Guide · Updated 2026-11-12 · by Edgar Robledo
Google Business Profile checklist: get more calls from Google Maps
Most local customers meet your Google profile before your website. Here’s how to make it do its job.
1. Get the basics exactly right
- Business name: your real name only. Stuffing keywords into it can get your profile suspended.
- Primary category: the single most important ranking choice. Pick the most specific one (e.g. “Pool contractor”, not “Contractor”).
- Secondary categories: add the ones that truly apply.
- Service area or address: if customers don’t visit you, hide the address and set service areas.
- Hours, including holiday hours. Wrong hours cost trust fast.
- Phone: a number you actually answer, and one that can receive texts.
2. Fill in services and products
List each service with a short description, written the way customers search (“tile shower installation”, not “wet area solutions”). In bilingual markets, add the Spanish terms your customers use in the descriptions.
3. Photos that sell
- Real work: before and after shots, finished jobs, your team, your truck or storefront.
- Add a few new photos every month. Active profiles tend to get more engagement.
- Skip stock photos. Customers can tell.
4. Reviews: build a simple routine
- Copy your review link (“Ask for reviews” in your profile).
- Send it by text right after a job goes well, while the customer is happy.
- Reply to every review, good or bad, briefly and like a person.
Never buy reviews or offer discounts for them. It violates Google’s policies, and reviews get removed.
5. Connect it to a website that converts
The “Website” button should land on a fast, mobile page that matches what they searched, with your phone number and a text button at the top. Add LocalBusiness schema to your site, use the same name, address and phone everywhere, and link your city/service pages.
6. Keep it alive
- Post an update or offer now and then.
- Answer questions in the Q&A.
- Check Insights monthly: calls, website clicks and direction requests tell you what’s working.
Want it done for you? I set up and clean up Google Business Profiles alongside the websites I build. One of my clients put it best: “Website and Google Business profile look amazing.”