For a local business, your Google Business Profile is often more visible than your website: it's the panel on the right of a brand search, the pin on Maps, and increasingly the data AI assistants read when someone asks for a recommendation. It deserves the same care as your site, and almost never gets it.

Here's the checklist I run for every client, in the order that matters.

Get the foundations exact

  • Business name : exactly your real-world name. No stuffed keywords ("Smith Law, Best Divorce Lawyer Miami" invites suspension).
  • Primary category : the single most specific match for what you do. This is the strongest ranking input on the profile; secondary categories come after.
  • Address or service area : storefront businesses show an address; service businesses hide it and set a service area instead. Never fake a location.
  • Phone and website : match them exactly to what's on your site. Consistency across the web (your NAP: name, address, phone) is what convinces both Google and AI models that your business data is trustworthy.

Fill what most owners skip

  • Services : list each real service with a description. These map to searches.
  • Business description : plain language about who you serve and what makes you different. No hype; engines quote this.
  • Hours , and keep holiday hours current. A "closed now" surprise costs real customers.
  • Photos : real ones. Your work, your space, your people. Profiles with genuine photos get dramatically more clicks and calls than logo-only profiles.

Reviews: the compounding asset

Reviews are the strongest trust signal a profile has, for humans, for rankings, and for AI recommendations. The rules that matter:

  • Ask every genuine customer, right after a good experience. A short link or a QR card makes it a ten-second favor.
  • Never buy, fake, or ghost-write reviews , including having a friend post from an account you control. Detection is better than people assume, and a filtered or flagged review on a young profile can suppress the whole listing. One honest review outweighs five fake ones that get the profile penalized.
  • Reply to every review , briefly and professionally, including the bad ones. Replies are public proof that a real person runs the business.

Keep it alive

A profile that never changes looks abandoned. A short post every couple of weeks (a project, an offer, a seasonal note) keeps the profile active. Answer questions in the Q&A section before a stranger answers them for you.

The mistakes that get profiles suspended

Keyword-stuffed names, fake addresses, review bursts from one device, and duplicate listings are the big four. And ignore the robocalls claiming to be Google. Google doesn't cold-call businesses about listings; those are scammers selling nothing.

Where this fits

Your profile, your site's schema, and your directory listings should tell one identical story about your business. That agreement is what local rankings and AI citations are built on. The free visibility review checks the whole chain, profile included, and hands you the ranked fix list.