Profile basics
What a Google Business Profile is, and how to set one up.
It is free, it takes an afternoon to do properly, and for most local businesses it is the single highest-return hour of marketing work available. It is also the thing most owners fill in once and never look at again.
What is a Google Business Profile and how do I set one up?
A Google Business Profile is the free listing that places your business on Google Search and Google Maps, carrying your name, category, address or service area, hours, phone number, photos and reviews. You create or claim it through Google Business Profile, prove you control the business using whichever verification method Google offers you, then complete the fields Google uses to judge which searches you are relevant to.
It is not a website and it does not replace one: it is the record Google keeps about your business, and in a local search it is usually what decides whether you appear at all.
What it is, and what it is not
A Google Business Profile is a record inside Google's index of real-world places. When someone searches your name, that record becomes the panel on the right of the results. When someone searches what you do, plus a place, that record is what competes for one of the three map results.
It is not a website, a social account or an advert. You do not pay for it, and there is no paid tier that improves its ranking. What you can pay for sits next to it: Google Ads, and Local Services Ads in some categories, which are separate products with separate rules.
It is also not permanent. Google can edit your profile based on information from other sources, users can suggest edits, and profiles get suspended when the information on them conflicts with Google's guidelines for representing your business. An unwatched profile drifts.
The reason it matters more than its size suggests is that it is often the whole transaction. Someone searches, sees three listings, reads the reviews on one, taps the call button and books. No website was involved. If the profile is wrong, thin or missing, that person never knew you were an option.
Setting one up, in order
Each step depends on the one before it. Adding photos before verification is finished, which is the usual instinct, achieves nothing visible.
Search for yourself first
Google often creates an unclaimed profile for a business it knows exists, from map data, directories or user submissions. Search your business name and address before creating anything. If a listing already exists, claim that one. Creating a second profile for the same location produces a duplicate, and duplicates split your reviews and confuse your ranking.
Create or claim the listing
If nothing exists, add the business. If a profile exists and nobody manages it, claim it. If somebody else already manages it, and that happens often with businesses that used a web designer or a previous agency, use Google's request-access flow. The current manager is notified and gets a window to respond before ownership can transfer.
Complete verification
Google decides which verification methods it offers you, and the options vary by business type, category and country. You may get video recording of the premises, a phone call, a text, an email, a postcard, or verification through an already-verified Search Console property. Follow the instructions precisely: a failed video verification usually fails because the recording did not show the exterior signage, the interior and proof of management in one unbroken take.
See the remaining steps: Setting one up, in orderHide the remaining steps: Setting one up, in order
Set the primary category
This is the field that does the most work. Pick the category that names what you primarily are, not the widest one you qualify for. Then add secondary categories only for services you genuinely deliver and can point to a real page about. If you are unsure, look at the categories used by the businesses currently ranking for the search you want.
Get the core details exactly right
Name as it appears on your signage, with nothing added. Address as a delivery driver would need it, including the suite number. One local phone number that a human answers. Hours that are true, including the holiday hours Google prompts you to confirm several times a year. The opening date, if you know it.
- If you serve customers at their address rather than yours, set a service area and hide the street address
- If you have several locations, each one gets its own profile and its own local phone number
Fill in services, products and the description
List each service separately with a written description rather than lumping everything under one heading. This is where the specific language people search for belongs, and it is allowed here in a way it is not allowed in the business name. The description should say what you do, who for, and what makes the visit different, in plain sentences.
Add real photographs
The exterior, so people recognise the building from the street. The interior, so they know what they are walking into. The team, so it feels like a place with people in it. The work itself, where that is appropriate and consented to. Stock photography is obvious to customers and adds nothing that a person choosing between three listings is looking for.
Point the website link at the right page
The default is your home page, and for a multi-service business that is rarely the best choice. Link to the page about the thing the profile is categorised for. Add booking links, appointment links and menu links where Google offers the field, and use a tagged URL so you can tell profile traffic apart from everything else in your analytics.
Start asking for reviews, and keep asking
The profile is complete but inert until reviews arrive. Use the short review link Google generates for you, ask at the moment the work is finished, and ask every customer rather than a filtered selection. Then answer them, because the responses are public and they are read.
Set a calendar reminder to re-read the whole profile once a quarter. Hours drift, services change, and Google periodically adds fields that sit empty until someone notices them.
Where the profile actually appears
One record feeds two very different placements, and they behave differently.
The branded panel is close to guaranteed once you are verified, because nobody else is competing to be you. The map pack is competitive, ranked on relevance, distance and prominence, and that is where the work goes.
The distinction matters when you read your results. A rise in people finding you by name usually reflects your advertising or your reputation. A rise in people finding you by what you do is the profile earning its place.
The fields worth spending time on
Not every field is equal. These are the ones that change whether you appear and whether you get chosen.
- Primary category, set to the thing you actually are
- Business name, matching the real-world name with no keywords bolted on
- Address or service area, whichever genuinely describes how you trade
- Hours, with holiday hours confirmed rather than left to default
- Services, each listed separately with its own description
See the full checklist: The fields worth spending time onHide the full checklist: The fields worth spending time on
- Phone number, local, and answered by a person during stated hours
- Website link, pointing at the relevant page rather than the home page
- Photos of the real place, refreshed when the place changes
- Reviews, collected continuously and answered individually
- Attributes, but only the ones that are true of your business
Everything above the halfway mark of that list affects whether Google shows you. Everything below it affects whether a person picks you.
Verification, suspension and reinstatement
Suspension is the part nobody warns new owners about. A profile can be suspended for a business name that includes keywords, an address that cannot be verified as a real place of business, a category that does not match the operation, a virtual office or coworking address, or a sudden burst of edits to critical fields. Sometimes it happens with no edit at all, when Google reprocesses its data.
A suspended profile disappears from Maps and from the map pack. The reinstatement route is Google's appeal form, and the thing that decides the outcome is documentary evidence: business registration, a utility bill at the address, signage photographs, a licence where your trade requires one. Have those gathered before you appeal rather than after.
The practical defence is to avoid the behaviours that trigger it. Keep the name real. Keep the address a place customers could physically attend, or use a service area instead. Make significant changes one at a time rather than rewriting the whole profile in an afternoon. Nothing here is worth risking the listing for.
Profile or website: what each one is for
Owners frequently ask whether the profile means they can skip the website. It does not, and the reason is in the second column.
Open the full comparison: Profile or website: what each one is forHide the full comparison: Profile or website: what each one is for
| Job to be done | Google Business Profile | Your website |
|---|---|---|
| Appear in the map pack | The main input | Supporting evidence |
| Appear in the organic results | Little effect | The main input |
| Explain a complex service properly | Very limited space | Unlimited |
| Show hours, phone and directions | Built in | You have to build it |
| Collect and display reviews | Built in and public | Only what you publish |
| Control the wording and the design | No | Yes |
| Own the data if the platform changes | No | Yes |
The profile is rented space on somebody else's platform. It is extremely valuable rented space, and it is still rented.
How people actually search for a local business
BrightLocal's 2026 Consumer Search Behavior research gives a reasonable picture of where local discovery starts. It is vendor research with stated methodology, so treat it as indicative rather than definitive.
SourceBrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior research 2026
The gap between the first two numbers is the useful part: Google is where most local searches start, and it is nowhere near all of them. Social platforms, maps apps and AI assistants take the rest.
What the profile is supposed to produce
The performance report inside your profile counts calls, messages, direction requests, website clicks and bookings, and separates the searches that found you by name from the ones that found you by what you do. Read those two lines separately every month and you will know which half of your marketing is working.
What to read next
The profile is one piece. These are the pieces either side of it.
Winning the map pack
Relevance, distance and prominence explained, and the order the ranking work goes in.
Winning the map packWhy consistent details matter
What NAP consistency is, and what conflicting records across the web actually cost you.
Why consistent details matterWhen the profile is not showing
Separating an indexing problem from a ranking problem from a profile problem.
When the profile is not showingThe full local SEO guide
How the profile, the website, the listings and the reviews fit into one programme.
The full local SEO guideNot sure whether your profile is set up correctly?
We read it against Google's own guidelines and send you the list, with no obligation attached.
Straight answers.
Is a Google Business Profile the same as Google My Business?
Yes. Google My Business was the old name for the product and the management app. Google retired the branding and the standalone app, and the same listing is now called a Google Business Profile, managed from Search and Maps directly or from the Business Profile Manager for organisations with several locations.
Do I need a physical address to have a profile?
You need a real-world business presence, but not necessarily a public address. If you serve customers at their location rather than yours, Google's service area business settings let you define the areas you travel to and hide the street address from the listing.
What you cannot do is use a mailbox, a virtual office or a coworking desk you do not staff as a business address. Those are among the most common reasons profiles get suspended.
How long does verification take?
It depends entirely on the method Google offers. A phone or text verification can complete in minutes. Video verification is usually reviewed within a few days. Postcard verification takes as long as the post does, and if the card does not arrive you can request another.
Do not keep editing the profile while verification is pending. Repeated changes to the name, address or category during review make a failure more likely.
Can one business have more than one profile?
One profile per physical location, and a separate profile for each practitioner who is publicly contactable at their own name where the category allows it. Two profiles for the same location is a duplicate, and duplicates split reviews and suppress rankings. If you find one, report it through the profile so Google can merge or remove it.
Does a Business Profile mean I can skip having a website?
No. The profile has almost no influence on the organic results, which is where searches without a place name usually land, and it gives you no room to explain a considered purchase. It also belongs to Google: the rules, the layout and the fields change without your consent, and the reviews and content do not travel with you.
Treat the profile as the front door and the website as the building behind it. Both need to be in good order.
Where this comes from.
Primary documentation and published research behind the guidance on this page.
- Google Business Profile Help: Add or claim your Business Profile (opens in a new tab)
- Google Business Profile Help: Guidelines for representing your business on Google (opens in a new tab)The rules that decide whether a profile stays live, including business name accuracy.
- Google Business Profile Help: Fix suspended or disabled profiles (opens in a new tab)
- Google Business Profile Help: Manage your service areas (opens in a new tab)
Talk to the team
A short call, a look at how the business currently shows up, and a straight answer on what we would do first.