Looking after your Google Business Profile.

How Google chooses

Google itself names three criteria for local results: relevance, meaning how well a profile matches the search, distance from the searcher and prominence, which draws on reviews, links and your own website, among other things. You cannot influence distance. The other two you can.

Five things that make a good profile

1. The right primary category. It has the strongest say in which searches the profile appears for. Choose the category that describes your core business most precisely, and add others only if they really apply.

2. Services in your customers' words. Enter what you actually offer. “Made-to-measure oak staircases” is found more easily than “individual solutions”.

3. Real photos. Workshop, team, vehicles, finished work. A profile with current pictures looks lived in, one without pictures looks abandoned.

4. Reviews and replies. Actively ask satisfied customers for a review, ideally right after a job is finished. And reply, to criticism as well: factual, short, with your name.

5. The right link. Do not point to the home page by default if there is a page that describes exactly the service being searched for.

Why your company details must match everywhere

Name, address and phone number should match in the profile, on the website, in the legal notice and in business directories. Old addresses, second phone numbers or a different company name raise doubts about whether it is the same business.

The same goes for AI assistants. They, too, prefer to name businesses whose details are confirmed in several places. More on this in Get found in ChatGPT.

What to do regularly

A profile is not an entry you create once. Update opening hours for public holidays and company closures, add new photos after finished projects, reply to reviews. A quarter of an hour a month is usually enough.

And check from time to time what others have changed: users can suggest edits to a profile, and Google sometimes applies them without asking.