How to set up your Google Business Profile, step by step.

1. Check that your business qualifies

Google gives profiles to businesses that make in-person contact with customers during their stated hours. Either customers come to you, or you go to them.

• A storefront, like a cafe or a clinic, shows its address.
• A service-area business, like a plumber or a cleaner who goes to customers, hides its address and lists the areas it serves. Google allows one profile for it.
• A hybrid business, like a restaurant that also delivers, can show both, as long as the location is staffed and receives customers during its hours.

Not eligible: online-only businesses, rental or for-sale properties, and a mailing address you do not operate from, which Google calls a virtual office. P.O. boxes do not count as an address. A co-working space counts only if your office there has signage, receives customers and is staffed during your hours.

2. Create the profile

Sign in with a Google Account. If you are making a new one, Google suggests signing up with your business email domain. Then go to business.google.com/create, or find your business on Google Maps and claim it if a listing already exists.

• Enter your business name exactly as it appears in the real world: on your sign, your website and your invoices.
• Choose your main category.
• Say whether customers can visit you. If yes, add your address. If not, add your service areas.
• Add your phone number and website.
• Finish, then choose a verification option.

If someone else has already verified your business, Google lets you request ownership of the profile.

3. Get verified

Google decides which verification methods you are offered, based on your business type, public information, region and hours, and they cannot be changed. The options include a phone call or text, email, a live video call, a recorded video and a postcard by mail. If video is offered, Google recommends it.

• Video recording: one continuous, unedited clip of at least 30 seconds, recorded live from your phone through the profile. Show where you are, like street signs and nearby businesses, then your sign or your equipment, then proof you run the business, like unlocking the door or a branded vehicle. Keep other people's faces and private numbers out of the shot. A service-area business run from home can film landmarks and signs in its neighbourhood.
• Live video call: only during your business hours, showing the same things.
• Postcard: a 5-digit code. Google says most codes arrive within 14 days and expire after 30 days. Do not edit your name, address or category, or ask for a new code, while you wait.
• Phone or text: the code goes to your business number. If your line answers with a recorded menu, the code will not get through.

Google says verification reviews take up to 5 business days. If your website is already verified in Google Search Console, the profile may be verified instantly. Until it is verified, customers cannot find the profile on Google.

4. Fill in every section

A complete profile gives Google and customers more to go on. Work through each part.

• Categories: one primary and up to 9 more. Google asks you to pick what your business is, not what it has, and says categories affect your local ranking.
• Hours: your regular hours, plus special hours for holidays. Closed 7 or more days in a row? Mark the business temporarily closed instead. If you work only by appointment, Google says not to list hours.
• Description: up to 750 characters, with no links. Focus on the business itself, not promotions or prices: what you do, for whom and where.
• Services and products: what you offer, in the words customers use.
• Photos: JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB, at least 250 by 250 pixels, and Google recommends 720 by 720. Use your own photos of the place, the team and the work.
• Website and booking links: your full website address, starting with https://, plus links for appointments, menus or ordering where your category offers them.
• Attributes: yes or no facts about your business, like women-owned or Indigenous-owned, where they apply.

Google reviews edits: usually within 10 minutes, but it says it can take up to 30 days. Changing your name, address or categories can send the profile back through verification.

5. Ask for reviews the right way

In the profile, choose Read reviews, then Get more reviews, to copy a review link or make a QR code. Google says review QR codes can only be made on a computer browser for now. Send the link after a job, or put the code at the counter.

• Do not offer anything in exchange for a review. Google prohibits incentives, including discounts.
• Do not ask only your happiest customers, and do not ask for specific wording. Google's policy covers both.
• Reply to reviews, good and bad, once you are verified. Replies show under your business name.

6. Keep it current

Update holiday hours before each holiday, add new photos now and then, and post updates or offers when you have news. Google archives posts older than 6 months unless they have a date range. Check the profile whenever your phone number, hours or address change.