How to get your business on Google.

First, check if you are already on there

Google builds listings for businesses that never asked for one, pulling from data brokers, old directory entries and user submissions. There is a decent chance a listing for you already exists with the wrong hours and a phone number you had in 2019.

Search your business name plus your town. If something comes up, look for a "Claim this business" or "Own this business?" link on it and go through that. Creating a second profile when one already exists gets both flagged as duplicates, and untangling that takes weeks.

Setting it up, step by step

1. Use a business Google account. Not the personal Gmail you share with your spouse. Make a clean one for the business and keep the login somewhere you will still have it in three years. This account controls the listing, and getting locked out of it is a genuinely miserable problem to have.
2. Enter the name exactly as it appears on your sign and your paperwork. Not "Smith Plumbing Gulf Shores Emergency Plumber 24/7". Keyword stuffing the business name is the single most common cause of suspension, and competitors report each other for it constantly.
3. Pick your primary category carefully. This matters more than everything else on the profile put together. Google uses it to decide which searches you are eligible for at all. Choose the most specific one that matches the service you most want the phone to ring about. If you do windshield tint and paint correction and the money is in tint, your primary category is the tint one.
4. Decide address or service area. If customers come to a location, enter the address and it will show publicly. If you go to them, or you work out of your house, choose the service area option and hide the address. You still enter a real address to verify. It just is not published.
5. Set the service area honestly. List the towns and counties you would actually drive to. Ten is plenty. See the warning below, because this is where a lot of people quietly hurt themselves.
6. Add your phone and website. Your name, address and phone need to match what is on your website character for character. "251-270-4129" on one and "(251) 270-4129" on the other is the kind of small inconsistency that dilutes both.
7. Verify. Almost always video now. Details below.

Video verification, and why it fails

Google retired postcard verification in 2026. Now you record a video on your phone, in the app, in one take. Some businesses still get instant or phone verification, usually when the domain is already verified in Search Console, but assume you are filming.

The reviewer is checking three things and only three things:

• That the location is real and is where you said it is. Street, building, address number, any signage.
• That a business actually operates there. Tools, equipment, stock, a branded vehicle, a workspace that is clearly used for the thing you claim to do.
• That you are authorized to manage it. Unlocking the door yourself, business mail with your name on it, an invoice, a licence, the till.

How to film it so it passes

Do it once, properly, and you will not have to do it again.

• One continuous shot. Do not stop recording, do not cut, do not upload something you edited. A break in the footage is treated as a break in the chain of evidence.
• Start outside, on the street. Pan wide enough to catch the road, neighbouring buildings and anything that fixes you in a real place. Then walk to your address number and hold on it for a few seconds.
• Walk from the street to the door to the inside without stopping. That unbroken walk is what links the address to the business.
• Show the work. Whatever you actually use to do the job. A detailer shows the polisher and the chemicals. A stylist shows the chair and the colour bar. An office based business shows the desk, the computer and the paperwork.
• Show yourself with access. Use your own keys on your own door, on camera.
• Talk while you film. Say your business name, your address and what you do. It is not required and it helps.
• Sixty to ninety seconds, daylight, landscape. Shorter than a minute reads as thin.

What to do the day you get approved

Verification gets you listed. It does not get you found. A bare profile ranks badly and converts worse. Set aside an hour and finish it.

• Add secondary categories for your other real services. Do not add categories for work you do not do.
• Fill in the services list with plain names people would actually search, and give each one a sentence.
• Write the description for a human, not for Google. It is not a ranking factor and it is the first thing a person reads.
• Set your hours, including holiday hours. Wrong hours generate more one star reviews than bad work does.
• Upload at least ten real photos. Your building, your team, your vehicle, your actual finished work. No stock. Add more every month or so.
• Turn on messaging if it is offered to you and answer fast. Note that Google killed the older chat feature back in 2024, so do not build your customer communication around anything Google owns.
• Get the review link from your profile and start asking. Reviews are the biggest lever you control after your category and your location. Ask every satisfied customer, in person, the day the job is done.
• Reply to every review, the good ones and especially the bad ones. Future customers read the replies more carefully than the reviews.

The things that get profiles suspended

Suspension is a bad time. You lose the listing and the reviews with it, and reinstatement is slow. Almost all of it comes from the same short list.

• Keywords or town names stuffed into the business name.
• A PO box, a mailbox rental or a virtual office as the address.
• Multiple profiles for the same business at the same address.
• A service area covering an entire state or country.
• A category that has nothing to do with what you actually do.
• Reviews you obviously wrote yourself or paid for.

None of those are worth the risk. The listing is free and the reviews on it are not replaceable.

Be realistic about what it does

A Google Business Profile puts you in the map results when somebody nearby searches for what you sell. In a busy town that is real money. In a small one it might be a handful of calls a month, because there are only so many people searching. If you need more than your town can hand you, the profile is not the lever. Ads are, and so is a site that converts the traffic you already get.

It is still worth doing, because it is free, it takes an afternoon, and it is the first thing a customer checks after somebody recommends you. Just be clear on what you are buying if you hire it out. Nobody should charge you a retainer to keep a listing switched on. Running ads against it, chasing reviews every month, keeping the photos current and building the site people land on when they tap through is a different job entirely, and that is the one that moves money.

If you want the other half of the picture, the site people land on after they find you on Maps, we wrote up what a website actually costs, with the real ranges and our own price in it.