Your Google Business Profile is often one of the first things a potential customer sees when they search for your business, particularly if you’re serving customers in a specific area.
It can show up in Google Search and Maps before someone ever reaches your website, giving them your contact details, opening hours, reviews, photos, services and other information they might need to decide whether to choose you.
But simply having a profile isn’t the same as making good use of it.
Google Business Profile optimisation is really about making sure your profile gives Google accurate information about your business and gives potential customers enough information to take the next step.
Here’s what I’d focus on.
1. Get Your Basic Business Information Right
Start with the simple stuff.
Your business name, address or service area, phone number, website and opening hours should all be accurate.
Don’t add keywords to your business name simply because you want to rank for them. Use the name your business genuinely trades under.
Opening hours are worth checking regularly too, particularly around bank holidays and Christmas. There’s little more frustrating for a customer than Google telling them you’re open when you’re not.
If you change your phone number, move premises or make another significant change to the business, your Google Business Profile should be one of the places you update straight away.
2. Choose the Most Relevant Business Category
Your primary category helps Google understand what type of business you are, so don’t choose one simply because it sounds vaguely related to what you do.
Choose the category that most accurately describes the main thing your business is.
You can add additional categories where they’re genuinely relevant, but adding every remotely related category isn’t necessarily better.
Think about what you’d want someone to understand about the business if they could only see the categories you’d selected.
If they give an accurate picture, you’re probably on the right track.
3. Add the Services You Actually Want Customers to Find
If your Google Business Profile allows you to add services, use them.
This is particularly useful if your business provides several distinct services.
An electrician, for example, might offer EV charger installation, EICRs, rewires and consumer unit replacements. A marketing consultant might offer SEO, Google Ads and marketing strategy.
Don’t just create an enormous list of everything you’ve ever done.
Prioritise the services that genuinely represent the work you offer and the customers you want to attract.
Where Google gives you space to provide more information, write for the potential customer rather than trying to squeeze in as many keywords as possible.
4. Write a Useful Business Description
Your business description is an opportunity to explain clearly what you do, who you help and where you operate.
It doesn’t need to sound impressive.
A potential customer should be able to read it and quickly understand:
- What your business does
- Who you work with
- The main products or services you provide
- Where you operate
Keep it natural and specific.
If your description could be copied onto ten competitors’ profiles without anybody noticing, it probably isn’t telling the customer enough about your business.
5. Add Good, Recent Photos
Photos can make a huge difference to how somebody perceives a business.
What those photos should show depends on what you do.
For a restaurant, that might mean the food and dining space. For a landscaper, completed gardens. For a shop, the premises and products. For a tradesperson, examples of completed work.
Real photographs of your business, team, products or work are generally much more useful to a potential customer than generic stock photography.
You don’t need a professional photoshoot every month either. Aim for clear, genuine images that help someone understand what they can expect from you.
6. Build Up Genuine Customer Reviews
Reviews are one of the first things many people look at when comparing local businesses.
Don’t just focus on the overall star rating.
The number of reviews, how recent they are and what customers actually say can all affect how confident somebody feels about contacting you.
Make asking for reviews part of your normal process rather than suddenly trying to collect twenty because you haven’t had one for six months.
And respond to them.
You don’t need an elaborate response to every review. A genuine acknowledgement shows that there’s an active business behind the profile.
7. Make It Obvious What Someone Should Do Next
Getting found is only useful if people know what to do once they’ve found you.
Look at your profile from a potential customer’s perspective.
Can they easily call you? Is your website linked correctly? Can they find the information they’d need before contacting you? If your business takes bookings or appointments, are the appropriate options available and working?
Then look at the website page you’re sending people to.
If somebody clicks from your Business Profile and lands on a slow, confusing or irrelevant page, optimising the profile itself isn’t going to solve the problem.
If your profile is already receiving plenty of visibility but you’re struggling to turn it into business, I’ve looked at this separately in Why Your Google Business Profile Gets Views but No Enquiries.
8. Keep Your Information Up to Date
Google Business Profile optimisation isn’t something you need to obsess over every day, but it shouldn’t be something you set up once and never look at again either.
Check it periodically.
Have your opening hours changed? Do you offer new services? Are old photos still representative of the business? Is the website link correct? Has anything changed that a customer should know about?
Keeping the core information accurate is more important than constantly looking for another trick to “optimise” the profile.
9. Should You Post to Your Google Business Profile?
Google Business Profile also allows businesses to publish updates, offers and other posts.
They can be useful for keeping information current and giving potential customers another way to see what’s happening in the business.
But I wouldn’t make posting the first thing you worry about if the fundamentals of your profile aren’t right.
And I wouldn’t assume that publishing more posts automatically means higher local rankings.
If you’re deciding whether they’re worth the time, I’ve covered that separately in Do Google Business Profile Posts Actually Work?.
10. Measure What Happens After You Optimise Your Profile
Once you’ve made improvements, give them time and look at what happens.
Google Business Profile performance data can help you understand how people are finding and interacting with your profile.
But don’t judge success purely by whether your views increase.
More visibility is useful when it’s visibility from the right people and contributes to calls, website visits, enquiries or customers.
I’ve explained the different metrics and their limitations in What Google Business Profile Insights Can and Can’t Tell You.
If you’re not sure where the performance information actually lives, you can also read Where to Find Your Google Business Profile Insights and the New Way to See Them in GA4.
What Matters Most When Optimising a Google Business Profile?
You don’t need to find a clever trick.
I’d concentrate on making your profile accurate, relevant and genuinely useful to somebody deciding whether to contact your business.
Make it clear what you do.
Choose the right categories.
Include the services that matter.
Show people what your business and work actually look like.
Build genuine reviews.
Keep the information accurate.
And make the next step easy.
Those basics might not sound particularly exciting, but they’re a much better foundation than constantly changing your profile because you’ve heard about another Google Business Profile “hack”.
Want to Improve Your Local Visibility?
Your Google Business Profile is only one part of how your business appears in local search.
Your website, service pages, location relevance, reviews and wider search visibility all contribute to whether the right people can find you and whether they choose to get in touch.
That’s why my SEO services look at the wider picture rather than treating your Google Business Profile as a standalone marketing channel.
If you’re not sure what’s helping, what’s holding you back or what I’d prioritise next, you can book a free Seed Session.
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