When someone nearby searches for what you do, Google often shows a map with a few businesses before any website. That listing is your Google Business Profile. It is free, it takes about ten minutes to set up, and many brands never claim theirs.

For a café, a clinic, a showroom or a studio, a complete Google Business Profile can bring more calls and visits than the website itself. This guide covers how to set it up, keep it accurate and keep it working, step by step.

Set it up properly

Use your real business name, without extra keywords.
Choose the most accurate main category, then a few secondary ones.
Add your address, opening hours, phone number and website.
Verify the profile, so you can manage it and it can show up fully.

How to set up a Google Business Profile, step by step

Go to Google Business Profile and sign in with the Google account the business will keep using, not a personal one an employee might take with them.
Search for your business. If it already exists, someone (or Google) created it: claim it instead of making a second one.
Enter the name, category, address or service area, phone number and website.
Verify. Google chooses the method, such as a video, a phone call, an email or a postcard, depending on the business.
Complete everything else: hours, description, services or products, photos, and attributes such as wheelchair access or parking.

Read Google’s guidelines for representing your business once before you start. Profiles that break them, for example with keywords in the name, can be suspended.

Keep it the same everywhere

Your name, address and phone number should match exactly on your website, your profile and other listings. Small differences, such as a different street spelling or an old phone number, make it harder for Google to trust the details.

A complete, active profile is often the first thing a nearby customer sees.

Keep it alive

Add real photos of your place, your team and your work. Ask happy customers for a review, and reply to every review, including the critical ones. Update your hours before holidays.

What decides where you appear

Google explains that local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence: how well your profile matches the search, how far you are from the person searching, and how well known your business is, including reviews and links from around the web. This is the heart of local SEO. You can’t move closer to every customer, but you can make the profile complete and accurate, collect real reviews, and keep it active.

Connect it to your website

Your website and your profile help each other. Put the same name, address, phone number and opening hours on your contact page, embed a map, and add structured data so search engines can read the details. On the profile, link to the page that best matches what people search for, as the tip below explains.

Questions people ask

Is a Google Business Profile really free?

Yes. Creating and managing a profile costs nothing. Google offers separate paid ads, but you don’t need them for the profile to appear.

Can we have a profile without a shop or office?

Yes, if you serve customers in person, for example by visiting them. You can set a service area and hide your address. Businesses that work only online are not eligible.

How do we get more reviews?

Ask at the right moment, such as right after a good delivery or a finished project, and make it easy with the direct review link from your profile. Never buy reviews or offer rewards for them: it breaks Google’s rules.

A Google Business Profile works best next to a website built for search. Our note on the SEO foundations a new site should launch with covers the website side, and our digital growth service helps the two work together.