How to get your business on Google Maps

Why it matters

When someone searches for a trade plus a town, such as "electrician Poole", Google usually shows a map with a handful of local businesses before the normal results. Those listings come from Google Business Profiles. For most local businesses, this is the single most valuable free listing there is.

Step 1: Check whether you already have a profile

Search Google for your business name and town. Google sometimes creates listings automatically, and a past employee or web designer may have set one up. If a listing exists, use the option to claim or manage it rather than creating a duplicate. Duplicates confuse Google and customers.

Step 2: Create your profile

Go to Google Business Profile (search "Google Business Profile" and use Google's own site) and sign in with a Google account. Use an account that you control and will keep, ideally one tied to your business email rather than a designer's or employee's. You'll be asked for:

• Your business name, exactly as you trade, with no extra keywords or town names added
• Your main category
• Whether customers visit you, or you visit them
• Your phone number and website

Step 3: Verify that you own the business

Google needs to confirm you're genuine before your profile goes fully live. Depending on your business, it may offer different methods, such as a video showing your business, a phone or email code, or a postcard. Follow the options Google gives you. If you're asked to record a video, have your branded van, tools, signage or paperwork ready to show. Verification can take a few days, so don't change your details while you wait.

Step 4: Choose the right categories

Your primary category is one of the strongest signals for which searches you appear in. Pick the one that best describes your main business, such as "Plumber", "Electrician" or "Builder". You can add secondary categories for other services you genuinely offer. Don't add categories just to appear in more searches; it can make your profile less relevant.

Step 5: Set your service areas or address

If customers come to your premises, show your address. If you travel to customers, as most tradespeople do, set up as a service-area business: hide your address and list the towns or areas you cover. Keep the list realistic, focused on where you actually work.

Step 6: Fill in everything else

• Opening hours, including any emergency or out-of-hours availability, and special hours for bank holidays
• Services, listing each type of job you do
• Business description, a plain explanation of what you do and where, without hype
• Website link, pointing to your homepage or the most relevant page

Step 7: Add real photos

Add your logo, a cover photo, and real photos of your work, your van and your team. Real photos help customers choose you. Avoid stock images. Add new photos every so often, such as recent jobs, so the profile looks active.

Step 8: Get reviews, and reply to them

Reviews matter to customers and to your visibility. Ask every happy customer, and make it easy by sending your review link by text or email straight after the job. Reply to every review, good and bad, politely and briefly. Don't buy reviews, offer rewards for them, or write your own; it breaks Google's rules and can get reviews removed or your profile restricted.

Step 9: Post updates

Google lets you add posts to your profile: recent projects, seasonal offers or news. They're quick to do from your phone. A post every week or two shows customers you're active and gives you a reason to keep adding fresh photos.

Step 10: Keep your name, address and phone consistent

Your business name, address and phone number should be exactly the same on your Google profile, your website, Facebook, Checkatrade or similar directories, and anywhere else you're listed. Small differences, like an old phone number or a different spelling, make it harder for Google to be confident the listings are all you. When something changes, update it everywhere.

Common mistakes

• Stuffing keywords or town names into your business name
• Letting a web designer or agency own the profile instead of you
• Using a virtual office address where you don't actually work
• Setting it up once and never touching it again
• Ignoring negative reviews instead of replying calmly

How a website helps your Maps listing

Your Google profile and your website work together. Clear pages on your website for each service and area give Google more confidence about what you do and where. If you're weighing that up, read do I need a website if I have a Facebook page? The same consistent details also help AI assistants, covered in our guide to getting recommended by ChatGPT.

We set up and manage Google Business Profiles in the client's own name as part of our website packages, for trades such as plumbers, electricians, builders and cleaners.