Google Business Profile: How to Put Your Business on Google Maps Properly

A clinic, a restaurant, a showroom, a coaching centre: for any business people visit in person, the map result often matters more than the website. Many owners have a profile that someone opened years ago with an old phone number, and never looked at it again.

Set it up once, correctly

• Create or claim the profile from an email the business owns, not a staff member's personal one
• Use the real business name, exactly as on your signboard
• Pick the most specific category that fits
• Place the map pin on the actual entrance
• Add phone, WhatsApp, website and opening hours, including Friday and holidays
• Complete Google's verification step

What makes a profile useful

Photos of the real place: the front from the road, the inside, the products or the team. List your services with short descriptions. A customer deciding between three names on a map picks the one that looks open, real and easy to reach.

Reviews: ask, and answer

Ask satisfied customers for a review at the moment they are happy, and send them the direct link. Reply to every review, including the bad ones, politely and briefly. Do not buy reviews or write your own. Fake ones are against Google's rules and customers can usually tell.

Why you may still not appear first

Google says local results depend mainly on relevance, distance and how well known the business is. You cannot change how far the searcher is standing from you. So a complete profile improves your chances; it does not put you at the top of every search in the city.

Keep the profile and the website in agreement

The name, address and phone number should match everywhere: profile, website, Facebook page. When they differ, customers call the wrong number. Google Business Profile setup and the Maps listing are part of our Business branding package, and we check this consistency in the free Website Audit.