Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows your business on Google Maps and in local search results, with your address or service area, hours, phone number, photos and reviews. It used to be called Google My Business. When someone searches "plumber near me" or "dentist in Leeds", the profile is usually the first thing they see, often before your website.
A profile that brings in calls needs four things: verification, the right primary category, complete and accurate information, and a steady flow of reviews and photos. There's no way to pay for a better position in the local results; Google says so directly. This guide covers each step as the tools stand in November 2026, including what Google added and removed in the last two years.
Who can (and can't) have a Business Profile
Any business that serves customers face to face in a local area benefits: clinics, salons, restaurants, shops, garages, studios, law and accounting firms, and trades that travel to the customer. Under Google's guidelines, you need either a physical location customers can visit or a service that travels to customers, and you need to be reachable there during the hours you list.
Not eligible: online-only shops with no pickup point, businesses that only work over video calls, virtual offices you don't actually work from, and PO boxes or remote mailboxes.
How to set up Google Business Profile, step by step
- Sign in with the right Google account at business.google.com: one the business will keep for years, owned by the business rather than an employee.
- Search for an existing profile first. Google and customers sometimes create unowned profiles. If yours exists, request ownership instead of creating a duplicate, a common cause of suspensions and split reviews.
- Enter the basics. Business name, primary category, address or service area, phone number and website.
- Verify. You can't edit freely or appear reliably until you do.
Google Business Profile verification
Google lists these verification methods: phone or text, email, live video call, postcard by mail, and, for eligible businesses, a video recording, which Google recommends when it's offered. Google picks which methods you see, and you can't change them.
What to expect:
| Step | Timing according to Google |
|---|---|
| Verification review | Up to 5 business days, occasionally longer |
| Postcard arrival | Most codes within 14 days |
| Postcard code validity | 30 days |
While you wait for a postcard, don't edit your name, address or category and don't request a new code, because that invalidates the one in the mail. A live video call is only available during your listed business hours.
Tips for a video recording. Film in one continuous take with no editing, and show three things: signage or branding at the street or entrance, the place where you work, and proof that you run it, such as unlocking the door, the till or your work tools. If you travel to customers, show your van or vehicle with your equipment.
Name, categories, services, hours and service area
Business name. Use the name on your signage, invoices and branding, nothing more. Google's guidelines don't allow taglines, locations, phone numbers or other extras in the name. "Joe's Plumbing 24/7 Emergency Plumber Denver Cheap" might lift you for a few weeks, until a competitor reports it or the profile is suspended.
Primary category. This is the most important choice on the profile. Google asks you to use as few categories as possible and to finish the sentence "this business IS a", not "this business HAS a". A barber shop with a coffee machine is a barber shop, not a cafe. Pick the most specific category that exists, for example "Family law attorney" rather than "Lawyer". Add secondary categories only for services that are a real part of the business.
Services and products. List them in the words customers use, with a short description and a price or range where you can. This helps Google match you to more searches.
Hours. Show the hours when someone actually answers, and set special hours before every holiday: Thanksgiving, Christmas, UK bank holidays. A customer who finds a locked door tends to write a review. Appointment-only businesses don't have to list hours.
Service area. If you travel to customers and don't receive them at your address, hide the address and list the towns, counties or postcodes you serve. Google says the area generally shouldn't extend beyond about two hours' drive from where you're based.
How to rank in Google Maps
Google says local results are based mainly on three factors: relevance, distance and prominence. Here's what you can and can't influence:
| Factor | What it means | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Relevance | How well your profile matches the search | Right primary category, services listed, complete description and attributes |
| Distance | How far you are from the searcher, or the area they searched | Nothing, apart from listing an accurate address or service area |
| Prominence | How well known the business is | Reviews and ratings, replies to reviews, links and mentions from other sites, an active, accurate profile |
A few practical points that follow from this:
- You won't rank first everywhere. A salon on one side of town rarely shows first for someone searching from the other side. That's distance, and it's normal.
- Your website counts. Google lists links to your business and your site's standing in search as part of prominence. A page per service, with your town and real reviews on it, helps both your profile and your organic results. Small business landing page examples shows what that looks like in different trades.
- Be consistent everywhere. Use the same name, address and phone number on your site, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places, Yelp and local directories.
Photos and posts that bring in calls
People look at the photos before they call. A few rules:
- Real photos, not stock. The shop front as it looks from the street (so people recognise it when they arrive), the inside, the team and the work itself.
- Before and after where it fits and is allowed: remodels, cleaning, landscaping, detailing, nails.
- A short video of the business or a job in progress.
- Add a few every month. Regular updates beat 50 photos uploaded in one afternoon and then nothing for a year.
Posts are short updates that appear on your profile. According to Google's help center there are three types: updates, offers (with dates and a link to the deal) and events (with start and end dates). You can now schedule posts in advance and set them to repeat. Posts older than six months are archived unless you set a date range. One catch: a post with a phone number in the text may be rejected if Google can't connect that number to your business, so add numbers in the profile details instead.
One post every week or two is a sensible pace: a seasonal offer, a new service, a job you finished this week.
Reviews: ask everyone, reply to everyone
Reviews feed prominence, and Google says more reviews and higher ratings can help your local ranking. The short version of the rules: ask every customer, not only the happy ones; never offer anything in exchange; never buy reviews or write your own; and reply to negative reviews calmly. Breaking the rules can mean removed reviews and a warning label on your profile, and in the U.S. the FTC's fake reviews rule adds civil penalties. Request templates, the direct review link, QR codes and how to answer a bad review are all in how to get more Google reviews.
What changed: chat, Q&A and AI in Maps
Old guides still recommend features that are gone, so it helps to know what's current:
- Chat is gone. Google switched off Business Profile chat and its message history in July 2024. Customers still call, visit your site or ask for directions. If you take enquiries by text or WhatsApp, put that link on your website and in your post buttons.
- Q&A is being replaced by AI answers. Google discontinued the Q&A API on November 3, 2025, and local SEO trackers have reported the public Q&A section disappearing from many profiles since. In its place, Google launched Ask Maps on March 12, 2026, starting in the U.S. and India: people ask Maps questions in plain language and Gemini answers using place information and community reviews.
The practical lesson: Google's AI answers questions about your business from what's on your profile, your website and your reviews. If parking, accessibility, hours, prices and services are spelled out there, the answer will be right. If not, it's a guess.
Paying to appear on Maps
The profile is free, but you can also pay to appear above the free results:
- Google Ads with a location asset linked to your profile, or Performance Max, which includes Maps among its placements. How to build a local campaign is in Google Ads for small business, and realistic budgets are in how much Google Ads cost.
- Local Services Ads, the "Google Screened" or "Google Guaranteed" ads where you pay per lead. They're offered in the U.S., Canada, the UK and several European countries, only for certain service categories, and usually involve business, licence or background checks before you can run them.
Before you pay for Maps visibility, make sure the profile is complete and has reviews. An ad that leads to a profile with two reviews and one photo won't convert well.
Measuring calls, directions and website clicks
The Performance section shows views, the searches that found you, and how many people called, asked for directions or clicked to your site. Three habits make those numbers useful:
- Check the search terms monthly. If you show up for the wrong searches, your category or services aren't precise enough.
- Add UTM parameters to the website link on your profile (for example
?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp) so Google Analytics shows profile traffic separately. - Ask new customers how they found you and write it down. Many find you on Maps and simply call.
Mistakes that cost you
| Mistake | What happens | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Keywords in the business name | Risk of suspension | Real name only; put keywords in services and description |
| Virtual office or mailbox address | Profile doesn't meet the guidelines | Service area with the address hidden |
| Two profiles for one business | Split reviews, confusion, suspension | Claim the existing one and remove the duplicate |
| Changing name, address and category at once | May trigger re-verification | One change at a time, only when needed |
| Holiday hours not updated | Frustrated customers and bad reviews | Set special hours before each holiday |
| Reviews from friends or for a discount | Removed reviews and profile restrictions | Ask every customer, with no reward |
Your profile is one part of a basic local presence, together with a simple website or landing page and fast replies to messages. How the pieces fit together, and the order to do them in, is in how to market a small business.
If you don't have time for posts and photos, PowerAds, an AI marketing agent that works in WhatsApp and a web chat, can prepare posts and images for your business and suggest improvements to your local presence. Anything that costs money is shown to you for approval first.
