The Google Business Profile checklist most small businesses never finish

Your Google Business Profile is the box on the right when someone searches your business name, and the pins on the map when they search your trade. It's free, it's the single most-viewed page about your business, and in most audits we run it's half finished. Here's the full list.

The basics (do these first)

1. Claim and verify it. If you've never logged in, someone else may have. Search your business name, click "Own this business?" and follow the steps.
2. Exact business name. As it appears on your signage and invoices. No keywords stuffed in ("Taylor Plumbing Joondalup Emergency 24/7" gets profiles suspended).
3. Primary category. Pick the one that describes your core business. Add secondary categories for everything else you do.
4. Service areas. List the suburbs you actually travel to. This is what puts you on the map for "near me" searches outside your own suburb.
5. Hours, including public holidays. Set special hours for the next year while you're there. A profile showing "open" on Christmas Day looks abandoned.
6. Phone number and website. The number someone will answer. The website page that matches what the profile is about.

The parts that do the selling

7. Services, with descriptions and prices. Google has a services section most owners skip. Fill it in for every service. Add "from" prices where you can.
8. A description that says who you're for. 750 characters. Trade, areas, what makes you different, how to book. Write it for a person, not a search engine.
9. Photos from this year. Your team, your van, finished jobs, the shopfront. Ten to twenty is plenty. Date matters more than quality.
10. Logo and cover photo. The two images that appear everywhere. Make sure they're not the default grey placeholder.
11. Attributes. Women-owned, wheelchair accessible, free quotes, and so on. Tick what's true.

The parts that keep it alive

12. Ask for reviews, every job. A link in your invoice email or a card at the door. Aim for one a week. Ask people to mention the job and the suburb.
13. Reply to every review. Two sentences, within a week. Including the bad ones, calmly.
14. Post something fortnightly. A finished job, a tip, a seasonal reminder. Posts expire; the habit is the point.
15. Answer the Q&A section yourself. Seed it with the five questions you get on the phone and answer them. Otherwise strangers do.

Done properly, this is an afternoon's work and then twenty minutes a fortnight. It is also the thing ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini lean on most when deciding who to recommend locally, because it's the most structured, verifiable record of your business on the web.