Guide

Setting up a Google Business Profile

It is free, it takes about ten minutes, and for a shop it does more work than a website. This is the whole thing, including the part that takes a few days and that nobody can do for you.

Why it matters more than the website

When somebody searches for a shop near them, Google mostly answers with the map: three listings, with hours, photos, reviews and a directions button. That is the profile, not a website. Most people never click through to a site at all; they tap Directions or Call.

So for a corner shop, a smoke shop or a grocer, the profile is the shopfront. The website supports it.

Before you start

• A Google account you will still have in five years. Use one only you control, not a former employee’s.
• Your business name exactly as it appears on the sign.
• Your address as it appears on your mail, including any unit number.
• A phone number that gets answered at the business.

Creating it

1. Go to business.google.com and sign in.
2. Choose Add business and type your business name. If Google suggests an existing listing that is yours, pick it, because that is a claim rather than a duplicate.
3. Choose the category that fits best. You can change it later, and you can add more.
4. Say whether customers visit you. A shop says yes and enters its address; a business that travels to customers gives its service area instead.
5. Add your phone number, and your website if you have one.

Verifying it, the part only you can do

Google then confirms the business is really yours. This is not optional: an unverified profile is limited and will not show properly in the map.

Google chooses the method from your business type, your address and what is already public about you. You are shown what it decides to offer, and often that is a single option with no way to ask for another.

• Video recording. Increasingly the default for a new shop, and the one worth preparing for. Google wants three things in one continuous recording: the street outside, your business name on permanent signage, and you doing something only staff can do, such as unlocking the door or opening the till. The address and the name in the video have to match what you typed in. Review takes up to five working days.
• Postcard to the business address, carrying a code you type in. Google says most arrive within 14 days, and the code stops working after 30. The address cannot be changed once the card is requested.
• Phone or text. A code by call or SMS, done in a minute. An automated switchboard will not work, because somebody has to hear the code.
• Email, occasionally, to the address on the account.
• Live video call with a Google representative instead of a recording, during business hours.

There is usually a Verify Later link on that screen. Taking it does not lose the profile or the details you entered, so verification does not have to hold up adding hours, photos and a description.

All of the above is fromGoogle's own page on verification, which is worth checking if your screen does not match what you read here.

If you get the postcard, watch for it. It is plain and looks like junk mail.

While you wait

You do not have to sit still. You can already add hours, photos and a description, and they will be live the moment verification completes.

Once it is verified, finish it properly

A half-filled profile is the most common reason a shop loses to the one down the road. Worth completing:

• Hours, including holiday hours. A wrong closing time is the mistake a customer meets at a locked door.
• Photos. The front of the shop, the door, the counter, the shelves. Real ones from a phone beat stock images.
• A description in your own words.
• Attributes. Parking, payment types, accessibility. People filter on these.
• Secondary categories for the other things you genuinely sell.

If something has gone wrong

Somebody else already has your listing

Common, and usually innocent: a previous marketing company, a supplier, or an ATM vendor who created it at your address. Search for your business on Google, open the listing, and use the claim or request access option. Google contacts whoever holds it. If they do not respond within a few days, you can carry on and Google may transfer it to you.

There are two listings for you

Claim the one with your reviews on it, then report the other as a duplicate. Never delete the one with the reviews, because reviews do not move.

It was suspended

Usually an address or category problem rather than anything you did. Fix what is wrong before appealing; appealing an unchanged profile tends to get refused again.