Google Business Profile: create it, verify it, make it complete

Create or claim the profile

On Google France, “fiche d’établissement google” (Google Business Profile) is searched 4,400 times a month, and “créer une fiche google my business” (create a Google My Business listing) 590 times. Before creating anything, look your business up in Google Maps: a profile may already exist, created by Google from public sources or by a customer. In that case, claim it rather than creating a second one.

1. 1
   Sign in to business.google.com with a business Google account (ideally an address belonging to the company, not to a contractor).
2. 2
   Search for the business name: if the profile exists, claim it; if not, create it.
3. 3
   Enter the real name of the business, the primary category, the address if you receive customers, or the service area if you travel to your customers.
4. 4
   Add your phone number and website, then start verification with the method Google offers you.
5. 5
   Once verified, complete the profile 100%: opening hours, description, services, photos.

The Google guidelines you must follow

Google’s guidelines for representing your business are strict, and Google restricts profiles that do not follow them. The essentials:

• The name must match the real name of the business, as it appears on your shopfront, your website and your documents. No city, slogan or keywords added to the name.
• Categories: choose as few categories as possible to describe the core business, without using them to slip in keywords.
• The address must be real and precise. PO boxes and unstaffed virtual offices are not allowed.
• If you work at your customers’ premises without receiving the public, create a service-area business profile with a service area, which Google limits to two hours’ travel from your base.
• Opening hours must be the hours when you are actually open or reachable, special hours included (public holidays, annual closures).

What makes a profile complete

Google writes that businesses which provide complete and accurate information are more likely to appear in nearby results, and that inaccurate information can stop the profile from showing. A complete profile means the facts a customer looks for before calling:

• The exact primary category, then only the secondary categories that match a real activity.
• Opening hours and special hours.
• A short description: what you do, for whom, where. No links or promotions in the text.
• Services or products, with prices if you show them elsewhere.
• Useful attributes: wheelchair access, parking, payment methods, appointment booking.
• Real photos: the shopfront so people recognise you, the interior, the team, your work or products.
• A link to the page of your website that fits best, with the same contact details as the profile.

Link the profile to a real website

23% of the listings studied give no website, and 8% point only to a platform. These businesses forgo part of the relevance Google can read: a profile says who you are and where, a website details every service, every area, every question.

The profile’s link must point to a page that confirms exactly what the profile says: same name, same address or area, same phone number, same opening hours. On the website, the same information is described in LocalBusiness structured data, which according to Google lets you tell it, for example, the opening hours and the different departments of a business.

Keep the profile alive every week

A profile is not a form you fill in once. It lives alongside the business.

1. 1
   Reply to reviews, positive and negative, briefly and professionally.
2. 2
   Add recent photos after a job, a new product or a refit.
3. 3
   Post an update when there is real news: an offer, an event, a new service.
4. 4
   Update your hours before every public holiday or closure.
5. 5
   Check edits suggested by users: Google also takes contributions from other sources into account when displaying your information.
6. 6
   Review the profile’s performance: calls, direction requests, website clicks.