Google Business Profile and Google Maps

What a Google Business Profile is

Your Google Business Profile is the listing that appears on Google Maps and in the local pack of search results. It is where many customers see your phone number, hours, photos and reviews before they even open your website. For service businesses, it is often the first impression.

Setup and verification

The profile is created and verified by the business owner, following Google's process. Businesses that serve customers at their location, such as cleaning, remodeling and HVAC, can hide their address and list a service area. Businesses that receive customers, such as restaurants and salons, show their address.

Name and categories

The name must be the business's real name, as it appears on signage, the website and documents. Adding keywords or cities to the name violates Google's guidelines and can get the profile suspended.

The primary category is one of the most important choices: pick the most specific one that describes the business. Additional categories add context, but should only describe services the business actually provides.

Services, hours and attributes

List each service with a short description, using the words customers would use. Keep hours current, including holidays. Attributes such as payment methods or languages spoken help customers decide. "Speaks Portuguese" is a real advantage for part of the audience.

Photos and description

Real photos of your work, team and vehicles build more trust than stock images. The description allows up to 750 characters and should explain what the business does, for whom and where, without a list of keywords.

Reviews

Ask every customer for a review, not only the happy ones, and never offer discounts or gifts in exchange: Google's policies prohibit incentivized reviews. Reply to every review, including negative ones, politely and to the point. Only report what violates the policies, such as spam or offensive content.

Posts and upkeep

Profile posts show the business is active: news, seasonal services, frequently asked questions. A profile set up once and forgotten loses ground to competitors who keep theirs alive. In the Scale plan, Index-SEO handles these posts every month.

Consistency with website and directories

Name, phone, area and hours must match on your profile, your website and directories such as Yelp, Angi, BBB and Nextdoor. Conflicting details confuse customers and weaken Google's confidence in your data. The local SEO in Florida guide shows how the profile fits into the full strategy.