The complete setup walkthrough — creating or claiming your listing, getting verified, and filling in every field correctly.
Specifications verified August 2026.
If you do only one thing from the complete setup guide, do this one. Your Google Business Profile is what appears when someone searches your business name or "[your service] near me." It drives the map results, the knowledge panel on the right side of the search results, and an increasing share of what AI assistants say about you.
It is also free and takes about an hour of work, plus a waiting period for verification.
Start this before anything else. Verification can take anywhere from a few minutes to several weeks, and everything else on your list can be completed while you wait.
Before you start
Have these ready:
- Your business email address on your own domain
- Your exact business name — the one you'll use on every platform
- Your address, formatted exactly as USPS formats it
- A phone number that a person actually answers
- Your website URL
- Business hours, including any seasonal variation
- Your logo at 1080 × 1080 px and a cover photo at 1024 × 576 px
One decision to make now: do customers come to your address, or do you go to them?
If customers visit you, you have a storefront listing and your address displays publicly. If you travel to customers — a contractor, a mobile service, a consultant working from home — you have a service area business, and you can hide your address while still specifying the areas you serve. Choose correctly during setup, because changing it later can trigger re-verification.
Step 1: Check whether you already have a listing
Do not skip this. Google creates business listings from third-party data, and yours may already exist with information you never supplied.
Search your business name and city on Google Maps. Look for:
- An existing listing with your name
- Listings at your address under an old business name
- Duplicate listings from a previous location or a former owner
If a listing exists, you are claiming it, not creating a new one. Creating a duplicate is the single most common setup mistake and it splits your visibility between two records that each rank worse than one complete record would.
If you find duplicates that both belong to you, claim both, then request that Google merge or remove the redundant one.
Step 2: Create or claim the listing
Go to Google Business Profile and sign in with your business Google account — not a personal one.
Search for your business name. If it appears, select it and follow the prompts to claim it. If it doesn't, choose the option to add your business.
If someone else has already claimed your listing, Google will tell you and offer to request access. The current owner has seven days to respond. If they don't, you can proceed with claiming it. This happens most often when a former employee or a previous marketing vendor set it up — which is exactly why Step 0 of the main guide exists.
Step 3: Choose your categories carefully
Your primary category is one of the strongest ranking factors on the entire profile. It tells Google what kind of business you are, and it determines which searches you're eligible to appear in.
Choose the single most accurate description of your core business, not the broadest one. "Estate Planning Attorney" will outperform "Lawyer" for the people actually looking for estate planning. "Italian Restaurant" beats "Restaurant."
You can add up to nine additional categories. Add ones that genuinely describe services you provide. Do not pad the list with categories you hope to rank for — irrelevant categories can dilute your relevance and, in some cases, trigger a review.
Categories are chosen from Google's fixed list. You cannot invent one. If the exact term you want doesn't exist, pick the closest genuine match rather than a broader parent.
Step 4: Get verified
Verification proves you actually represent the business. Google chooses which methods to offer based on your business type, category, and location — you usually cannot pick.
Video verification is now the most common. You record a continuous, unedited video showing your location, your equipment or signage, and evidence of management access — a key, a register, a back office. Read the on-screen requirements before recording; a video missing one required element gets rejected, and you start over.
Phone or text verification instantly delivers a code. Fastest when offered.
Email verification, when offered, is similarly quick.
Postcard verification mails a code to your address, typically arriving in about five to fourteen days. Do not edit your business name, address, or category while waiting — it cancels the request.
If verification fails
It happens, and it is rarely permanent. Common causes:
- Address doesn't match what USPS has on file
- Business name includes keywords not on your signage
- A service-area business listed a residential address as a storefront
- Video didn't show all required elements
Fix the specific issue and request verification again. If you're repeatedly rejected without explanation, Google Business Profile support can review the case.
Step 5: Write your business description
You get 750 characters. Google displays roughly the first 250 before a "More" link.
That means the first 250 characters carry the entire weight. Write them so the description would still work if everything after vanished — because for most readers, it does.
What Google prohibits
- URLs or HTML
- Prices, discounts, or sales language
- Misleading or unverifiable claims
- Profanity
Promotional content belongs in posts, not here. Violations can get the profile suspended.
A structure that works
First 250 characters: what you do, who you serve, where, and the one thing that distinguishes you.
Remaining 500: specific services, years in operation, service areas, credentials, and any genuine differentiator.
Example
First 250: Family-owned HVAC contractor serving Charleston, Mount Pleasant, and Summerville since 1998. We handle repair, replacement, and maintenance for residential systems, with same-day service on no-heat and no-cool calls.
Remaining: Our technicians are NATE-certified and carry parts for all major residential brands. We offer free replacement estimates, maintenance plans, and financing on new system installations. Every job is backed by a written warranty on parts and labor.
Note what it does not do: no keyword stuffing, no "we're passionate about excellence," no prices.
Step 6: Complete every remaining field
Completeness matters more than most businesses realize. Your logo, for example, only displays once the profile has complete basic information.
Hours. Include holiday and seasonal hours. Wrong hours generate one-star reviews from people who drove to a closed business.
Services or products. List them individually rather than describing them in a block. Each gets a name and an optional description up to 1,000 characters. This populates a browsable section on your profile.
Attributes. Wheelchair accessible, free parking, appointment required, women-owned, veteran-owned. These appear as filters in Maps searches, so they affect discoverability, not just presentation.
Opening date. Establishes longevity.
Appointment or booking link. If you use scheduling software, connect it.
Messaging. Only enable this if someone will actually respond. Google displays your response rate.
Step 7: Add photos
| Asset | Specification |
|---|---|
| Logo | 720 × 720, 1:1, minimum 250 × 250 |
| Cover photo | 1024 × 576, 16:9 |
| Additional photos | 720 × 720 or larger |
| Post image | 1200 × 900, 4:3 |
| Format | JPG or PNG |
| File size | 10 KB to 5 MB |
| Video | Under 30 seconds, under 75 MB, 720p minimum |
Upload a real photo, not just a logo. Storefronts, interiors, team photos, and completed work all outperform a logo on a colored background.
Your cover photo is a preference, not a guarantee. Google may display a user-submitted photo or a Street View image instead if it judges that more relevant. A strong, clearly relevant cover photo improves the odds your choice is honored.
Don't add text, borders, or heavy filters. Google's photo guidelines call for accurate, unedited representations, and over-processed images get rejected.
Keep the important content centered. Search and Maps crop the outer edges at various sizes.
Aim for a genuine set — exterior, interior, team, and work — rather than one image. Profiles with photo coverage get meaningfully more engagement than profiles with one or two.
Step 8: Set up posts
Posts appear in the Updates section of your profile in Search and Maps.
| Field | Hard limit | Visible |
|---|---|---|
| Post body | 1,500 | ~250–300 |
| Offer or event title | 58 | 58 |
Posts remain visible roughly six months but get pushed down as you add new ones. Each supports a call-to-action button: Book, Order Online, Learn More, Sign Up, Call Now, or Get Offer.
The available post types are What's New, Offer, and Event. Standalone Product posts moved into the Products section, and COVID posts are gone.
The practical advice: the first 100 characters are the preview. Anything essential — the date, the offer, the price — goes there.
Step 9: Handle reviews
You can ask for Google reviews. This distinguishes Google from Yelp, which prohibits solicitation. Google permits and encourages requesting reviews, as long as you don't incentivize them.
What is not permitted: paying for reviews, offering discounts in exchange, review gating (asking happy customers publicly and unhappy ones privately), or writing reviews of your own business.
Respond to everything, positive and negative. Responses are public and prospective customers read them. A calm, specific, non-defensive reply to a bad review does more good than ten five-star reviews.
If you are in a regulated profession, stop here and check your rules. Attorneys are subject to state bar advertising rules on testimonials. Investment advisers are subject to the SEC Marketing Rule. Medical and dental practices must consider HIPAA before any response that acknowledges someone is a patient — including thanking them.
What gets a profile suspended
Suspension removes your listing from search entirely, and reinstatement takes weeks. The frequent causes:
- Keywords in the business name. Your name field must match your real-world name and signage. "Smith Plumbing — Emergency Plumber Charleston SC" will get flagged.
- A virtual office or mailbox as your address. Google requires a real staffed location or a properly configured service-area setup.
- Multiple listings at one address for the same business.
- A residential address displayed publicly for a service-area business.
- Prohibited content in the description — prices, promotions, links.
- Category manipulation — categories unrelated to what you actually do.
If you are suspended, do not create a new listing. That compounds the problem. Fix the underlying issue and file a reinstatement request.
Maintenance
Google Business Profile is not set-and-forget:
- Monthly: respond to reviews and questions, post at least once
- Quarterly: verify hours, phone, and address are still accurate; add photos
- Annually: re-examine categories and description
- Immediately: update holiday hours before each holiday, and any change of address, phone, or hours
Watch for Google-suggested edits. Users and automated systems can propose changes to your listing, and some go live without your approval. Check your profile periodically to confirm nothing has been altered.
Next steps
Once your Google Business Profile is verified and complete, the fastest next win is Bing Places — it imports directly from Google, takes about twenty minutes, and feeds Microsoft Copilot.
Then work down Tier 1: Apple Business Connect, LinkedIn, Facebook, BBB, and Yelp.
Full checklist and specifications: the complete setup guide.
Specifications verified August 2026 against Google Business Profile documentation and current published sources. Google changes requirements without notice — confirm against the Google Business Profile Help Center when a specification is business-critical.