How to Create a Google Business Profile, Step by Step

If your business does not appear on Google Maps, the cause is often the simplest one: it has no Google Business Profile, or it has one that nobody ever verified. Creating it is free and takes less time than most owners expect. Getting it right takes a little more care.

Does a profile already exist for your business?

Check before you create anything. Google sometimes builds a listing by itself from public information, and a previous owner or employee may have opened one years ago.

Search your business name and city on Google Maps. If a listing appears, look for the link "Claim this business" or "Own this business?". Claiming an existing listing keeps its reviews and its history. Creating a second one gives you a duplicate, and duplicates are a classic reason for not showing up on Google Maps.

How do you create the profile?

1. Sign in with the Google account you want to manage the business with. Prefer an account the business controls, not a personal one that leaves with an employee.
2. Go to the Google Business Profile page and choose to add your business.
3. Enter the business name exactly as it appears on your storefront and your invoices. Do not add keywords or a city to it: Google's guidelines forbid it, and it is a common cause of suspension.
4. Choose your primary category.
5. Say whether customers come to your address, or whether you travel to them. A service-area business can hide its address and list the areas it serves.
6. Add your phone number and your website.

How does verification work?

Google must confirm that the business is real and that you represent it. The method is chosen by Google, not by you: it can be a phone call or text message, an email, a video recording of your premises, or a postcard sent to the address. Until verification is complete, your profile is not shown to the public.

Do not change your name, address or category while verification is in progress. It can restart the process.

Which fields matter most once you are verified?

Google states that complete and accurate information helps it match your profile to the right searches. In my order of priority:

• Primary category, then a few secondary ones that are truly yours.
• Opening hours, including holidays. Wrong hours cost you customers the same day.
• Services or products, in your customers' words.
• Photos of the storefront, the interior, your work.
• Description: what you do, for whom, where. Plain sentences.

What do you do next?

Three habits, and you are ahead of most local competitors:

• Ask every customer for a review, with your review link.
• Keep your name, address and phone identical on other directories. See NAP consistency.
• Measure where you rank around your address with a Google Maps rank tracker, then measure again after your changes.

Summary

My advice: spend ten more minutes on the category and the name than you think necessary. Almost everything else can be corrected later without consequence. Those two cannot always.