Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is often the first thing a potential customer sees when they search for your business — before they even visit your website. Getting it right is one of the highest-return things you can do for local visibility.
What is a Google Business Profile?
It's the listing that appears on the right side of Google search results and in Google Maps when someone searches for your business or a service you offer. It shows your hours, location, photos, reviews, and contact information.
Why it matters for local businesses
For local service businesses, Google Maps results often get more clicks than the organic website listings below them. If your profile is incomplete, has wrong hours, or has no photos, you're losing customers to competitors who simply filled theirs in properly.
What a well-optimized profile includes
- Accurate business name, address, and phone number
- Correct business category (and secondary categories)
- Updated hours including holidays
- At least 10 quality photos — interior, exterior, team, work
- A complete business description with your main keywords naturally included
- Regular Google Posts (updates, offers, events)
- Responses to all reviews — positive and negative
Reviews are part of SEO
Google uses the number and quality of your reviews as a ranking signal for local search. A business with 80 reviews and a 4.7 rating will almost always outrank a competitor with 8 reviews, even if the competitor's website is technically better optimized.
The best way to get reviews is simply to ask happy customers directly — and make it easy by sharing your direct review link.
How to give us access
See our article on sharing access to your social media and Google accounts — the process for Google Business Profile is covered there.