map with three businesses on it. Those three come from Google Business Profiles, not from websites. A profile is free, it takes an afternoon to set up properly, and most of what decides whether you appear is in fields you fill in yourself.

Start with the profile Google may already have

Search for your business name and town on Google Maps. Google builds listings from public information and from what customers suggest, so there may already be a profile for you that nobody manages. If there is, it will offer a link to claim it (“Own this business?” or similar). If there is nothing, create one at business.google.com.

Two decisions at this step cause most of the trouble later:

Storefront, service area, or both

Google treats three kinds of business differently, and the choice decides whether your address is shown.

• Storefront Customers come to you: a café, a salon, a store. Your address is shown, and the pin on the map is your door.
• Service area You go to the customer: a plumber, a roofer, a mobile dog groomer. Google’s guidelines say a service-area business “should hide your business address from customers”, and you list the cities or zip codes you cover instead.
• Hybrid Both: a pest control company with an office customers can visit, or a bakery that also delivers. The address shows, and so do the areas you serve.

Google’s guidelines for representing your business add two limits. The overall service area “shouldn’t extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based”, and a P.O. box, a mailbox at a remote location, or a virtual office you rent as a mailing address but do not work from is not eligible. A trade working from home is fine, with the address hidden.

Verification: expect a video

Google decides how you verify; you cannot pick the method. Many new profiles, and many profiles that change address, are now asked for a short video recorded on a phone. Google’s video verification page sets the rules: at least 30 seconds, captured live through the Business Profile on a phone, “unedited, unique, and complete” with no breaks. It asks you to show three things:

1. Where you are. Street signs, a building number, neighboring businesses or a landmark that lets Google match the place to the map. A home-based business can film the signs and landmarks of its own street.
2. That the business exists. For a storefront, the sign with your business name on a permanent fixture, matching the profile name. For a service-area business, your tools, equipment, work vehicle or branded clothing.
3. That you run it. Something only staff can reach: the register, the kitchen, the stock room. For a trade, opening the work van, or a business license, invoice or utility bill in the profile’s name.

Do not film other people’s faces, bank or tax numbers, or anything private. Google says the review can take up to five business days, and if a video is rejected it says why and you can record another. Some businesses are offered other methods instead: a code by phone or text, by email, a postcard, or a live video call with Google support.

Categories: one that is right beats five that are close

The primary category is the one that says what you are, and it is the one to get right. Google’s guidance is to choose categories that are “as specific as possible, but representative of your main business”, and to use “as few categories as possible”. A business that installs and repairs heating and air conditioning is better described as an HVAC contractor than as a general contractor, even if it does the occasional remodel.

Additional categories are for genuinely separate parts of the business, such as a bakery that is also a café. Individual services, “water heater replacement” or “drain cleaning”, belong in the profile’s services section instead.

“Near me”: what Google actually uses

Google’s page on how local ranking works names three things: relevance (“how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for”), distance (“how far each business is from the customer who’s searching”) and prominence (“how well-known a business is”). It also says “there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.”

That has a practical consequence for “near me” searches. The words “near me” are not something you need to put in your name, your description or your website, because the searcher’s location supplies the distance. What you can work on is the other two: relevance, by filling in every field accurately and naming your services the way customers do; and prominence, which Google says is helped by reviews and by what it finds about you across the web, including your own website. Listing a town as a service area tells Google you work there; it does not move your pin into it.

Reviews, and answering them

Google’s same ranking page says “more reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking”, and reviews are also the part of the profile customers read most. The way to get them is to ask, every time, soon after the job: the profile has a share link for requesting reviews that you can text or email to a customer.

There are firm rules about how you ask. The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, in force since October 21, 2024, bans buying or writing fake reviews, offering a reward conditioned on a review being positive, and using threats or intimidation to get a bad review removed, and it lets the FTC seek civil penalties. Google’s own policy goes further and prohibits incentives of any kind, and asking only the customers you expect to be happy. Yelp is stricter again: its guidelines tell businesses not to ask for Yelp reviews at all.

Answer every review, the good ones briefly and the bad ones carefully. A reply to a complaint is read by every future customer, so state the facts, say what you did or will do, and offer to continue by phone or email. Never include the customer’s private details. For health providers this is a legal line: the federal health privacy office has settled with dental practices, in Texas in 2019 and California in 2022, for disclosing patient information in replies to online reviews.

The other listings worth claiming

Google is the one that matters most, but it is not the only map on a customer’s phone. Each of these is free to claim:

• Apple Business

  Apple Business is where you manage your place card on Apple Maps, Siri and the iPhone’s other apps. It was called Apple Business Connect until April 2026, when Apple folded it into a single service at business.apple.com.

• Bing Places

  Bing Places covers Bing Search and Bing Maps. It now lives at bing.com/forbusiness and can import your details from your Google profile, which saves typing them twice.

• Yelp

  Yelp may already have a page for you, created by a customer. Claiming it at biz.yelp.com is free and lets you correct the details and reply to reviews. Advertising is sold separately and is optional.

• BBB

  BBB profiles exist for many businesses whether or not they are accredited. Correcting your profile does not require accreditation, which is a paid program with fees set by your local BBB.

For trades, Angi and Nextdoor are worth a look if your customers use them, and a trade association’s member directory is often worth more than any of the above because it says something a customer can check.

Why the same name, address and phone matter

Directories copy each other. Map providers buy data from listing companies, and listing companies collect it from directories, old records and each other. If your business moved three years ago, or changed its phone number, the old details keep reappearing somewhere until every source agrees. People in local search call this NAP consistency, for name, address and phone.

• Right the same business name, street address and phone number, typed the same way, on Google, Apple, Bing, Yelp, the BBB and your own website’s footer.
• Not the old address on Yelp, a second phone number on the BBB, and “Smith & Sons LLC” on one listing and “Smith Plumbing” on another.

Small formatting differences (“Suite 2” against “Ste 2”) are not the problem. Different facts are: two numbers, two addresses, two names. They make a customer unsure which is right, and they give every map a reason to doubt the one you corrected.

The fix is a single document with the exact name, address, phone, hours, website and categories, and a habit of checking the listings against it once a year and whenever anything changes. If you are deciding what the website itself should cost, there is a breakdown in what a small business website costs in the US.