How to Set Up Your Google Business Profile.

Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows up when someone searches your name or your trade on Google or Maps: the box with your stars, photos, hours, and phone number. For most local businesses it brings more calls than the website does. It costs nothing, and most of your competitors set theirs up half way and never touched it again, which is your opening.

01 Claim or create it

1. Go to business.google.com and sign in with the Google account you want to own the listing. Use a business account you control, not an employee's personal Gmail. Whoever owns this account owns your listing.
2. Search for your business name. If Google already knows about you, claim the existing listing. If not, create it.
3. Pick your business type: storefront (people visit you), service area (you go to them), or both. Service businesses can hide their street address and show a service area instead.

02 Verify it

Google has to prove you're real. Depending on the business it will offer video verification (a walkthrough of your shop on your phone), a phone call, or a postcard mailed to your address with a code. Do it the day it's offered. An unverified listing is invisible.

03 Fill in every field like it matters, because it does

• Category: the single most important setting. Pick the most specific one that fits ("Tire shop", not "Store"). Add secondary categories for everything else you do.
• Hours: real ones, including holidays. Nothing kills trust like "Open" on Google and a locked door in person.
• Phone, website, address: exactly matching what's on your site. Google cross-checks.
• Photos: ten or more real ones. The front of the building, the work, the team. Phone photos beat no photos every time.
• Description: two or three plain sentences about what you do and where. Write it for a customer, not a robot.

Q How long until my listing shows up?

Verification usually takes minutes with video, up to two weeks by postcard. Once verified, the listing can appear within days, and it strengthens over weeks as reviews and photos accumulate.

Q Does it cost anything?

No. The listing is completely free. Anyone charging you a monthly fee just to exist on Google Maps is selling you your own property.

Q What if my business already shows up but I never made it?

Google auto-creates listings from public data. Claim it at business.google.com; the claim flow will find it and walk you through proving it's yours.