Google · Business Profile
The Google Business Profile of a business with premises: how to fill it in well
For a shop, a practice, a workshop open to the public, the Google profile is the first shop window: it is what shows up on Maps and next to the results, and people see it before the website, sometimes instead of it. Google's instructions are unclear and many people are afraid of getting it wrong. Here is what matters.
The name: the real one, nothing added
The profile name must be the one on your sign and your documents. Adding the town or your services, like “Rossi Hairdresser Bergamo Cut and Colour”, looks like a clever trick but breaks Google's rules, and it can get the profile suspended. What you do goes in the category and the description.
The primary category matters most
It is the choice that weighs most on when Google shows you. Pick the one that describes what you are, not what you would like to sell: a bakery that also makes cakes is still a bakery, with “pastry shop” among the secondary categories. Then list your services or products, in plain words, the ones a customer would use.
Address, hours, phone, website: the same everywhere
Address and phone must be identical on the profile, the site and social media. Keep the hours up to date, holidays and closures included, using special hours: nothing loses a customer like finding the door shut when Google said open. And the profile must lead to the website. The other way round, the website must help people find you: in the sites we audit, 34% show the address but no map to get there.
Real photos
The outside, so people recognise the entrance. The inside, the counter, the workshop. Work you have done, products, people. Real, recent photos are worth more than any image taken from the internet. Customers can upload photos too: check now and then what shows up.
Reviews: ask for them and reply
Reviews come if you ask: happy customers, with the direct link to the profile, perhaps printed as a QR code at the till. Reply to all of them, negative ones included, calmly and without arguing: readers look at how you reply more than at the score. Do not buy them and do not offer discounts in exchange: it is against the rules and Google removes them.
Keep it alive, and check it
Anyone can suggest an edit to your profile, and Google sometimes applies it without asking you: wrong hours, a changed number, even “permanently closed”. Look at it at least once a month. And add news, photos, offers: a well-kept profile says the business is alive.
If you would rather not deal with it
We manage our clients' profiles ourselves, because many are afraid of getting it wrong, and rightly so. We work as managers: ownership of the profile stays with you. If you work at customers' homes or on site, the rules change: they are in Your Google profile if you work at customers' homes.