Your Google Business Profile is doing more work than most business owners realise.
It's the box that appears on the right side of Google when someone searches your business name. It's the listing that shows up in Google Maps. It's the first thing a lot of people actually see before they ever visit your website.
And - this is the part that's genuinely changed recently - it's one of the key things AI looks at when deciding whether to recommend your business.
If yours is incomplete, inconsistent, or set up in a rush and never touched again, you're leaving real enquiries on the table. Let's fix that.
First things first: claim your profile if you haven't already
Go to business.google.com and sign in with the Google account associated with your business.
Search for your business name. If it already exists - which it might, because Google creates listings automatically from public data - click "Claim this business." If it doesn't exist, click "Add your business to Google."
You'll need to verify that you actually own or manage the business. Google usually does this by sending a postcard to your business address with a verification code, though some businesses can verify by phone or email. The postcard takes about five days.
Don't skip verification. An unverified listing is basically invisible - and you can't edit it properly either.
The bits most people rush through (and shouldn't)
Your business name
Use your actual business name. Not your business name plus a load of keywords stuffed in afterwards.
"Smith's Plumbing" is fine. "Smith's Plumbing - Emergency Plumber Derby - 24 Hour Callout" is not. Google actively penalises keyword-stuffed business names, and AI reads it as trying too hard - which doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
Your business category
This one matters more than people think.
Your primary category tells Google (and AI) exactly what type of business you are. Pick the most specific, accurate option you can find. "Plumber" if you're a plumber. "General Dentist" if that's what you are. Not "Health & Medical" - that's too vague.
You can also add secondary categories for other services you offer. A dental practice might add "Cosmetic Dentist" and "Dental Implants Provider" as secondary categories. Just make sure everything you list is genuinely something you do - don't add categories to appear in more searches if you don't actually offer those services.
Your address
If you have a physical location that customers visit - a shop, a clinic, an office - add it. Make sure it matches exactly what's on your website and any directories you're listed on.
"17 Market Street" on your website and "17 Market St" on your Google Business Profile is the kind of small inconsistency that doesn't matter for humans but does matter for AI. It's looking for consistency as a trust signal.
If you're a service-area business - a plumber, a mobile hairdresser, a gardener - you probably don't want to display your home address. That's fine. You can hide your address and list your service areas instead. Add the towns, cities, or postcodes you actually cover.
Your phone number
Use your main business number. Make sure it's the same number you have on your website, your social media profiles, and any directories.
If you've changed your number at some point and the old one is still floating around on old listings, it's worth tracking those down and updating them. Mismatched numbers are one of the most common ways businesses accidentally confuse AI about whether they're actually the same business.
Your website
Link to your website homepage. Simple enough - but double-check the URL is correct and that it works. Broken links don't help anyone.
Opening hours
Set your regular hours accurately. If you have different hours on bank holidays or at Christmas, use the special hours feature to update those when they're coming up.
Customers and AI alike use opening hours to judge whether you're currently open. "Is this place open now?" is one of the most common local search queries there is. If your hours are wrong, you'll either miss people who assume you're closed when you're not, or frustrate people who turn up when you are.
The section most businesses ignore: your business description
You've got 750 characters to tell people what your business does, who it's for, and what makes it worth choosing.
Most businesses either skip this entirely or write something vague and forgettable like "We offer a range of professional services to clients across the region."
That tells nobody anything.
Write it like you'd introduce your business to someone you've just met. Be specific. What do you actually do? Who do you do it for? What's genuinely different about how you do it?
A few things to include:
- The main services or products you offer
- The area you cover or serve
- Any genuinely distinguishing qualities - not "we're the best" but things like years of experience, specialisms, qualifications, approach
- Your town or region (helps with local relevance)
Here's an example of the difference:
Vague: "We are a professional plumbing company providing excellent services to domestic and commercial customers."
Specific: "Smith's Plumbing covers Derby and the surrounding area, handling everything from emergency call-outs and boiler servicing to full bathroom installations. We've been doing this since 2003 and most of our work comes from people who've used us before or been recommended by someone who has."
The second one actually tells you something. AI can work with it. People reading it feel reassured.
Photos: don't use stock images
This is one of the most common mistakes, and it genuinely costs businesses enquiries.
Stock photos look like stock photos. People know. They make your business look like a template, not a real place with real people behind it.
Take photos of:
- The outside of your premises (helps people find you)
- The inside, if it's relevant to what you do
- Your team - candid and natural beats stiff headshots
- Your work, where you can - jobs completed, products made, before-and-afters
- Any equipment, vehicles, or materials relevant to your trade
Google recommends at least three photos to start. More is better - profiles with lots of photos get significantly more engagement than those with one or two.
Add new photos regularly. An active, frequently updated profile performs better than a static one. It signals to Google that the business is actually trading.
The cover photo and logo
Your cover photo is the big image at the top of your profile. Pick something that represents your business well - ideally your premises, your team, or a strong example of your work. Not a logo on a white background.
Upload your logo too. It appears as a smaller image and helps with brand recognition when people see your profile alongside competitors.
Google Posts: the free tool almost nobody uses
Google Posts are updates you can publish directly to your Business Profile. They appear in your listing and are a genuinely useful way to share what's going on.
You can post about:
- Offers and promotions
- Events you're running or attending
- New products or services
- General updates or news
Posts expire after seven days (unless you use the Events or Offers format, which runs until the end date you set), so they need a bit of regular attention. Once a week or fortnight is plenty.
Most businesses never touch this. Which means if you do, you stand out - and you give Google (and AI) more up-to-date information about what you're offering.
Reviews: the most visible part of your profile
Reviews show up immediately under your business name. A four or five-star rating, clearly visible, is a powerful trust signal for anyone who finds you.
Getting reviews is its own topic - we'll cover that properly in a later article - but in the context of setting up your profile properly, there are a couple of things worth doing now:
Get your review link. In your Google Business Profile dashboard, there's a "Get more reviews" option that gives you a short, shareable link you can send to customers. Save it somewhere accessible - you'll use it a lot.
Respond to every review you have. Every one. Not with a template. Take thirty seconds and write something that actually acknowledges what they said. Businesses that respond to reviews get more reviews, and they perform better in local search. AI also reads the sentiment and volume of your reviews as part of how it understands your reputation.
If you have negative reviews you haven't responded to - do those first. A thoughtful, non-defensive response to a critical review actually builds more trust than no bad reviews at all.
The Q&A section: answer your own questions
There's a Q&A section on your Business Profile that most business owners either don't know about or have never looked at.
Customers can ask questions publicly, and anyone - including you - can answer them. Here's the thing: if you don't answer them, random Google users might. And they might get it wrong.
Take ten minutes and think about the questions your customers regularly ask you. Write them in yourself as questions, then answer them. "Do you offer emergency call-outs?" "Do you work on weekends?" "Is parking available?" "Do you offer payment plans?"
You're controlling the narrative on your own listing. It also gives AI more specific, structured information about what your business offers.
Services and products
Depending on your business type, you'll have the option to add a services section or a products catalogue.
Fill this in. It gives Google and AI a much clearer picture of what you actually offer - not just that you're a "plumber" but that you specifically do boiler installations, bathroom fitting, leak detection, and so on.
For each service, add a description. It doesn't need to be long - three or four sentences is fine - but make it specific and useful.
Keeping it maintained
Setting up your profile properly is a one-off task. Keeping it right is an ongoing one - but it doesn't need to take much time.
The main things to stay on top of:
- Update your hours for bank holidays and Christmas
- Add new photos when you complete a job you're proud of
- Respond to new reviews within a day or two
- Check the Q&A section periodically for new questions
- Post an update every week or fortnight if you can
Once you're in the habit, this is maybe 20 minutes a week. For something that's working this hard on your behalf, that's time well spent.
One more thing: consistency across the web
Everything we've just set up on your Google Business Profile - your business name, address, phone number, website, description, categories - needs to match what's on your website.
Not approximately match. Exactly match.
AI cross-references your Business Profile against your website and against other listings around the web. Consistent information is one of the signals it uses to confirm that you're a real, established, trustworthy business. Inconsistencies - even small ones like a different abbreviation for your street name, or a landline on your website and a mobile on your profile - create doubt.
We'll go into the world of citations and directory listings in a later article. But the starting point is making sure your website and your Google Business Profile are telling exactly the same story.
If you want to see how your business is currently showing up to AI - not just Google, but ChatGPT, Perplexity, and the rest - our AI Visibility Checker will give you a clear picture in a couple of minutes.