Step 1: Make sure the profile is yours and verified
Before you edit anything, check three things:
- Ownership. Open your profile, then Business Profile settings > People and access. The Primary owner should be a company Google account, not a former employee or an agency. Agencies get Manager access.
- Verification. Unverified profiles cannot publish edits or reply to reviews, and performance data is only shown for verified profiles. Google offers a method per business (often a video recording). Have your signage, a utility bill and your tools or storefront ready on camera.
- One profile per location. Search Google Maps for your phone number and your old addresses. Duplicates split reviews. Claim them, then ask Google support to merge or remove them.
Step 2: Name, category, address, phone
These four fields decide which searches you can appear in, and they are the fields Google's guidelines are strictest about.
| Field | The rule | Example (fictional) |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Your real-world name, as on your sign. No cities, services or taglines (Google) | "BrightSmile Dental", not "BrightSmile Dental, Best Dentist Austin" |
| Primary category | The most specific one that completes "This business IS a..." | "Pediatric dentist" only if that is what you are; otherwise "Dentist" |
| Additional categories | The fewest that describe your core services | "Cosmetic dentist" if you sell veneers and whitening |
| Address | A real place customers visit. No P.O. boxes or virtual offices | "1200 Example Ave, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78701" |
| Service areas | Up to 20 cities or postal codes, about 2 hours' drive at most, no radius (Google) | "Austin, Round Rock, Cedar Park" |
| Phone | A number that reaches this location | "(512) 555-0142" |
How to pick the primary category: search your main service and city on Google Maps. Click the top 3 results and note the category under each name. If they all use a more specific category than you, test it.
Service-area businesses: if customers do not come to your address, remove the address from the profile and set service areas instead. If you serve people both at your place and at theirs, keep the address and add service areas.
Step 3: Fill the fields most profiles leave empty
Each filled field gives Google more to match and gives customers fewer reasons to call a competitor.
- Description (up to 750 characters): what you do, for whom, where, and what makes you different. No links, no HTML, no prices or promotions (Google). Put the most useful facts first.
- Services: every service you sell, in the words customers search, each with a one-line description.
- Products: your top products with a photo and a link to the matching page.
- Hours and holiday hours: regular hours, plus special hours before every holiday.
- Attributes: accessibility, payment types, amenities. Tick only what is true.
- Website link: your homepage (one location) or the location page (several locations), with UTM tags:
?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp-listing. Keeping source google and medium organic keeps the visits in GA4's Organic Search channel while the campaign separates them. - Booking or menu link: if your category supports it, add it with its own campaign tag (gbp-booking).
Step 4: Photos and posts
Photos. Google's guidance asks for at least 3 photos for most businesses: exterior (so people find the door), interior, and your team or work. Files must be JPG or PNG, 10 KB to 5 MB, and 720 x 720 px is recommended. Photos should be in focus and well lit, without heavy filters or AI edits (Google). Add a few real photos every month.
Posts. You can post updates, offers and events. Posts older than 6 months are archived unless they have a date range (Google). One post every 2 to 4 weeks, with a photo and a tagged button link, is enough to keep the profile current. Google reviews posts first: avoid phone numbers in the text and links to untrusted pages, or the post shows "Not approved".
Step 5: What changed in 2024 to 2026
| Feature | Status | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Questions and answers | Q&A API retired November 3, 2025; Q&A has been disappearing from profiles (Google) | Answer the 10 questions customers ask most on your website and in your description and services |
| Chat | Removed July 31, 2024 (Google) | Make call and booking the main actions |
| Radius service areas | Not accepted | Use cities or postal codes |
| Websites built in Business Profile | Shut down in 2024 | Link your own website |
Advice to "seed your Q&A with keyword-rich questions" is out of date. Put those answers on your own site, where you control them and where AI answers can read them.
Step 6: Reviews
Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking. The rules are short (Google policy):
- Ask every customer, with the same message. Asking only happy customers is banned.
- Never offer a discount, gift or contest entry for a review.
- No reviews from staff, owners or family.
- Reply to every review, short and specific. For negative ones, apologize where fair and take the details offline.
Get your review link from the profile (Ask for reviews), put it in your receipt email and text follow-up, and print the QR code for the counter.
Step 7: Measure it monthly
Open Business Profile > Performance on the 1st of each month and log calls, direction requests, website clicks and bookings. Search your 3 to 5 money searches from different parts of town and note your map position. The hub checklist has a ready Tracking sheet with a UTM builder and a 12-month log.
What SEOmatic does here (and does not)
SEOmatic does not edit your Business Profile: every step above is yours. What it does: it checks the local results for your money searches (who holds the map pack, which directories rank), compares the name, address and phone on your website with what you give it, and drafts fixes to your location pages for you to approve. Connect SEOmatic in your AI assistant: https://seomatic.ai/mcp
How to use this with an AI assistant
Connect SEOmatic at https://seomatic.ai/mcp and ask: "Sign me in with connect_seomatic, then use local_presence with action visibility for 'dentist austin' and 'emergency dentist austin' and tell me my local position for each, then action reviews for my rating and review count." The visibility check uses AI credits; SEOmatic does not edit your Business Profile.