Google Business Profile: the guide for local businesses
Plenty of people decide whether to contact you before they reach your site, by looking at your profile on Google and Maps. This guide covers what the Google Business Profile is, which fields you really have to keep right, and how reviews come into it.
The first impression, before the site
When someone searches your name, or your category plus the area, the profile shows first: name, category, hours, photos, reviews, a pin on the map and a call button.
People judge in seconds. If the profile is wrong or empty, many never get to the site.
The fields you have to keep right
The profile only works in your favour if the information is complete and correct. These are the fields that can't slip:
- Exact business name, no extra keywords
- The right primary category, and secondary ones if they fit
- Address, or service area when there's no door open to the public
- Hours, including holidays and exceptions
- Phone and a link to the site
Consistency with everything else
The profile's information has to match the site, the social pages and any directory the business appears in. The same name, the same address written the same way, the same phone.
It's the same principle as local SEO: when the details don't match, Google is left unsure, and that doubt works against you.
Photos
Real photos of the space, the team and the work, not stock images. Keep them current.
A profile with nothing to look at loses to the one that shows what the person will actually find.
Reviews
Reviews are the part you control least and the part that weighs most for someone deciding. Ask real clients right after good work, make it easy, and reply to all of them calmly, good and bad.
There's no magic number to hit, and you don't buy or invent them. Buying reviews breaks Google's rules and can cost you the profile.
Keeping it alive
Hours change, you move, you add a service. An out-of-date profile is worse than a thin one, because it sends people to a closed door.
Give it a look every few weeks, even when nothing has changed.
Google Business Profile questions
Not necessarily. Businesses that travel to the customer can set the area they serve instead of showing an address.
No. The name should be the real name. Stuffing the name with keywords breaks Google's rules and can cost you the profile.
They're one of the signals Google uses and, above all, what makes a person choose you or move on. There's no magic number and you don't buy them.
Whenever something changes, like hours, contact or services, and, even with no changes, a look every few weeks.
Want your profile and your site pulling the same way?
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