Creating and verifying a Google Business Profile

Module 6: Getting found locally · Reading time: 10 minutes

Learning objective: After this lesson you can explain what a Google Business Profile is, check whether your business is allowed to have one, choose between a location and a service area, and create, claim and verify a profile.

Key concepts: Google Business Profile, Google Maps, local results, location, service area, hybrid business, one profile per business, virtual office, verification, verification methods, requesting access, owner and manager

What is a Google Business Profile?

Search for "bloemist Amersfoort" (florist Amersfoort) and you often see a map with a few businesses first, and only below that the regular search results. The businesses on the map don't come from their websites, but from their Google Business Profile: a free listing with name, address, phone number, opening hours, photos and reviews. The same profile appears in Google Maps and to the right of the search results when someone types in your business name.

The profile and your website are two different things. Your website can rank perfectly well in the regular search results without a profile, and a profile can exist without a website. For a business with local customers you need both, and they must tell the same story. Lesson 6.4 is about that last point.

Often a profile of your business already exists, even if you never created one. Google creates listings from public data, and visitors can add a place. Such a profile is then not verified: nobody from the business manages it, and anyone can suggest changes to it. So the first step is always to search whether your business is already listed.

Is your business allowed a profile?

In its guidelines for representing your business, Google sets out exactly who may have a profile. In short:

• Your business has a physical location that customers can visit during opening hours, or you visit customers (a plumber, a cleaning company, a bike mechanic who repairs at people's homes).
• You have one profile per business (per location). A second profile for the same business, for example to cover more keywords, is not allowed.
• A virtual office or a mailing address where you don't actually work does not count. Neither does a PO box.
• A shared workspace only counts if your business is clearly visible there, with a sign, and there are people to receive customers during business hours.

If you only work online, with no address customers visit and no home visits, a Business Profile isn't meant for you. Focus on the rest of this course instead: your website.

Location, service area or both

When you create a profile, Google asks whether customers come to you. That determines which kind of profile you get:

Bloemenatelier Lotte has a shop on Voorbeeldstraat in Amersfoort where customers walk in, and delivers in the region. That is hybrid: address visible, plus a service area.

If you work from home and customers never come to your home, you are a service-area business. You do enter your address when creating the profile, but you make sure it isn't visible to others. As a guideline, Google says your service area shouldn't extend further than about two hours' drive from your base; for some businesses a larger area may be appropriate.

Creating or claiming a profile

1. Search first. Search Google Maps for your business name and town. If you see your business, open it and check for a button to manage or claim the business. If there's nothing, create a new profile via business.google.com.
2. Sign in with the right Google account. Use a business account, preferably with an address on your own domain (for example info@example.com), not the personal account of an employee who might leave. You can add extra managers later; that way the profile stays with the business.
3. Fill in the basics. Business name, category, whether customers come to you, address or service area, phone number and website. Lesson 6.2 covers how to fill in those fields properly. For now, above all, enter the name and address exactly as they appear on your shopfront and your website.
4. Verify. See below.

Is the profile already in someone else's name? That happens after a takeover, or if a previous web designer once created it. You can then request access: Google emails the current manager and gives them a few days to respond (when this lesson was checked, it was three). If they don't respond, you can sometimes claim the profile yourself via the confirmation email. That isn't always possible, so first simply try going through the previous manager.

Verification: proving it's your business

A profile is only yours once it is verified. Google has several methods for this:

• a video recording showing the location, your business operations and proof that you manage the business (for example the door key, your sign, your delivery van, tools);
• a live video call with a Google employee, only during your opening hours;
• a phone call or text message with a code (a phone menu or automated line can't receive that code);
• an email;
• a postcard with a code sent to your address.

Important: you don't choose the method. Google decides which methods you get, based on things like the type of business, public information, your region and your opening hours. If you see more than one, you can choose. According to Google, a review usually takes up to five working days. A postcard usually arrives within fourteen days and the code expires after thirty days.

A tip from Google's own help page: if you have already verified your website in Google Search Console (lesson 2.1), verifying your profile may sometimes work instantly.

Why it sometimes goes wrong

• The name or address differs from what is on your shopfront, your website and in public registers. Make them match before you start.
• The video lacks proof. In one continuous recording, show where you are (street, shopfront), that you can get inside and that you run the business.
• You aren't actually eligible, for example with a virtual office. Trying again won't help.
• Duplicate profiles. If your business is listed twice, report the duplicate instead of leaving both in place.

In practice: profile and website together

After verification, link your profile to your website: in the Website field, enter the address of your homepage or of the page for that location. On your own site, use the same name, the same address and the same phone number, preferably also as structured data (lesson 5.2). If you use the WebOké AI Builder, the business details you enter for your site automatically appear in the page as a LocalBusiness block; in WordPress, an SEO plugin or your theme takes care of this. Other website builders work in a similar way. That way, your profile and website tell exactly the same story.

Summary

• A Google Business Profile is a free listing in Google Maps and the local results; it is separate from your website.
• A profile is for businesses with a location customers visit, or that visit customers. One profile per business; no virtual offices or PO boxes.
• Choose between location, service area (address hidden) and hybrid.
• First search whether your business is already listed; claim it or request access, and use a business account.
• Google chooses the verification method (video, video call, phone or text, email, postcard); make sure your name and address are the same everywhere.

Quiz

Exercise

Exercise D6.1: Create or claim your profile. Search for your business in Google Maps. Decide whether you are a location, a service-area business or hybrid, and whether a profile already exists. Create or claim the profile, and get as far as you can with verification. Note which verification methods Google offered you, and who the manager is. If you don't have your own business, do the exercise on paper for a business near you, without creating anything.

Further reading

• Google, Guidelines for representing your business on Google: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=nl
• Google, Verify your business on Google Business Profile: https://support.google.com/business/answer/7107242?hl=nl
• Google, Request ownership of a Business Profile: https://support.google.com/business/answer/4566671?hl=nl