Google Business Profile: a practical guide for small businesses

What Google Business Profile is

It is your business's free listing on Google Maps and Search: name, address or service area, opening hours, phone, website, photos and customer reviews. It used to be called Google My Business, and many people still call it “Google Business”.

• It appears before websites in many local searches, in the map block.
• One tap to contact you: call, get directions or visit your website.
• It shows your reviews, one of the first things a new client looks at.
• It is free. Google doesn't charge for the profile or for appearing in local results.

How to create and verify it

1. First, look for your business on Google Maps. A listing may already exist, created by someone else or by Google; if so, claim it instead of creating another.
2. Go to Google Business Profile with a business Google account, not a personal one, and follow the steps: name, category, address or service area and contact details.
3. Verify that the business is yours. Google will ask you to confirm it using one of its methods, such as a call, an email or a video. Unverified profiles are less likely to appear.
4. Add a trusted second person as manager, in case you lose access to the account.

If clients come to your premises, enter the address. If you go to the client, like a plumber or a home service, set your service area and don't show your home address.

How Google decides who to show

According to Google, local results are based mainly on three factors:

Relevance

How well your profile matches what is searched for. That is why the right category and complete information matter.

Distance

How close you are to the searcher. You can't change it, but you can state clearly where you are and which area you cover.

Prominence

How well known your business is: reviews, ratings and how many websites mention or link to you. Your website plays a part here too.

Google also makes it clear that you can't pay to improve your local ranking. If someone sells you that, be wary.

Source: Google, tips to improve your local ranking.

How to complete it properly

• Your real name, the same as on your sign and invoices. Don't add keywords or towns (“Perez Clinic cheap physio Palma”): it breaks Google's guidelines and can get you suspended.
• The most precise primary category and only the secondary ones that genuinely apply.
• Opening hours always up to date, including public holidays and closures. Few things annoy people more than turning up to find you closed.
• A working phone number and website, linking to the most useful page, not always the home page.
• A clear description: what you do, for whom and what sets you apart, without repeating keywords.
• Real photos: exterior, interior, team and work. They help people recognise you and build trust.
• Services or products with a short explanation and, if possible, a guide price.
• Occasional posts: news, offers or events. They show the business is active.

Reference: Google, guidelines for representing your business.

Reviews: how to get them and how to reply

Reviews affect two things: whether Google shows you and whether the client chooses you.

• Ask at the right moment: after a job that went well, with a direct link to your profile by email or WhatsApp.
• Don't buy them or trade them for discounts: Google prohibits fake reviews and reviews obtained in exchange for something, and may remove them or penalise the profile.
• Reply to all of them, good ones included. A personalised “thank you” shows there is someone behind the business.
• Respond calmly to criticism: acknowledge what needs acknowledging, offer a solution and continue the conversation privately. Readers will value your tone more than the complaint.

Common mistakes

• Two listings for the same business. It splits your reviews and confuses Google. There should be only one profile per business and location.
• Someone else managing it from their account. If your designer or agency leaves, you could lose access. You should be the owner.
• Different details on the profile and the website. Another address, phone or opening hours undermine trust with Google and clients.
• Neglecting it. Old opening hours, years-old photos and unanswered reviews make a business look closed.
• Paying to “rank the listing”. Google doesn't charge for this, and shortcuts (fake reviews, keyword-stuffed names) end in suspension.

Profile and website: better together

The profile gets you found and called; the website lets people get to know you and decide. They also help each other: a clear website with the same details strengthens the profile's prominence, and the profile sends qualified visitors to your website.

If you are unsure whether the listing alone is enough, I compare them in Google and social media, or a website? And for the rest of SEO, in the hard truth about SEO.

Common questions