How to get your business on Google and Google Maps

When someone nearby searches for what you sell, Google shows a panel with your name, photos, hours, phone number and reviews, next to a dot on the map. That panel is your Business Profile. It is free, and you do not need a website to have one.⁶

This guide walks through the whole thing: creating or claiming the profile in your own Google account, verifying it, filling it in properly, and getting your first reviews. Set aside an hour or two. You can do all of it yourself, free, and nobody who charges you for “getting you on Google” is doing anything you can’t do here.

One thing before you start, because it matters more than anything else on this page: use a Google account you control. The account that creates and verifies the profile owns it, and a profile has one primary owner.⁷ If an employee, a relative or a marketing company sets it up in their account, you are renting your own listing. Google does have a process for requesting ownership from whoever holds it,¹ but that is a detour you can skip by starting in your own account.

Step 1: Check whether you already have a profile

Google may have created one for you already, from public data. Search your business name in Google Maps and open the panel. If nobody manages it, you’ll see an option to claim the business. Claiming is free.¹

What you must not do is create a second profile because you couldn’t find the first one. Google is explicit: there should be one profile per business, because duplicates cause problems with how your information shows on Maps and Search.⁴ If you find two, sort out the duplicate instead of abandoning the old one. The one with your reviews and your age is usually the one worth keeping.

Step 2: Add the business

If nothing exists yet, go to business.google.com/add and follow the steps to add your business.¹ Three fields deserve more care than people give them:

The name. Enter it exactly as it appears on your sign, your stationery and your receipts. Google’s guidelines say your name should reflect your real-world name, and that adding keywords, city names, taglines or prices to the name field is not permitted — it can get the profile suspended.⁴ “Anna’s Cleaning Services” is right. “Anna’s Cleaning Services Chicago Best Rates” is the classic suspension trigger. Keywords belong in your services and description, where Google says to put them.

The category. Google tells you to choose categories that complete the sentence “this business IS a” rather than “this business HAS a”, and to use as few categories as possible.⁴ A barbershop that sells shampoo is still a barbershop. The main category is one of the strongest signals Google uses to decide which searches should show you, so pick the specific one that matches what you actually do, not the broad one you think gets more searches.

The address. If you serve customers at their homes or you work from home, list yourself as a service-area business and hide your address. That is Google’s own instruction for businesses like yours, not a trick to look bigger.⁴ A storefront shop should use its real street address, matching what’s on the door.

Step 3: Verify

Verification is how Google confirms you’re entitled to manage the listing. Google decides which methods to offer; the options depend on your business type, your public information and your region, and they can’t be changed.² The common ones:

• Phone or text: a code sent to your business number.
• Email: steps sent to an address Google finds on the business.
• Live video call: you show a Google agent your location and your equipment, during business hours.
• Video recording: the same idea, filmed by you in the app instead of on a live call.
• Postcard by mail: a card with a five-digit code posted to your address. Most arrive within 14 days, and the code expires after 30 days.²

For the video route, Google wants one unedited recording, at least 30 seconds, filmed live on a phone: your location with street signs or a building number visible, signage with your business name on it, and something only someone running the business could show — opening the register, walking into the kitchen, the tools of the trade.³ Filming it feels odd. It takes ten minutes.

After you submit, verification reviews take up to five business days, and Google says some take longer.² If your video is rejected, Google tells you what was missing and you can record a new one.³

Step 4: Fill the whole profile in

A verified profile that’s half empty is a quiet one. Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local search results.⁵ So work through it:

• Hours, including the days that differ. Wrong hours produce angry reviews faster than anything else on this list.
• Phone and website. If the website field points at a page you don’t recognize, fix it the same day. It’s the first thing a customer taps.
• Photos: the front of the business, the inside, and the work itself. Real phone photos beat stock photos, always.
• Services, with short plain descriptions of each.
• The business description, in the words you’d use across the counter. No keyword soup.

None of this costs money, and none of it needs a developer.

Step 5: Reviews

Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking, and that replying to reviews shows you value feedback.⁵ So ask. After a good job, send the customer your review link with a short, honest request, while the job is still fresh. A text an hour after service works better than a sign on the counter.

Two habits to avoid: don’t offer anything in exchange for a review, and don’t ask people who never actually used the business. Ask real customers, let them write what they actually think, and reply to the good ones and the bad ones alike. A thoughtful reply to a two-star review tells the next hundred readers more than fifty five-star reviews do.

The mistakes we see

• A second profile created because the first was suspended or lost. Now there are two problems instead of one.⁴
• A keyword-stuffed business name. It risks suspension and it reads badly to the customers who do find you.⁴
• A profile set up in someone else’s account — a former employee, an agency, a nephew. Ownership moves are slower than starting right.⁷
• Verification panic. Waiting five business days feels long; it’s normal.²
• Filling it in once and never again. Seasonal hours, a new phone number, a change of hours — stale information is how good profiles go quiet.

What a profile isn’t

A profile is a listing, not a website. Google designs the page, decides what fits and shows your business beside every competitor on the same street. There’s no room for your full price list, your story, or the photo gallery the way you’d arrange it. If you’re weighing that question, read Do I need a website if I have a Google Business Profile?

And if your profile is already in trouble — suspended, stuck in verification, “under review” — the next guide is for you: Google Business Profile suspended, stuck or won’t verify