How to set up your Google Business Profile properly

When someone searches for “ramen near me” or “plumber Calgary”, they usually don’t click through to a website first. They look at the map, tap a listing, check the hours and the photos, and decide. That listing is your Google Business Profile.

It’s free, and for most local businesses it matters more than the website. Here’s how I set one up.

1. Claim it, or create it

Go to business.google.com and search for your business. If it already exists (Google sometimes creates listings from public information), claim it. If not, create a new one.

Then you verify that it’s really yours. Google picks which options you get: it might be a video of your storefront, a phone call or text, an email, or a postcard with a code. Do it straight away. An unverified profile barely shows up.

2. Use your real name, nothing extra

Put your business name exactly as it appears on your sign. Not “Joe’s Plumbing – Best Emergency Plumber Calgary”.

Stuffing keywords into the name breaks Google’s guidelines, and it can get the profile suspended. It’s not worth it.

3. Choose the primary category carefully

This is the single most important setting. Google uses it to decide which searches you appear in.

Be specific. “Ramen restaurant” beats “Restaurant”. “Kitchen remodeler” beats “Contractor”. Look at what your closest competitors use if you’re not sure. You can add a few secondary categories for the other things you do, but the primary one carries the most weight.

4. Address or service area

If customers come to you, show your address. If you go to them (trades, cleaning, mobile services), set a service area instead and hide the address. You can’t list a home address as a storefront if customers don’t visit it.

5. Hours, including holidays

Fill in regular hours, and then use special hours for holidays and closures. Nothing loses a customer faster than driving over and finding the door locked when Google said you were open.

6. Phone, website and booking links

Add a phone number that someone actually answers, and your website. If you take bookings or orders online, add those links too. They show up as buttons on the listing.

7. Photos people can recognise

Add real photos, not stock images:

• The outside of the building, so people know what to look for
• The inside, so they know what to expect
• Your products, dishes or finished work
• You and your team, if you’re comfortable with it

Add new ones every so often. A profile with recent photos looks like a business that’s open and paying attention.

8. Write a plain description

You get up to 750 characters. Say what you do, who it’s for and where you are, in normal sentences. Skip the slogans.

9. Fill in services, products or a menu

Google lets you list services, products and (for restaurants) a menu. Most people skip this. Don’t: it’s more content for Google to match searches against, and it answers customers’ questions before they have to call.

10. Get reviews, and reply to all of them

Reviews affect both where you appear and whether people pick you. Ask happy customers directly. Google gives you a short link to share, and a QR code by the till works well.

Reply to every review, good and bad. Keep the bad-review replies short, calm and specific. You’re writing for the next customer reading it, not for the person who left it.

Then keep it current

Anyone can suggest edits to your listing, and Google sometimes accepts them. Log in every few weeks, check nothing has changed that shouldn’t have, and update hours before every holiday.

It isn’t hard work. It just needs doing regularly, which is exactly the part most owners never have time for.