Google Business Profile optimization checklist

To optimize a Google Business Profile, get it verified, fill in every field accurately, pick a small number of precise categories, add your real services and photos, and keep it active with reviews and posts. Google states that local ranking depends on relevance, distance and prominence, and that there is no way to pay for a better local ranking. So the work is in the profile itself and in what surrounds it: your website and your reviews.

Here is the checklist we use, one field at a time.

How Google ranks local results

Google's own help page names three factors:

• Relevance: how well your profile matches what someone searched for.
• Distance: how far you are from the searcher, or from the location they searched for.
• Prominence: how well known you are, based on things like links to your website and the number of reviews.

Distance is mostly out of your hands. Relevance (categories, services, description) and prominence (reviews, website, mentions elsewhere) are where your effort pays off.

Verification and ownership

• [ ] Verified. An unverified profile is less likely to show up, and some content, such as photos, won't appear publicly until verification is done.
• [ ] You are the primary owner. We regularly meet business owners whose profile belongs to a former agency, a web designer or an ex-employee. Give your agency manager access if you like, but keep ownership yourself.
• [ ] One profile per location. Duplicates split your reviews and confuse Google. Report or merge them.

Business name

• [ ] Your real-world name, exactly as it appears on your signage, website and invoices.
• [ ] No added keywords. "Northside Plumbing", not "Northside Plumbing | Emergency Plumber Surrey 24/7". Google's guidelines forbid adding taglines, locations, services or phone numbers to the name, and doing it can get the profile suspended.

If competitors stuff keywords into their names, you can suggest an edit on their profile. Don't copy them.

Categories

• [ ] Primary category describes what you are. A dental clinic is "Dentist", not "Teeth whitening service". This is the single strongest relevance signal you control.
• [ ] Few, accurate secondary categories. Google asks businesses to use as few categories as possible to describe the core business. Add a secondary category only if it's a real, substantial part of what you do.
• [ ] Check the top three competitors in Maps for your main search. If they all share a category you don't have, ask whether it genuinely describes you too.

Address or service area

This is where we see the most mistakes.

• [ ] Customers come to you? Show your address.
• [ ] You go to customers and don't receive them (contractors, cleaners, landscapers, mobile services)? Hide the address and set a service area. Google's guidelines say to remove the address in this case, especially if it's your home.
• [ ] Both (a showroom plus on-site service)? Show the address and add a service area.
• [ ] A realistic service area. You can add up to 20 areas by city, postal code or region, and Google advises keeping the overall area within about two hours' drive of your base. You can't set a radius.
• [ ] No virtual offices or PO boxes. A rented mailing address where nobody works doesn't qualify.

A common misconception: adding more service areas won't make you rank in distant towns. Distance still counts. To win searches in a city you don't sit in, you need a useful page on your website about serving that city.

Contact details and hours

• [ ] Phone: a local number that actually gets answered. If you use a call-tracking number, set it as the primary number and keep your main line as an additional number so your details stay consistent.
• [ ] Website: link to the most relevant page. Multi-location businesses should link each profile to that location's page.
• [ ] Regular hours and special hours for holidays. A profile that says you're open on a day you're closed earns one-star reviews.
• [ ] Appointment-only? Google's guidelines say businesses that operate by appointment or on varying schedules shouldn't list regular hours.
• [ ] Booking or quote link, if your category offers one.

Description

• [ ] Up to 750 characters, no links, no HTML.
• [ ] What you do, for whom, where, and why you. Google asks that the description focus on the business, not on prices or promotions.
• [ ] Put the important part in the first sentence. Many people won't read further.

Example for a landscaper: "Family-run landscaping company serving Oakville, Burlington and Milton since 2009. Interlock, retaining walls, sod and seasonal maintenance for homes and condo boards. Written quotes within 48 hours, and a two-year warranty on hardscaping."

Services and products

• [ ] List every service you actually sell. Google suggests services based on your category and lets you add custom ones. Use your customers' words: "furnace repair", not "thermal comfort solutions".
• [ ] Add a short description to each service where the option exists.
• [ ] Retail? Add products with photos and prices. It's free.

Attributes

• [ ] Fill in every attribute that applies: wheelchair access, parking, payment methods, languages spoken where available, and so on. Google lists attributes as part of a complete profile.

Photos and video

• [ ] Logo and cover photo that look sharp at small sizes.
• [ ] Real photos, not stock. Google suggests at least three photos for each relevant type: exterior, interior, team, at work, products.
• [ ] Exterior shots that show your entrance as people see it from the street.
• [ ] At-work photos: trucks, crews on a job, before-and-after. For service businesses these do more than anything else.
• [ ] Technical specs: JPG or PNG, 10 KB to 5 MB, ideally 720 × 720 pixels or larger.
• [ ] Add some every month. A steady trickle beats 50 photos on day one and none after.

Posts

• [ ] Post at least twice a month. You can publish updates, offers and events.
• [ ] One idea and one button per post (call, book, learn more).
• [ ] Know that they archive. Google says posts older than six months are archived unless you set a date range. A seasonal offer with clear dates stays up for its run.

In our experience, posts have little direct effect on ranking. Their value is showing people who land on your profile that the business is active, which affects whether they call.

Reviews

• [ ] A routine for asking every customer, using your Google review link or a QR code.
• [ ] Reply to every review, positive and negative. Replies are public, and Google notes they show customers you value feedback.
• [ ] No incentives, and no filtering. Offering anything in exchange for a review, or asking only happy customers, breaks Google's policy.

We cover this in detail in how to get more Google reviews without breaking the rules.

Around the profile

A perfect profile attached to a weak website stalls quickly.

• [ ] Same name, address and phone everywhere: website, profile, Yelp, your local chamber of commerce, trade associations, directories.
• [ ] One page per main service on your website, and one page per city you target, with real local content.
• [ ] Bilingual business? Give each language its own page so each version can rank in its own language.

The 30-minute monthly routine

1. Check that nobody changed your information (Google and the public can suggest edits).
2. Reply to new reviews.
3. Add three or four recent photos.
4. Publish two posts.
5. Answer any questions people have asked on the profile, if your profile shows that section.
6. Look at the profile's performance numbers: calls, direction requests, website clicks. If they drop, find out why before changing things.

Where PNE fits

For most local businesses, the Google profile is the first thing a customer sees, often before the website. As part of our digital marketing service, we handle the profile end to end: audit, category and service-area fixes, photos, posts, and a website built to support local search. If you'd rather run it yourself, this checklist is enough to start on the right footing.

Sources

• Tips to improve your local ranking on Google — Google Business Profile Help
• Guidelines for representing your business on Google — Google Business Profile Help
• Edit your Business Profile — Google Business Profile Help
• Manage your service area — Google Business Profile Help
• Tips for business-specific photos — Google Business Profile Help
• About posts on your Business Profile — Google Business Profile Help