Put your business on Google Maps

Before you start

• A Google account that will stay with the business, ideally on the business’s own email.
• The business name exactly as it appears on your sign, your website and your invoices, with nothing added.
• The address you work from, with a permanent sign — or, if customers don’t come to you, the areas you travel to.
• A phone number and your website’s address.
• Your opening hours for customers.
• Your phone to hand, in case Google asks you to verify with a video of the premises.

Who can have a profile, and who can’t

Google’s rule is short: if your business has a physical location that customers can visit, or travels to customers where they are, you can create a profile. A business that only sells online doesn’t meet it.

The address has to be somewhere you actually operate. Post office boxes and mailboxes at remote locations don’t count, and neither does a virtual office — an address you rent for mail but don’t work from. If you show your address, Google expects permanent signage with your business name there.

If you go to your customers — a plumber, a builder, a wedding photographer — you are a service-area business. You hide the address and mark up to 20 areas, and the whole area shouldn’t reach beyond about two hours’ drive from your base.

The name, with no tricks

The profile’s name has to be the one you really use, the same as on the storefront, the website and your stationery. Google doesn’t allow taglines, phone numbers, web addresses, store codes or words added to rank (“Joe’s cheap burgers Seville”); what you do goes in the category and the description.

No all-capitals either. A name that breaks the guidelines can get the profile suspended, and getting it back takes far longer than doing it right the first time.

Verification, method by method

Until you verify, customers can’t find your business. Google decides which methods it offers you; the usual ones are these.

Phone or text: you get a code and type it into the profile. Email: you follow the steps in the message. A live video call, only during your business hours. A recorded video. Or a postcard with a code: most arrive within 14 days, and the code expires after 30.

For the video, Google asks to see where you are (outside signs, the businesses next door or a street sign), the business itself (products, branded equipment, marketing materials) and that you run it (an employee-only area, the till, the kitchen, the storeroom). Google says reviews of it take up to 5 business days, and occasionally longer.

Google will never ask you for your verification code. Don’t give it to anyone who calls offering to do it for you.

How to move up in Maps

Google sums up the order of local results in three things: relevance (how well your profile matches the search), distance (how far you are from the person searching) and prominence (how well known the business is).

What you control, in Google’s own list of tips: be verified, keep the address, hours and category complete and up to date, reply to reviews, and add photos and videos. What you can’t: Google says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

Put your website on the profile. It is where someone who has found you on the map goes to decide whether to call, book or come in — and Google asks that the name there be the same as on the profile.

Questions

How much does it cost to appear on Google Maps?

Nothing: a Business Profile is free. Ads are a separate, paid product, and Google says there’s no way to pay for a better position in the local results.

Can I be on Maps if I work from home?

Yes, as a service-area business if you travel to your customers: you hide the address and mark the areas you cover. If customers never come to your home, the address isn’t shown.

How long until my business shows up?

Not until it is verified. By phone, text or email it can be the same day; Google says reviews take up to 5 business days, and most postcards arrive within 14 days.

My business is already on Maps and I didn’t create it. What do I do?

Search for it on Google Maps and claim that profile rather than making a second one; Google’s help on adding a profile also covers claiming one that already exists.

Do I need a website to have a profile?

No, but the profile has a place for it, and it’s where people go to know more before they call or visit.