How to Set Up a Google Business Profile (UK Small Business Guide)

Your Google Business Profile is the panel that appears on the right of Google when someone searches your business name, and the listing that puts you in the map pack — the three businesses shown above the normal results for searches like "plumber near me" or "accountant in Croydon". It's free, it takes an afternoon to set up properly, and for most local UK businesses it produces more enquiries per hour invested than anything else you can do online.

It's also the thing most competitors do badly: half-filled profiles, wrong categories, no photos since 2019. Here's how to do it properly.

Before you start: what you need

Gather these first and the whole thing takes one sitting rather than three:

• —A Google account you actually control — use a business email, not a personal one you might lose access to
• —Your exact business name as customers know it, and as it appears on your signage
• —Your address, or your service area if you visit customers rather than the other way round
• —A phone number that gets answered, and your website URL
• —Your real opening hours, including bank holidays
• —At least ten decent photos — premises, team, work you've done, and your logo

Step 1: create or claim the profile

Go to google.com/business and search for your business name and postcode first. Google may already have created a listing from directory data — if so, claim it rather than creating a duplicate. Duplicates split your reviews and confuse the ranking algorithm, and merging them later is a slow support ticket.

If nothing exists, create a new profile. If a listing exists but someone else has claimed it — a former agency, a previous owner — you can request ownership through Google's transfer process. Expect that to take a few days.

Step 2: choose your categories carefully

This is the highest-leverage decision in the whole setup, and the one most people rush. Your primary category has more influence on which searches you appear for than almost anything else on the profile.

Be specific. "Plumber" beats "Contractor". "Employment agency" beats "Business services". Then add secondary categories for genuine additional services — but only real ones. Stuffing in loosely-related categories dilutes your relevance rather than widening your reach. A useful sanity check: search your main keyword, click the top three map results, and see which categories they've chosen.

Step 3: verify (and expect a wait)

Google needs to confirm the business is real. UK businesses are usually verified by video — you record a short walkthrough showing your premises, signage, equipment and some proof you manage the business, such as a utility bill or your business bank card. Phone, email and postcard verification also still appear for some account types.

Video verification trips people up. Do it in one continuous unedited take, in daylight, showing the outside of the building and street signage before you go in. If it's rejected, you can retry — but each round costs days, so it's worth doing carefully the first time.

You can fill in the rest of the profile while verification is pending. Nothing goes live until it's approved.

Step 4: fill in absolutely everything

Google rewards completeness, and every empty field is a question a customer has to go elsewhere to answer. Work through the lot:

• —Description: 750 characters covering what you do, who for, and where — written for humans, not stuffed with keywords
• —Services or products, each with its own short description
• —Opening hours, plus special hours for bank holidays — wrong hours generate one-star reviews
• —Attributes: wheelchair access, free parking, women-led, appointment required, whichever apply
• —Opening date, so the profile shows how long you've been established
• —Booking or appointment links if you use an online booking system
• —Messaging, if — and only if — someone will actually reply within a few hours

Step 5: photos, and keep adding them

Profiles with photos get materially more clicks and direction requests than those without. Upload at least ten to start: your logo, a cover photo, the exterior with signage visible, the interior, your team, and examples of your work. Real photos beat stock every time — customers can tell, and so, increasingly, can Google.

The part everyone skips is the ongoing bit. Add a few photos every month. A profile that's actively maintained outranks an identical one that was set up two years ago and abandoned.

Step 6: reviews are the ranking engine

After categories and proximity, reviews do more to determine map pack position than anything else — and unlike the other two, you can influence them directly. What matters is volume, recency and whether you reply.

Build a simple habit rather than a campaign: ask every satisfied customer at the moment the job is done, send them the short review link Google generates for you, and reply to every review you receive — the good ones briefly, the bad ones calmly and factually. A measured reply to a one-star review reassures the next reader far more than the review itself alarms them.

Two rules worth taking seriously. Never buy reviews; Google detects and removes them, and can suspend the profile. And never offer a discount in exchange for one — it breaches Google's policy and it's illegal under UK consumer protection rules if the review isn't disclosed as incentivised.

The mistakes that cost people rankings

In roughly the order we see them:

• —Inconsistent name, address and phone number between the profile, the website and directories — pick one exact format and use it everywhere
• —Keyword-stuffing the business name ("Dave's Plumbing London Emergency Plumber 24/7") — it's against policy and gets profiles suspended
• —Setting up and never touching it again — dormant profiles slide down
• —Duplicate listings splitting reviews between two versions of the same business
• —A service-area business publishing a home address instead of hiding it and setting a service radius
• —Ignoring the Q&A section, where anyone can post — including competitors. Seed it with your own real FAQs and answer them

What to do after it's live

Fifteen minutes a month keeps it working: post an update or offer, add two or three photos, reply to new reviews, and check the insights to see what people searched to find you. Those search terms are free keyword research — they tell you exactly what your customers type, which is the best possible starting point for your website's content.

That's also where the profile stops being a standalone job. The map pack rewards businesses whose website backs up the profile: matching details, a page for each service you list, local content, and LocalBusiness structured data so Google can read your details unambiguously. Profile and website pull in the same direction or neither performs.

When to get help

Most UK small businesses can do this themselves, and should — nobody knows your business better. Getting help makes sense in a few specific situations: your profile has been suspended and you need it reinstated, you're managing profiles for multiple locations, you've inherited duplicate or hijacked listings, or you've done everything above and still aren't appearing in the map pack for searches you should be winning.

That last one is usually a website problem rather than a profile problem. If you'd like us to look at both together, tell us what you're trying to rank for and we'll tell you honestly what's holding you back — whether or not you end up working with us.