When it comes to an SEO strategy, it’s usually the case that bigger markets mean more competition. If you’re selling globally, you’re going against websites worldwide. However, trying to establish an SEO presence locally can be just as challenging, if you don’t know where to get started.
The scale of the opportunity is significant: 46% of all Google searches have local intent, and 76% of those searches lead to a physical visit within 24 hours. For local businesses, that’s an enormous stream of ready-to-buy customers — but only if your business shows up. To become known in your local searches, your business needs to set up and optimize a great Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business).
After helping local clients add more than $10,000,000/year in additional revenue, we’ve learned all about how to set up a Google Business Profile properly. According to Google, businesses with a complete, optimised profile are 2.7x more likely to be trusted by customers and get 7x more clicks than those with incomplete listings — that’s the difference between being found and being invisible.
The success of this method comes down to two things: setting up a profile and getting reviews from customers. After that, you can hope for results such as a massive increase in traffic. One of our clients gets approximately 25% of their total traffic from their Google Business Profile in addition to phone calls and direction requests.
Ready to learn more? Let’s dive in.
What is a Google My Business listing?
If you already have a website for your local business, you may be thinking that your job in terms of SEO is complete. However, adding a Google Business Profile can be of massive help to your conversions and sales.
A Google My Business listing (now officially called Google Business Profile) is a free tool that allows you to register your own business with Google. As a result, you can reach more people through services such as your usual Google search and Maps, and Google Shopping, all by providing your business information.
Anyone can create a Google Business Profile for free, as long as you’re the owner of the business. Moreover, you don’t have to have a physical location or a walk-in office to register either. For example, you could be a mobile hairdresser without an official address but still create a Google Business Profile.
The benefits of creating a Google Business Profile
You may already start seeing a few reasons why you need a listing besides your website. If not, here are the practical benefits of being present with a Google Business Profile for business owners:
- You show your business name, phone number, business address, and details to people searching for local SEO terms on Google
- You can collect reviews from customers and get ranked better compared to your competitors locally
- You appear in more search results to people searching for your services locally
All of this translates to more money in the bank, for something you can do for free.
How to create a Google Business Profile
First off, go to Google Maps and hit the hamburger icon in the top left. This should open up a menu on the left side, where you can click on “Add your business”:
After this, you can add your business name:
And more details:
The end result should look something like this:
You should be able to see your business under the name you registered, on the map, along with its primary category, overview, and customer reviews.
However, these are just the basics that anyone can do. To rank well for important search terms, you need to do some optimisation and add more than your business category and physical address.
Google Business Profile optimisation checklist
To get the maximum out of your business profile and attract the most potential customers from search engines, you need to know some shortcuts. Here are the most important ones.
1. Verify your listing
Your listing won’t go live until you verify it, since Google needs to know that you’re the actual person behind the business. This also prevents others from claiming your business as their own. You can verify your listing by phone, email, video call, video recording or a postcard sent to your business location.
2. Select the right primary and secondary categories
Your primary category is the single most important ranking factor for your Google Business Profile — more than your description, photos, or even reviews. It tells Google what your business is, and it determines which search queries your profile is eligible to appear for. Choose the most specific, accurate category available. If you run an Italian restaurant, “Italian Restaurant” will outperform the broader “Restaurant” every time.
You can also add up to 9 secondary categories to capture additional search terms. Use these to cover services adjacent to your main offering — for example, a plumbing company might add “Drainage Service” and “Water Heater Installation Service” alongside their primary “Plumber” category. Spend time researching which categories your top local competitors use.
3. Don’t get clever with your business name
If you run a tire shop, you might consider adding “best tire shop in Atlanta” to your business name to game the algorithm and get more views and visits. Don’t. Google does not look at tricks like these very favourably and you’ll do more harm than good — and could have your business delisted.
4. Add your opening hours
Customers going through local search results want an immediate solution for their problem in your service area. Make sure to add your business hours and keep them accurate so that customers know when to find you.
5. Enable customer messaging
Google’s built-in chat feature was discontinued in July 2024. However, Google now supports direct WhatsApp integration — if your business uses WhatsApp, you can enable it directly from your Business Profile settings so customers can message you without leaving Google Maps. If you don’t use WhatsApp, make sure your phone number is accurate and prominently displayed. Whatever channel you choose, the key principle remains the same: only enable messaging if you intend to respond promptly. Slow response times hurt your profile’s performance signals.
6. Add an amazing business description
You have 750 characters of space where you can describe what your business does, what you specialise in, what your history is, and what sets you apart from the rest of search engine results. Naturally include keywords that describe your services and your location — these help Google understand your relevance to local searches. This is prime digital marketing real estate, so craft your message carefully and hire a professional copywriter if necessary.
7. Synchronise your Google Business Profile with Bing
Bing is another major search engine you should not neglect. In Bing Places, you can connect your Google Business Profile with Bing too, and claim ownership of your profile. Note that synchronisation does not mean you’re giving up any management rights to your profile.
8. Complete your services and attributes
Google gives you the ability to list every individual service you offer, with names, descriptions, and prices. Many businesses skip this step entirely — which means their competitors who complete it have a significant edge. Fill out every service relevant to your business.
Attributes are equally important. Google lets you highlight business characteristics like “Women-owned”, “LGBTQ+-friendly”, “Wheelchair accessible”, or “Free Wi-Fi”. These attributes appear on your profile and match additional search filters customers use to narrow their results. The more accurate and complete your attributes, the more searches you’re eligible to appear in.
9. Manage your Q&A section
Through Google, customers can ask questions about your business — hours, offers, prices, or anything that comes to mind. Here’s the problem: anyone can ask a question but also answer it.
This means that others can respond to questions about your business, often inaccurately. Head to your profile on Google Maps to find your business and navigate to the “Questions and answers” section. Here you can answer potential customers’ questions as your business and have your answers highlighted. You can also flag inaccurate answers from others.
This is one area of your profile that requires close monitoring. As of 2025, Google has integrated Gemini AI into local search, meaning AI-generated answers based on your profile content are increasingly shown to searchers — another reason to ensure all your profile information is accurate and complete, since it feeds directly into those AI responses.
10. Upload high-quality photos — and keep adding them
Your customers will eventually upload their own photos of whatever you sell, but you should have your own professional photos first. This is the representation of your business and can make a huge difference in your click-through rates, phone calls, and inquiries for directions.
The data on photos is striking: listings with 100+ photos receive 520% more calls, 2,717% more direction requests, and 1,065% more website clicks than listings with fewer images. Even getting to 10 photos doubles your engagement compared to listings with minimal photos.
For example, here’s an image that was used on a client’s Google Business Profile listing before they got professional photos:
Here’s what photos looked like after they got professional photos taken:
After professional photos were added and most of their older photos deleted, calls and leads shot through the roof for Chef Steph.
People care about what your product, service, and location look like — so make sure you put your best foot forward and spend the money to get great photos. According to Google, businesses that add photos to their profile receive 42% more requests for directions on Google Maps and 35% more click-throughs to their website — and uploading new photos regularly keeps signalling to Google that your business is active.
11. Publish Google Posts regularly
Google Posts are short updates — similar to social media posts — that appear directly on your Business Profile in search results and Google Maps. You can use them to share offers, announcements, new products, events, or recent news about your business.
Posts are one of the clearest signals you can send Google that your business is active and engaged. An active profile tends to rank higher than a dormant one with otherwise identical information. Aim for at least one post per week. Keep posts short, include a high-quality image, and always include a clear call to action (book now, call, learn more). Posts expire after seven days for most types, so consistency is important.
Citations
If you know a thing or two about SEO, you know that links are the holy grail of improved search engine rankings. For local SEO, there is a different form of link building, and it’s called citations.
In short, a citation is a mention of your business on another website that lists businesses, such as a directory. If your local business is listed in a directory with high value (such as Yellowpages or Yelp), that helps you in multiple ways.
First off, you need to find a list of online directories where businesses similar to yours are listed. Then you need to find out if you are listed there or not. If not, you can add your own business there.
The problem? There are countless citations and directories where you could apply, and picking the ones worth your time can be more time-consuming than actually getting your listing added. To resolve this problem, we suggest using a service such as BrightLocal.
Whether you use a service or collect citations on your own, there is one key thing to remember: NAP.
Short for Name, Address, and Phone Number, this represents the three most important data pieces about your business. To get better local rankings, you must ensure that your NAP is consistent across all your listings. This means no typos or formatting variations — “St.” vs “Street” counts as an inconsistency to Google’s algorithms — and in the case of any change (a new phone number, a new address), updating all of your citations promptly. As Search Engine Journal notes, local businesses with consistent NAP tend to have higher search rankings.
For a deeper guide to building local citations and local SEO backlinks that move the needle, see our dedicated guide.
Reviews
You can (but shouldn’t) use a set-it-and-forget-it kind of approach with a Google Business Profile. However, that’s the easy part. The hard part is collecting user reviews.
Why are reviews important?
Most people start off their buying journey by looking through reviews. 83% of consumers primarily read reviews on Google when researching local businesses, and reviews are consistently ranked among the top local ranking signals by local SEO experts — second only to your Google Business Profile signals themselves.
Businesses with more positive reviews and better overall review scores tend to rank higher for their local search keywords. Even more importantly, searchers gravitate towards businesses with better reviews — it’s one of the first things visible in both search results and Google Maps.
One often-overlooked factor is review recency. 73% of consumers only trust reviews from the last 30 days, and listings that consistently earn at least one new review per week rank measurably higher than those with reviews that have gone stale. This means review collection isn’t a one-time task — it needs to be an ongoing part of how your business operates.
Collecting Google reviews is an art form on its own. For a step-by-step approach to building your review volume, see our guide on how to get Google reviews. Negative reviews can and will happen, so collecting positive ones consistently from existing and new customers is a must.
Tracking your performance
Now that you know how to create and optimise a Google Business Profile, you also need to track your performance. That way, you can set benchmarks and learn how to get even better results in the future.
Everything you need is in the Insights tab in your Google Business Profile dashboard. Here are some of the key items you need to look over:
- Views
- Reviews (volume and average rating over time)
- Phone calls (you can also track these by using call tracking like CallRail)
- Website clicks (you can also track these in Google Analytics by using UTM tags)
- Direction requests
- Photo views (a strong signal of profile engagement)
- Search queries that triggered your profile (shows you exactly what terms customers are using to find you)
All of these have an immediate impact on your bottom line. The search queries report in particular is one of the most underused features — it shows you exactly what customers are typing to find your business, which can directly inform your website content and description keywords.
If you don’t feel like using the native Google Business Profile dashboard for reporting, you can employ a dashboard software such as Databox to have your metrics laid out in the form of bar charts, graphs and widgets for an easier overview of your progress.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Google My Business and Google Business Profile?
They are the same product. Google rebranded “Google My Business” to “Google Business Profile” in November 2021. The tool itself — a free listing that lets businesses appear in Google Search and Google Maps — did not change. You may still see “Google My Business” used widely, but the official name is now Google Business Profile.
What is the most important ranking factor for a Google Business Profile?
Your primary business category is the single most impactful ranking factor. It tells Google what your business is and determines which searches your profile is eligible to appear for. After that, reviews (volume, recency, and rating), profile completeness, and proximity to the searcher all play major roles. Consistent NAP information across your website and citations also has a strong cumulative effect.
How do I get my business into the Google Local 3-pack?
The Local 3-pack — the three map listings that appear at the top of local search results — is driven by three factors: relevance (how well your profile matches the search), distance (proximity to the searcher), and prominence (how well-known and reviewed your business is). To improve your chances: fully complete your profile, choose precise categories, earn consistent recent reviews, build citations with consistent NAP information, and make sure your website has local keyword signals that match your profile.
How many photos should I have on my Google Business Profile?
Aim for at least 10 photos to start, and work towards 100 or more over time. Listings with 100+ photos receive 520% more calls and over 2,700% more direction requests than the average listing. More importantly, keep adding new photos regularly — upload at least one new photo per week. Freshness matters to Google’s algorithm as a signal that your business is active.
Do Google reviews actually affect local search rankings?
Yes — significantly. Reviews are consistently ranked among the top local ranking signals by local SEO experts. What matters isn’t just your rating or total review count, but also review recency (73% of consumers only trust reviews from the last 30 days), the presence of keyword-rich review text, and your response rate as a business owner. Businesses that earn at least one new review per week consistently outrank those whose reviews have gone stale.
How often should I update my Google Business Profile?
Aim for at least weekly activity. Publish a Google Post at least once per week, respond to any new reviews within 24–48 hours, answer questions in the Q&A section promptly, and upload at least one new photo per week. Update your business hours immediately any time they change (including holiday hours). Google rewards active, well-maintained profiles with better local visibility.
What is NAP consistency and why does it matter?
NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number — the three core data points about your business. Consistency means these details are identical across your Google Business Profile, your website, and every directory or citation site where you’re listed. Even minor formatting differences — like “Street” vs “St.” or a missing suite number — signal conflicting information to Google, which can suppress your local rankings. Whenever your address or phone number changes, update every citation promptly.
Is a Google Business Profile free?
Yes. Creating and managing a Google Business Profile is completely free. You can add your business name, address, phone number, website, photos, posts, and services at no cost. Google does offer paid advertising products (like Local Service Ads and Google Ads) that can appear alongside your organic profile, but the profile itself — and all the optimisation tactics in this guide — costs nothing beyond your time.
Wrapping up
Mastering your Google Business Profile may seem like an afterthought if you’re running a business and focusing on improving your bottom line. However, every bit of time and money spent on your Google Business Profile will lead to more revenue for your business — and hopefully, you’ve learned where to start today.
If you’re looking to grow your local online presence but have no idea where to get started, book a free call with us to find out how we can help!
