If customers can visit you — a store, café, studio, experience centre, or pickup point — your Google Business Profile is often the first version of your brand they see. It shows up in Maps and in the local results above normal search listings, and it’s free. Most profiles we audit are half-finished.
Work through this list once, then keep the last section going every week.
1. Ownership and basics
- Claim and verify the profile from a business Google account you control — not a freelancer’s or an employee’s personal account.
- Use your real-world business name, exactly. Adding keywords or locations to the name (“Lumina Home — Best Ceramics Store Bangalore”) breaks Google’s guidelines and can get the profile suspended.
- Place the map pin precisely and match the address format to what’s on your signage and website.
- Remove duplicates. Old or duplicate listings for the same location split your reviews and confuse Google.
2. Categories
- Primary category: the most specific one that describes your business as a whole. It has the biggest influence on which searches you appear for.
- Secondary categories: add only those that genuinely apply. Check which categories the profiles outranking you use.
3. Every field that applies
- Regular hours, plus special hours for festivals and holidays — Diwali closures are a classic miss
- A phone number customers can reach, ideally one that’s also on WhatsApp
- Your website link, with UTM tags so visits show up separately in analytics
- Products and services, with prices where you’re comfortable sharing them
- Attributes such as accessibility, payment options, and delivery or pickup
- A business description written for customers, not stuffed with keywords
4. Photos that sell the visit
Add exterior shots (so people recognise the place), interior shots, products, and the team. Upload new photos regularly — fresh, real photos do more than a single professional shoot from three years ago.
5. Reviews — the part that compounds
- Ask every happy customer. A short link or QR code at the counter, on the invoice, or in the delivery WhatsApp message makes it easy.
- Reply to every review, good and bad, within a few days. A calm, specific reply to a bad review often persuades the next reader more than five-star ones.
- Never pay for or incentivise reviews, and don’t only ask customers you expect to be happy. Both are against Google’s policies.
6. Consistency across the web
Your business name, address, and phone number should match exactly on your website, social profiles, and any directories you’re listed in. Add LocalBusiness structured data to your website’s contact page so search engines can connect the dots.
7. Keep it alive
Once the profile is complete, a light weekly routine keeps it competitive:
- Post offers, new arrivals, and events
- Reply to new reviews
- Upload a few new photos
- Check that nobody has suggested edits to your hours or address
What to watch
The profile’s performance view shows how people found you and what they did next: searches, views, calls, direction requests, and website clicks. Track them monthly — direction requests and calls are the numbers that turn into footfall.
Profile setup, reviews, posts, and local SEO for your website are part of our SEO & local search service, and the full process is written out in the local search overhaul playbook.