For a business serving a local area, the Google Business Profile is often worth more than the website in the first year. It is what puts you in the map pack, and it is free.
Most profiles are half-finished: claimed, given a phone number, then abandoned. This guide covers the full setup and the maintenance habits that separate a profile that generates calls from one that just exists.
- 1
Claim or create the listing
Search your business name on Google Maps. If a listing already exists, claim it rather than creating a second one — duplicates split your reviews and confuse the ranking. If nothing exists, create it from google.com/business. Verification is usually by postcard, phone or video, and can take up to two weeks.
- 2
Get the primary category right
The primary category has more influence on which searches you appear in than anything else on the profile. Be specific: "Resin flooring contractor" beats "Flooring shop", which beats "Contractor". Look at what the businesses already ranking for your target search have chosen. Add secondary categories for genuine additional services, but do not pad the list.
- 3
Set your service area honestly
If customers come to you, set a physical address and opening hours. If you travel to them, switch to a service area and list the towns you genuinely cover. Claiming to serve half the country when you work within twenty miles will not extend your reach — it dilutes the local relevance that gets you into the map pack at all.
- 4
Fill in every field, including the ones that seem pointless
Services, products, attributes, opening hours, holiday hours, the description, the booking link. Completeness is a ranking factor and a conversion factor. The description in particular should say what you do, where, and for whom — in plain language, not keyword soup.
- 5
Add real photographs, then keep adding them
Profiles with photographs get materially more clicks than those without. Use your own: the premises, the team, the work, the vehicles. Avoid stock. Add a few every month rather than twenty once — recency counts, and it signals the business is active.
- 6
Build a review habit, not a review push
Ask every satisfied customer, at the moment the job finishes, with a direct link. A steady trickle of reviews over months beats thirty in one week, which looks bought. Reply to every review, including the bad ones, calmly and factually — the reply is read by everyone who comes after.
- 7
Post updates and check the questions
Use Posts for genuine news: a completed job, a new service, seasonal availability. Check the Q&A section, because anyone can answer a question about your business, including a competitor. Answer the common ones yourself, pre-emptively.
What to watch afterwards
The profile’s own performance panel shows how many people found you through a direct search for your name versus a discovery search for what you do. Discovery searches are the ones that represent new customers, and growing that share is the real measure of whether the work is paying off.
Calls, direction requests and website clicks are the actions worth tracking. Impressions on their own tell you very little.
Frequently asked questions
Verification takes up to two weeks, and visibility usually builds over one to three months as reviews and photos accumulate. Businesses in less competitive areas or niches often see movement faster.
Would rather we did it?
These guides are here so you can do it yourself. If you would rather hand it over, that is what we do.
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