Set Up Your Google Business Profile the Right Way

The short version: set up a Google Business Profile in this order: claim and pass video verification, pick the most specific primary category, list every service, write a plain description, set honest hours, add real photos, tick only the attributes that are true, and (if you travel to customers) verify your address then hide it. Below is each field with the exact click-path, what it is worth, and a checklist you tick off as you go.

When did you last look at your own Google profile the way a customer does, on a phone, cold? Most tradies never have. I have set up and audited more of these than I can count, and the gap is always the same: the work is first-rate and the profile is half-built.

A customer with a dead switchboard does not ring around three sparkies anymore. They search “electrician near me,” and they call one of the three in the map box. If your profile is half-built, the wrong category, or shows nothing about who you are, you were never in that box. You did not lose the job. You never knew it existed.

Getting it right is the highest-return afternoon a trade business will spend, because it is free and it is where the two pillars you actually control, relevance and prominence (how Google ranks you locally), get set. Everything below lives under Edit profile in your Google Business Profile (search your own business name while logged in, or go to business.google.com), except verification, which starts in the Google Maps app.

One rule before you touch anything: do not set the whole profile up in a frantic fifty-edit burst on a brand-new listing. A flurry of big changes to a fresh profile looks like manipulation and can trigger a soft suspension. Set it up deliberately, over a sitting or two, from a clean Google account on your business domain (a personal Gmail as the primary owner is a documented suspension risk).

1. Claim and pass video verification

Maps app → your business → “Claim this business” → Get verified · ~30 min including filming

Most trades now get assigned video verification, and you often cannot pick a different method. It is the single most common point of failure in the whole setup, so prep it before you record. One continuous take, 30 seconds or more, started in the Google Maps mobile app. Film this:

• A street sign, a neighbouring business, or a landmark (proves you are really in the area)
• Your ute with the business name and livery clearly in shot
• Your tools and gear, out and obvious
• You doing a bit of the work, or a permit, invoice or bill with the business name on it

Then run the pre-flight, because these three are what get videos knocked back:

• Is your business name actually visible on the vehicle or signage?
• Did you film the surrounding area, not just the van in a driveway?
• Does the address on your listing match where you are standing?

Do not show bank, tax or licence numbers, or anyone else’s face. Get the pre-flight right and verification stops being a lottery.

2. Your business name

Edit profile → About → Business name · ~2 min

Your name is a ranking signal, and a heavy one. Local-search testing (Sterling Sky has run this more than once) is unambiguous: put the service keyword in the name and the listing climbs; take it out and it drops. Whitespark ranks it the third-strongest local-pack factor.

Which is exactly why tradies stuff it. Do not. Keywords that are not part of your real name break Google’s guidelines, any competitor can report it, and Google strips it or suspends you. The honest version captures the same lift: make the service and the suburb part of your actual trading name (the business name that gets you found).

3. Primary category (the biggest lever you control)

Edit profile → About → Business category · ~5 min

Whitespark ranks the primary category as the number one controllable ranking factor. Pick the most specific category that matches the work you want: “Electrician,” not a vague “Electrical” or “Handyman.” A plumber filed under “Handyman” loses to plumbers listed as “Plumber,” every time, and it is one of the most common reasons a good operator quietly underranks.

Do not guess it. Mirror the category Google already trusts for that search: search your money keyword in Maps, open the top result that is not an ad, and read the grey label under their name. Here is how that looks across a few trades:

Add extra categories only where genuinely accurate, and re-check the list each quarter, because Google adds and removes categories over time.

4. Services

Edit profile → Services · ~15 min

One of the few fields with a tested ranking lift, so do not leave it blank. Sterling Sky’s testing found predefined services (the ones Google offers for your categories) can move you for relevant searches within 24 to 72 hours. Custom services you type yourself help less and slower, so use predefined as the lever and custom only for real things Google misses (storm-damage clean-up, powerline clearance). Add a short human line to each high-value one; most competitors leave them blank, so it is free ground.

5. Description

Edit profile → About → Business description · ~10 min

Spend ten minutes here, not an hour, because the description is not a ranking factor. That is the expert consensus and Google’s own position. Front-load your core service and area in the first 250 characters (the rest hides behind “more”; the limit is 750). Write it for a human. Keyword-stuffing does nothing for ranking and wrecks the readability that does drive the call. No phone numbers, URLs, or “#1” claims; they breach the content policy.

6. Hours

Edit profile → Hours · ~5 min

Being open at the moment someone searches is a confirmed ranking factor: Google’s Search Liaison said in December 2023 that openness “recently became a stronger signal.” A business open at 8pm can outrank closed competitors for an 8pm “electrician near me.” So set the widest hours you can genuinely honour, and add special and holiday hours so you never show as wrongly closed.

Genuinely is the load-bearing word.

And the cost of being unreachable is not abstract. It is the customer who rings once, gets nothing, and walks without a word:

“Tried to follow up and he ignored me and ghosted me.” Pest-control customer, Queensland

They do not leave a message and wait. So if you cannot pick up after hours, do not lie about it. Set honest hours and put Missed Call Text Back on the line. Every missed call gets a reply in seconds, the after-hours buyer stays warm instead of ringing the next name, and you keep the lead without faking your hours or climbing off the roof to answer.

7. Photos

Edit profile → Photos → Add · ongoing, a few a week

Upload genuine, original photos: real crews, real jobs, the branded truck, before-and-afters. Drip them in steadily rather than dumping fifty at once. Two myths to kill:

• Geotagging does nothing. A controlled 27-location test found no lift at all (rankings dipped slightly), because Google strips the location data off every photo on upload. Skip it.
• You cannot choose your cover photo. Google picks the lead image algorithmically. Set a preference if you like, but do not promise yourself control of it. Just make every photo one you would be happy to see featured.

Photos win the click and the trust; treat them as conversion, not a direct ranking lever, and you will spend your time right.

8. Attributes (the one most people get wrong)

Edit profile → More → Attributes · ~5 min

Tick only the attributes that are genuinely true: a competitor who could disprove one with a phone call has a reason to report you. But there is a sharper trap here that almost nobody knows.

Those customer quotes are worth protecting, which is the whole reason the reviews engine matters as much as it does.

9. Address and service areas

Edit profile → Location and areas · ~5 min

If customers visit a premises with signage, keep your address visible. If you only travel to them, verify at your home or yard, then hide the address and set your real service areas. Keep the area within about a two-hour drive of your base (you can list multiple suburbs, but drive time is the governing limit). No PO boxes or virtual-office addresses; they are ineligible and one of the top suspension triggers. Hiding the address does not let you rank further from your pin, so set service areas honestly and concentrate where you actually work.

The whole setup, ticked off

Work down this once. If every line is ticked, your profile is doing its job.

• Claimed and passed video verification
• Business name is your real trading name, nothing stuffed
• Primary category is the most specific match (mirrored from a top result)
• Every real service listed, predefined first
• Description front-loaded and written for a human
• Honest hours set, with a text-back if you cannot always answer
• Real photos started and dripping in
• Only true attributes ticked (mind the two that hide reviews)
• Address handled: visible if customers visit, hidden plus service areas if you travel
• ABN and licence shown

What if it goes sideways

• Verification got knocked back, even twice. Re-film against the pre-flight checklist above. Still failing? In the verification screen, ask for a different method or “get help” to reach support, with your ABN and a utility bill ready.
• You bought the business and the old listing is still up. Do not make a new one. Claim the existing listing, request ownership transfer, and update every detail to yours.
• There is a duplicate listing. Search your name and number in Maps, then claim or report the duplicate (the citations guide has the exact path). Two listings, neither ranks.
• You got suspended. Do not spin up a second profile; it can cascade across your account. Appeal once, properly, with your evidence: ABN, state licence, photos of the signage and vehicle, a couple of invoices.

A worked example

A Coolangatta plumber could not work out why he never showed up for “plumber near me” in his own suburb. Two reasons: his profile had auto-categorised as “Plumbing supply store,” and his video verification had been knocked back twice because his ute had no signage in the shot.

He switched the primary category to “Plumber,” re-filmed the verification showing the van’s livery, the tools and a job in progress, and listed every service with a line each. Within a few days he was ranking across the southern Gold Coast. Then he added the thing most plumbers skip: a photo of the Form 4 a customer receives after notifiable work in Queensland, which quietly answers the “are they legit?” question before anyone rings. The setup cost nothing. The visibility was the whole difference.

See it from the buyer’s side first

Before you change a single field, look at what a customer sees when they search you today. The free Visibility Check shows you exactly that, and where your trust is leaking, in about a minute. Then work down the checklist above.

If you want the fuller case for why the profile comes before the website, Get Found First is the short read that makes the argument. This guide in take-anywhere book form, same field-by-field detail, is Set It Up Right.

A profile set up properly, every field filled, nothing faked, is most of the battle for the two pillars you control. The Prove It Fast Start walks you through the rest: scoring where you stand and building the proof that makes you the obvious call. That is the move once the profile is solid.