Your Google Business Profile Setup Checklist

A customer's water heater quits on a Sunday. She types "plumber near me" into her phone, taps the first name on the map, and sees a profile with no hours, no photos and a category that just says "Contractor."

She goes back and taps the next one.

Your profile is often the first thing a customer sees. Google says businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results.¹ Here's the setup, field by field, in the order we'd do it.

1. Verify it before you touch anything else

An unverified profile is a profile you don't control. Verifying tells Google you're authorized to represent the business.¹

Google picks the method, and you can't change it. It might be a phone call or text, an email, a live video or a postcard.² Plan for the wait:

• Google says verification reviews take up to 5 business days, and on rare occasions longer.²
• If you get a postcard, most codes arrive within 14 days.²
• While you wait, don't edit your name, address or category. Google says the code won't work if you do.²

If a profile for your business already exists, claim that one. Google says there should only be one profile per business.³ If you can't find yours on the map at all, start with why your business isn't showing up on Google Maps.

2. Use your real name, and nothing else

Your profile name should be the name on your truck, your invoices and your sign. Google says your name should reflect your real-world name, and that unnecessary information in it isn't permitted.³

"Martinez Plumbing" is fine. "Martinez Plumbing Best Emergency Plumber Austin 24/7" is the kind of name that gets a profile suspended.

3. Pick the category that names your trade

The category is how Google decides which searches you belong in. If you fix roofs, your category should say roofer, not contractor.

Google says to choose the fewest categories it takes to describe your core business, and to focus on the most specific ones.³ Add a second category only if it's a real part of the work, like a plumber who also does water heater installs.

4. Set your service area and hide your address

Most trades go to the customer. If that's you, Google says a service-area business should hide its address from customers.³ You still verify with a real address. Customers just don't see your house.

Then list where you work:

• You can set up to 20 service areas, by city or zip code.⁴
• You can't use a radius around your shop.⁴
• The whole area shouldn't stretch more than about 2 hours of driving from where you're based.⁴

If you don't want the 90-minute drive, leave that town off.

5. Hours, phone and website

Hours. Set your regular customer-facing hours.³ Then set special hours for holidays, so nobody drives over on Thanksgiving or calls a dead line on Christmas Eve.⁵

Phone. Use a number that rings at your business and that you control. Google says the number must be under the direct control of the business.³ You can add up to 2 more numbers besides the main one.⁵

Website. Enter the full address, starting with https://.⁵ Send it to your own site, not to a page that refers people somewhere else, which Google doesn't allow.³

6. List every service you actually do

This is the field most profiles leave half-empty. Google gives you a services editor to keep your services, and their prices if you want to show them, accurate.⁵

Write them the way a customer would say them: "drain cleaning," "water heater replacement," "toilet repair." Not "residential plumbing solutions." Put the jobs you want more of first.

7. Write a short description

You get 750 characters. Google says not to go over that.⁵ Its guidelines also say no links of any kind in the description, and not to make it about promotions, prices and sales.³

Three or four plain sentences is plenty: what you do, where you do it, how long you've done it and what a customer can count on. If you've been in business a while, add your opening date too. Google says it lets customers know when you first opened.⁵

8. Add real photos from real jobs

Google says photos and videos let you show customers what you offer.⁶ The basics:

• A logo and a cover photo. Google notes the cover photo may not always show first.⁶
• Photos of finished work: the new panel, the clean gutter line, the patched drywall.

Google's specs are simple: JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB, and in focus and well lit, with no heavy filters.⁶ Once the profile is set up, keep it fresh with what to post on your Google Business Profile.

9. Copy your review link and use it

The last step is the one that keeps paying. In your Business Profile, select Read Reviews, then Get more reviews, and copy the link.⁷ Google also gives you a QR code, but right now you can only make it from a computer, not your phone.⁷

Save the link in your phone so you can send it from the driveway after every job:

Don't offer a discount or a gift card for the review. Google says incentives in exchange for reviews aren't allowed.⁸ And reply to the reviews you get. You have to be verified first, and your reply shows publicly as the business.⁹ More in how to get more Google reviews without being pushy.

The bottom line

A finished profile won't guarantee you a spot on the map. Google says there's no way to pay for a better local ranking.¹ What a finished profile does is give the customer with the broken water heater a reason to stop scrolling and call you.

Block out an hour this week and work down the list.