Key takeaways
- Google Search was the starting point for 52% of local searches in BrightLocal's 2026 study, so your profile is often the first thing a customer sees.
- The biggest wins are the right primary category, complete services, accurate hours, real photos, and a steady flow of reviews.
- A profile is free. Google doesn't charge for a listing.
- Check your profile monthly. Google can apply changes suggested by other people.
For many local businesses, the Google Business Profile gets seen more often than the website. In BrightLocal's 2026 study, 52% of consumers started their most recent local search on Google Search and another 9% on Google Maps. Here are fifteen things to check. Most take minutes.
Ownership and basics
- Claim and verify the profile. Search your business name on Google. If the listing isn't claimed, claim it. Make sure the owner account belongs to you, not a former employee or an old agency.
- Use your real business name. Adding keywords or city names that aren't part of your actual name is against Google's guidelines.
- Pick the right primary category. It's the strongest signal you control. Look at which categories the businesses outranking you use, and choose the one that best describes your main service.
- Add secondary categories. Only for services you really offer.
- Set your address or service area correctly. If customers don't visit you, hide the address and list the areas you serve.
- Fix your hours, including holidays. Wrong hours cost trust faster than anything else.
- Check the phone number and website link. Call the number and click the link yourself.
Content
- List every service, with a description. This is how you match specific searches, such as "water heater repair" instead of just "plumber," or "gel manicure" instead of just "nail salon."
- Write the business description. Say what you do, where, and what makes you a safe choice. No slogans.
- Add real photos. Your work, your team, your storefront or vehicles. An older BrightLocal study of 45,000 listings found that businesses with more than 100 images got 520% more calls than average. That's a correlation from 2019, not a promise, but the direction is clear.
- Add products or a menu, if they apply.
- Post regularly. Offers, updates, recent jobs. An active profile reads as an active business.
Trust
- Get your review link and use it. Your profile gives you a link that opens the review box directly. Our guide on asking for reviews has templates.
- Reply to every review. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey, 89% of consumers expect owners to respond.
- Check for changes monthly. Google accepts suggested edits from the public and from other data sources. Look over your hours, phone number, and categories once a month.
How Google ranks local results
Google says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance, and prominence. You can't change how far you are from the person searching. You can make the profile more relevant by completing it, and more prominent by earning reviews and mentions elsewhere on the web. Beyond that, Google doesn't publish the details, so be skeptical of anyone claiming a secret.
Two warnings
- A profile is free. Be careful with calls that claim to be from Google and ask for payment to keep your listing.
- Don't fake it. Fake reviews, fake addresses, and keyword-stuffed names put a profile at risk.
Sources
- BrightLocal, Consumer Search Behavior 2026 (1,227 US consumers)
- BrightLocal, Google My Business Insights Study 2019 (45,264 listings)
- BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026
