A Google Business Profile checklist for service-area businesses

If you're a plumber, an electrician, a cleaner or anyone else who goes to the customer, your Google Business Profile is probably the most valuable free listing you have. It's what shows up in the map results when someone nearby searches "water heater repair" or "electrician near me." It also has a few rules that trip up service businesses in particular.

This is the checklist we work through when we take on a profile. You can do every part of it yourself.

First: storefront or service-area business?

Google treats these two differently, and getting it wrong is one of the most common sources of trouble.

• A storefront business has a place where customers come to you during business hours, like a shop or an office with a front desk. It shows its address.
• A service-area business travels to customers. If you work from home, or from a yard that customers don't visit, this is you. Google's guidelines say you shouldn't show that address publicly. You set a service area instead.

Some businesses are both, like a tire shop that also does mobile repairs. In that case you can show the address and set a service area too.

Setting your service area

You can add up to 20 service areas, as cities, ZIP codes or regions. Google's guidance is that the whole area shouldn't stretch more than about two hours' drive from where your business is based.

Be realistic. Listing every city within two hours doesn't mean you'll show up in all of them. Distance from your actual location still counts for a lot, especially in the map results. Pick the towns you genuinely serve and want more work from.

The name: use your real one

The business name on your profile has to match the name you use in the real world, on your truck, your invoices and your sign. Adding keywords or locations, like "Ace Plumbing - Emergency Plumber Houston," goes against Google's guidelines and can get the profile suspended. Plenty of competitors do it anyway. Some get away with it for a while, and some lose their listing overnight. It isn't worth it.

Verification

New profiles, and profiles with big changes, need verifying. For many businesses Google now asks for a short video: the outside of your location or your work vehicle, the tools or equipment you use, and something that shows you run the business, like unlocking the office or showing branded signage. Read the on-screen instructions before you hit record, because they tell you what Google wants to see.

Categories carry a lot of weight

Your primary category is one of the strongest signals you control. Pick the most specific one that matches your main line of work: "Plumber," not "Contractor." Then add secondary categories for other work you really do, such as "Water heater installation service" or "Drainage service."

Leave off categories for work you don't want. If you hate gutter jobs, don't list gutter cleaning.

Fill in everything else

• Services. List each service with a short description, in the words your customers use.
• Description. You get 750 characters. Say what you do, where, and why someone should call you. Skip the keyword lists. People read this.
• Hours. Keep them right, and set special hours for holidays. Wrong hours are one of the fastest ways to earn a bad review.
• Phone number. Use a local number that gets answered. If you use a call-tracking number, make it the primary number and add your main line as an additional number, so your listings stay consistent everywhere.
• Website. Link to your actual website. If your profile still points to an old address ending in business.site, change it. Google shut those free profile websites down in 2024, so that link doesn't lead anywhere useful.
• Photos. Real photos beat stock photos every time: finished jobs, before and afters, your team, your vans. Add a logo and a cover photo, and keep adding new photos every month or two.

Reviews: ask everyone, reply to everything

Reviews affect both where you show up and whether people call. A few rules worth knowing:

• Ask every customer, not just the happy ones. Google's policies don't allow selectively asking only satisfied customers for reviews, and the FTC's 2024 rule on consumer reviews bans fake reviews and tactics that suppress negative ones.
• Don't offer anything in return for a review. No discounts, gift cards or prize draws.
• Make it easy. Your profile has an "Ask for reviews" option that gives you a short link. Text it to the customer the day you finish the job, while they're still pleased.
• Reply to every review, good or bad, within a few days. For a bad one, stay calm, don't argue the details in public, and offer to sort it out by phone. Future customers read those replies more closely than you'd expect.

Updates and offers

You can post short updates on your profile: a seasonal offer, a new service, a recent job. They aren't required, but they're a reasonable way to show the profile is active and put something timely in front of people who find you. Once or twice a month is plenty.

A 15-minute monthly routine

1. Check whether Google or the public has suggested changes to your details, and reject any that are wrong.
2. Reply to new reviews.
3. Add a few photos from recent jobs.
4. Set hours for any upcoming holidays.
5. Look at the performance numbers: calls, website clicks and direction requests. If they drop sharply, find out why.

What about competitors breaking the rules?

If a competitor has stuffed keywords into their business name or is using a fake address, you can suggest an edit on their listing in Google Maps. For repeated or serious cases, Google has a Business Redressal Complaint Form. Reports are slow and don't always work, so put most of your energy into your own profile.

Where to go from here

A complete profile is the foundation, and it works harder when it links to a website that loads quickly and answers people's questions. It's also worth checking that you, and not a former contractor, are the primary owner of the profile. Our guide on checking you own your online accounts shows how.