Google Business Profile in 2026: a practical optimisation checklist
The free listing that decides whether you appear in the map pack. Here’s what genuinely moves the needle, and what’s a waste of time.
For any business that serves customers in a particular area, the Google Business Profile is often the most valuable listing you have. It decides whether you appear in the local “map pack”, it shapes the panel people see when they search your name, and it feeds the information Google’s AI features draw on. It’s also free, which makes it surprising how many profiles are left half-finished.
Google says local results are based on three things: relevance (how well your profile matches the search), distance (how far you are from the searcher or the location in the query) and prominence (how well known and well regarded you are). You can’t move your premises, but you can influence relevance and prominence a great deal. Here’s the checklist we work through.
1. Get the foundations exactly right
- Business name: use your real-world name, exactly as it appears on your signage and website. Adding keywords to the name breaks Google’s guidelines and risks suspension.
- Primary category: choose the most specific category that describes your core business. This single choice has an outsized effect on which searches you appear for.
- Secondary categories: add the others that genuinely apply, and no more.
- Address or service area: if customers don’t visit your premises, hide the address and set the areas you serve instead. Service-area businesses that display a home address can run into problems.
- Name, address and phone consistency: make sure these match your website and your listings on other directories, character for character.
2. Describe what you do, fully
- Business description: you have up to 750 characters. Use them to explain what you do, who for and where, in natural language. Write for people, not for algorithms.
- Services and products: list each service individually with a short description. These add relevance for more specific searches.
- Attributes and hours: fill in every attribute that applies, keep opening hours accurate and add special hours for bank holidays.
- Website link: point it at the most relevant page. For multi-location businesses, that’s the specific location page, not the home page.
3. Build prominence with reviews
Reviews influence both rankings and whether people choose you once they’ve found you. The approach that works is simple and consistent:
- Ask every happy customer, at the moment they’re happiest, with a direct link that makes leaving a review effortless.
- Reply to every review, good or bad, promptly and professionally. Prospective customers read the replies as closely as the reviews.
- Never buy reviews, offer incentives or filter requests so only happy customers are asked. It breaks Google’s policies, and in the UK the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 explicitly bans fake reviews and concealed incentivised reviews.
4. Show you’re active
- Photos: upload real photos of your premises, team and work regularly. Stock images add little.
- Posts: share updates, offers and events. They keep the profile fresh and give searchers a reason to click.
- Verification: Google increasingly asks for video verification. Keep a quick walk-through of your premises, signage and tools of the trade in mind before you start.
5. Connect it to your website
Your profile and your website reinforce each other. Your site should repeat the same name, address and phone number, include LocalBusiness structured data, and have pages that clearly match the services listed on your profile. If you serve several towns or regions, well-written, genuinely useful location pages help Google connect you with those areas.
6. Measure what matters
Add UTM tracking parameters to your website link so visits from your profile show up separately in analytics. Combine that with the profile’s own performance data and Google Search Console, and you can see which searches find you, how many people call or ask for directions, and which actions lead to enquiries.
The short version
Get the basics exactly right, describe your business fully, earn reviews honestly, stay active and connect everything back to a fast, well-structured website. None of it is complicated, but it rewards consistency more than cleverness.
If you’d rather hand it over, our SEO and Google Business Profile service covers setup, optimisation and monthly reporting.
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