Key takeaways
- Primary category is the strongest ranking lever; choose the most specific one that fits.
- Services, attributes and description feed AI recommendations — fill them with real detail.
- Reviews with responses, recent photos and regular posts signal an active business.
Business name and categories
Name: your real-world business name only. Adding keywords (“Smith Plumbing – Best Plumber in Leeds”) violates guidelines and risks suspension.
Primary category: the most specific category that describes your core business — “Emergency plumber” rather than “Plumber” if that's what you do. This is the single strongest lever in map-pack ranking.
Secondary categories: add every category you genuinely serve, in order of importance. Don't add categories for services you don't offer; it dilutes relevance.
Address, service area, hours and contact
Address: exactly as it appears on your website and other listings. For service-area businesses, hide the address and set service areas by city or postcode.
Hours: accurate, with special hours for holidays. Profiles with wrong hours lose trust and reviews.
Phone and website: a local number where possible, and a link to the most relevant page — a location page for multi-location businesses, not always the homepage.
Description, services and products
Description (750 characters): what you do, who for, where, and what makes you different — in plain language. Lead with the core service and area. This text is read by Gemini and AI Overviews when building local recommendations.
Services: add every service with a description and, where sensible, a price or range. Use the names customers search for. This section is heavily under-used and strongly influences which queries you appear for.
Products: for retail or productised services, add products with photos and prices.
Attributes and photos
Attributes: tick everything that applies — accessibility, payment types, amenities, identity attributes. They appear as filters and feed AI answers (“wheelchair-accessible dentist near me”).
Photos: a logo, a cover image, exterior and interior shots, team photos and work examples. Add new photos monthly; recent activity matters. Geo-tagging isn't necessary, but accurate, well-lit, real photos are.
Reviews, posts and Q&A
Reviews: ask every happy customer, at the moment of satisfaction, with a direct link. Respond to every review within a few days — thank the good ones specifically, address the bad ones calmly. Never buy or fabricate reviews.
Posts: a short update, offer or project every one to two weeks. Posts expire; consistency signals an active business.
Q&A: seed the section with the questions you're asked most and answer them yourself. Monitor for new questions and answer within a day.
Monthly maintenance
- Check for unauthorised edits to name, category, hours or address.
- Add new photos and at least two posts.
- Respond to all new reviews and Q&A.
- Review Insights: searches, views, calls and direction requests, month on month.
- Confirm the profile still matches your website and citations.