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Creating a Google Business Profile takes three steps: find or start the listing, fill in your business details, and verify that you own it. You do the whole thing from Google, signed in to your business Google account, and it costs nothing. Most of it takes about twenty minutes. The one part that slows people down is verification, where Google confirms you are the real owner before it hands you control.
Worth knowing up front: Google has often already made a basic listing for your business, so a lot of the time you are not starting from scratch, you are claiming the one that already exists. Either way the path is much the same, and the steps below cover both.
A Google Business Profile is the free listing Google shows for your business in Search and Maps. Here is how to get yours set up properly.
What you need before you start
A few things ready in front of you will make this quick:
- A Google account, ideally a dedicated business one rather than a personal Gmail you share around
- Your exact business name, spelt the way you actually trade
- Your street address, or the towns and suburbs you serve if you travel to customers
- Your opening hours, phone number, and website link if you have one
- A quick check that you qualify: Google lists businesses that deal with customers in person, at a premises or within a service area
Step 1: check whether Google already has a listing for you
Before you create anything, search your business name in Google Maps.
If a listing for your business appears with a “Claim this business” or “Own this business?” link on it, Google has already generated one. Claim that listing rather than build a new one. Creating a second listing for a business that already exists makes a duplicate, and duplicates cause ranking problems and often end up removed, sometimes taking the real one with them.
If nothing turns up, you are starting fresh, and you move on to creating one.
Step 2: start the profile and enter your business name
Head to google.com/business, or use the “Add your business to Google” option inside Google Maps, signed in to the account you want to own the listing.
Enter your business name exactly as you trade, and nothing more. Do not bolt a location or a service onto it, so no “Joe’s Plumbing Ballarat 24hr”. Stuffing keywords into the name field breaks Google’s rules and puts your listing at risk of suspension, though you will see competitors doing it. Use your real name and put the keywords where Google actually wants them, in your categories and description.
Step 3: choose your primary category
This is the field that does the most to decide which searches you show up for, so it is worth getting right.
Your primary category tells Google what your business mainly is. Pick the one that matches the work you most want the phone to ring for, not the broadest label that sounds close. A “bathroom renovator” and a “general contractor” turn up for very different searches. Google offers a long, specific list, so search it properly and choose the tightest match. You can add extra categories afterwards for the other services you offer, but the primary one carries the most weight.
Step 4: add your location or service area
How you handle this depends on whether customers come to you or you go to them.
If customers visit you at a fixed address, enter that address and it shows on the map with a pin. If you travel to customers, set a service area instead, the towns, suburbs or postcodes you cover, and you can keep your home address hidden from the public listing. Some businesses do both, a salon with a shopfront that also does home visits, and Google lets you list an address and a service area on the same profile when both are true.
Step 5: add your contact details
Add the phone number you want calls to come through on, and your website link.
If you do not have a website, you can leave that field blank and the listing still verifies and still ranks. A website helps over time, but it is not required to get a profile live.
Step 6: verify that you own the business
This is the step that stops a stranger editing your listing, and the one people most often get stuck on.
Google confirms you are the real owner through a video, a phone call, a text, an email or a mailed postcard, and which options you get depends on your business type. A postcard can take up to a couple of weeks to arrive, so start this step as soon as you can. Until the listing is verified, the details you enter will not show to the public, so this is the point where your profile actually goes live.
After you create it, setup is only the start
A created profile is not a finished one. Getting it live is the easy part; getting it to rank and ring is the ongoing part.
Once verified, add real photos of your work, your team and your premises, set your hours including public holidays, list your services with prices, write a plain description, and start gathering reviews. Then keep the profile active. Google shows businesses that look alive, and a listing you set up once and walk away from quietly drifts down the results while more active competitors climb past it.
If you would rather skip the guesswork and have someone get your profile working properly, that is exactly what we do. Get in touch with Pear Tree Media, tell us about your business, and we will audit your listing, tell you straight where it stands, and get the phone ringing.
