Google Business Profile Setup Checklist
Your Google Business Profile is often the first thing customers see. This checklist covers what to get right.
Before you start: are you eligible?
Google Business Profiles are for businesses that meet customers in person during their stated hours, either at a location or by traveling to the customer (a service-area business). Online-only businesses aren't eligible.
The checklist
- Business name exactly as customers see it on your sign, website and receipts. Don't add extra keywords or city names; that breaks Google's rules and can get the profile suspended.
- The most specific primary category you can find (for example "Hair salon", not "Beauty salon"). Add a few secondary categories only if they truly apply.
- Address or service area. If customers don't come to you, hide the address and list the cities you serve instead.
- Hours, including holiday hours. Wrong hours frustrate customers and lead to bad reviews.
- Phone and website. Use a number you actually answer, or the main contact you check every day.
- Verification. Google chooses the method (for example a video, a phone or text code, email, or a postcard). Finish it so you can manage the profile and your changes appear on Google.
- Description of up to 750 characters: what you do, who you serve and what makes you different. No links or promotions.
- Photos: your logo, a cover photo, the outside and inside, your team and your work. Real photos beat stock photos.
- Products or services with short descriptions, and prices if you're comfortable sharing them.
- Reviews. Ask every customer for a review, not only the happy ones, and reply to every review politely. Never offer discounts, gifts or anything else in exchange for a review, and never post fake ones.
After it's live
Check the profile once a month. Anyone can suggest edits to a public profile, so make sure your name, hours and phone number haven't been changed.
General information only, not legal or financial advice. Every company and card issuer has its own rules.
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