How to Optimize Your Google Business Profile
The profile details to get right first, and the ones that mostly help customers choose you.
A verified profile is just the starting point. Some details decide whether your listing works at all — a wrong phone number or a dead website link loses customers who have already found you. Others mostly help a customer choose you once they're looking. Do them in that order.
Steps
- Confirm your name, address, phone and hours are accurate, and that the phone number matches the one on your own website.
- Tap your listing's website button and make sure it opens your current site — a link to an old domain sends every click nowhere.
- Set the most specific primary category that fits your business, and add relevant secondary categories.
- Ask customers for reviews as a habit, and reply to the ones you get.
- Fill in the services section with a short description of what you offer.
- Add real photos of your location, work or team, and post updates when you have news. These help customers decide; don't expect them to change where you show up on their own.
- Check back monthly — keep hours current around holidays, and look for anything Google changed on your listing without you.
What our research found
Our Google Maps Visibility Study backs the order above. Reviews were the strongest link to showing up, and distance from the searcher mattered too. Once those were accounted for, a claimed profile, more photos, or a website link showed no measurable difference in where a listing ranked. In the categories where the study could test it, listings using the specific primary category were more often in the top 10 than those using a broader one.
ask datanephew
Can datanephew audit my profile completeness?
Yes. With Business Profile connected, datanephew reads your listing — hours, phone, website, categories, description, services and attributes — plus your photos, posts and reviews, for free, and tells you what's missing or out of date. On Owner it can fix most of it for you; your name, address, primary category and service area stay in Business Profile directly.
What matters most if I only have time for one thing?
Make sure your phone number, hours and website link are right. A customer who finds you and then reaches a wrong number or a dead page is the most expensive kind to lose.