Set Up and Maintain Your Google Business Profile

When someone searches for "electrician near me" or "bakery open now", the businesses that show up with a photo, opening hours and reviews get the call. That listing is your Google Business Profile, and it's free. A complete, accurate profile is often the first thing a customer sees about you — before your website, before anything. Here's how to set it up properly and keep it useful.

Claim your profile and prove it's yours

Start at the Google Business Profile site and search for your business name. If a listing already exists — Google sometimes creates one automatically from public information — claim it rather than making a duplicate. If nothing comes up, create a new one.

Google will ask you to verify that you're really the owner. Depending on the business, this might be by postcard to your address, by phone, email, or video. Verification can take a few days, so start early. Until you're verified, your edits won't go live.

One rule saves a lot of trouble: your name, address and phone number must match exactly what's on your website and elsewhere online. If your website says "Miller's Bakery, 12 High Street" but your profile says "Millers Bakery Ltd, 12 High St", tidy it up so both read the same. Consistency helps customers and search engines trust that it's one real business.

Fill in every field that applies

A half-empty profile looks abandoned. Work through each section:

• Category: Pick the most specific one. "Italian restaurant" beats "restaurant". You can add secondary categories too — a café that also does catering, for example.
• Opening hours: Set your regular hours, then use the special hours feature for bank holidays and closures. Nothing annoys a customer more than driving to a locked door.
• Phone and website: Use the number you actually answer. If you have a proper email address at your own domain, link the matching website.
• Service area: If you go to customers — a two-van electrician covering a few towns — list those areas instead of showing a shop address you don't have.
• Description and services: Write plainly what you do. A plumber might list "boiler repairs, bathroom installation, emergency callouts" so each shows up.

Add photos that show the real thing

People want to see who they're dealing with. Add real photos, not stock images: the front of your shop so people recognise it from the street, a few of your work or dishes, and one of you or your team. A local club might show the venue and a recent event.

You don't need a professional camera. A clean, well-lit phone photo taken in daylight is fine. Refresh them now and then — a bakery can post the season's cakes, a garden service can show a before-and-after. Fresh photos signal you're active and open for business.

Handle reviews like a grown-up

Reviews are where many customers make up their minds. Two habits matter more than chasing a perfect score.

First, ask happy customers to leave one. Most people are glad to help if you make it easy — mention it when you finish a job, or add a short line and link in your follow-up email. Never pay for reviews or write fake ones; it breaks Google's rules and customers can smell it.

Second, reply to reviews — all of them. Thank the good ones briefly. For a bad one, stay calm and polite, acknowledge the problem, and offer to sort it out offline:

Thanks for letting us know, and sorry the delivery was late. That's not how we like to work — please call the shop and we'll make it right.

A measured reply to a complaint often reassures future readers more than the complaint worries them.

Keep it alive with small, regular updates

A profile isn't set-and-forget. Put a recurring reminder in your calendar — say, the first Monday of each month — to check a few things:

1. Are the opening hours still right, including upcoming holidays?
2. Any new reviews to reply to?
3. Anything worth posting — a new service, a temporary closure, an event?
4. Has your phone number or address changed anywhere?

Google also lets you post short updates that appear on your profile. A restaurant can post a new menu, a club its next open day. Ten minutes a month keeps everything accurate and shows Google — and customers — that you're genuinely open.

Your Business Profile and your own website work best together: the profile helps people find you, and your site tells the fuller story once they do. Keep both pointing at the same, correct details, and you've covered the ground most local customers will ever check.