Google Business Profile is one of the most useful free tools available to a local business. It allows your business to appear in Google Search and Google Maps, showing potential customers useful information such as what you do, where you operate, your opening hours, contact details, photographs and customer reviews.

When I originally wrote this article back in 2012, the service was known as Google Places. It has changed names several times since then – becoming Google My Business along the way — and is now called Google Business Profile.

The name may have changed, but the basic purpose hasn’t: helping people find and learn about local businesses through Google.

If you’re setting up a new or startup business, your Google Business Profile should form part of your wider startup branding and web design plans. This guide explains how to create, claim and set up your profile properly. If you already have a profile and want to improve its performance, read my guide to optimising a Google Business Profile.

What is a Google Business Profile?

A Google Business Profile is the business listing that can appear when somebody searches for your company or for businesses offering your services in their area.

Depending on the search, your profile can appear within Google Search, Google Maps and Google’s local search results.

A profile can include:

• your business name
• business category
• address or service area
• telephone number
• website
• opening hours
• services
• photographs
• customer reviews
• business updates

For a local business, it’s an important part of establishing a visible and credible presence in Google’s search results.

And, importantly, creating one is free.

Check whether your business already has a profile

Before creating anything new, check whether Google already has a listing for your business.

Search Google or Google Maps for your business name and location. You may discover that a profile already exists, particularly if your business has been operating for some time.

If you find an existing profile, don’t create another one.

Instead, look for the option to claim the business or confirm that you own it. Duplicate profiles can cause unnecessary confusion for both Google and your customers.

If you already manage the profile, you can move straight on to checking that its basic information is complete.

Create a Google Business Profile

If your business doesn’t already have a profile, you can create one through Google Business Profile.

You’ll need a Google (Gmail) account to manage it.

I’d recommend using an account that belongs to the business rather than allowing an employee, marketing company, web designer or other third party to create and own the profile on your behalf.

Other people can be given access later if they need to help manage it.

That keeps ownership where it belongs: with your business.

Use your real business name

Enter the name your business actually uses.

It can be tempting to squeeze additional keywords or locations into the business name in the hope of appearing for more searches, but your Google Business Profile isn’t the place to invent a more SEO-friendly version of your company name.

If you’re Smith & Jones Ltd, use Smith & Jones Ltd – not Smith & Jones Ltd | Plumbers in Eastbourne, Hailsham & Sussex.

Keep it accurate and consistent with your website, signage and other business information.

Choose the right primary business category

Google will ask you to select a category describing your business.

Your primary category is particularly important because it helps Google understand what sort of business you operate.

Choose the category that most closely describes your main activity rather than trying to cover everything you possibly offer.

You can add additional categories later for other important areas of the business, but your primary category should represent what the business fundamentally is.

Add your location or service area

How you configure your location depends on the type of business you operate.

If customers visit your premises – a shop, restaurant, showroom or clinic, for example – you can normally display your physical business address.

If you travel to your customers instead, you may be better configured as a service-area business.

A plumber, electrician, mobile service or independent professional working from home may not need their home address displayed publicly. Instead, Google allows eligible businesses to specify the geographical areas they serve.

Be realistic with these areas. Listing half of Britain doesn’t suddenly make a local business relevant everywhere.

Add accurate contact details

Next, add the main ways customers can contact or find out more about your business.

This will usually include your:

• telephone number
• website address
• opening hours

Make sure these details are correct and match the information on your website.

Consistency is useful for customers and also helps Google associate your website, Business Profile and other online references with the same organisation.

Add your website

Your Google Business Profile should link directly to your business website.

This gives people somewhere to find considerably more information than can reasonably fit within a Google listing and provides a clear connection between your profile and your website.

Your website should, in turn, make it clear who you are, what you do and where you’re based or the areas you serve.

The two should support one another rather than exist as completely separate bits of your online presence.

Complete Google’s verification

Before you have full control of a Business Profile, Google may require you to verify that you’re genuinely associated with the business.

The verification method offered can vary depending on the business and may include options such as video, telephone, email or other methods determined by Google.

Follow the instructions Google provides rather than trying to create another profile if verification isn’t immediate.

Once verified, you’ll have greater control over how the business is presented and can begin properly developing the profile.

Add the essentials before worrying about optimisation

Once you have access, make sure the basic profile is complete.

At this stage, concentrate on accuracy and completeness, rather than trying to optimise every field.

Add appropriate opening hours, your services, a useful business description and some genuine photographs of the business, premises, products or work.

If Google provides relevant fields for your type of business, complete those too.

A sparse profile containing little more than a company name and telephone number isn’t particularly helpful to somebody deciding whether to contact you.

Keep ownership of your profile

Your Google Business Profile is an important business asset, just like your domain name, website and other online accounts.

If somebody else is going to manage or optimise the profile for you, give them the appropriate access rather than handing over ownership or allowing them to create it within an account they control.

People and suppliers change. Your business profile should remain yours.

It’s a small administrative detail when everything is running smoothly, but a rather larger one when it isn’t.

Your profile is set up. What next?

Creating and verifying your Google Business Profile is only the first stage.

Once the foundations are in place, you can start improving the information within it, choosing appropriate categories and services, adding photographs, collecting reviews, publishing updates and making sure the profile works alongside your website and wider local SEO.

That’s where setup becomes optimisation.

I’ve covered those next steps separately in How to Optimise a Google Business Profile.

For a broader look at how your Business Profile, website, reviews, local content and other signals work together, you can also read my Complete Guide to Local SEO for Small Businesses.

A Google Business Profile won’t do all of your local marketing for you, but setting it up properly gives Google – and potential customers — a much clearer idea of who you are, what you do and where you do it.