How To Enhance Your Google Business Profile

Google My Business Optimisation: How to Improve Your Google Business Profile

Most of us are using the internet to find products, services and information every day. A large share of those searches has local intent, whether that means finding directions, checking reviews, comparing nearby businesses or looking for a service provider in a specific area.

That is why your Google Business Profile matters so much. Many local searches now end directly in Google Search or Google Maps rather than on a website, which means your profile often acts as a first impression, trust signal and lead-generation asset all at once.

Google My Business optimisation means improving your Google Business Profile so it is more complete, accurate, useful and competitive in local search results. A well-optimised profile can improve local visibility, engagement and lead generation by strengthening areas such as categories, contact details, services, photos, reviews, posts and profile completeness.

Previously known as Google My Business and before that Google Places, Google Business Profile is Google’s free platform for managing how your business appears in Search and Maps. This guide explains how to optimise it properly so it supports your local SEO, improves engagement and helps more customers find and choose your business.

Key takeaways

• A Google Business Profile is a core local SEO asset that can improve visibility in Google Search and Maps when it’s accurate, complete and verified.
• NAP consistency matters: your Name, Address and Phone should match across your website and third-party directories to strengthen trust signals.
• Completeness helps you stand out: business description, service areas, products/services, attributes and high-quality photos all improve performance and engagement.
• Categories influence rankings: choose a specific primary category and only use relevant secondary categories to avoid confusing Google.
• Reviews are a growth lever: respond professionally to all reviews and build a steady process to generate more positive feedback.
• Keep your profile active: post updates, refresh images and maintain accurate hours so Google and customers trust your listing.

Google has improved its dashboard over the years to provide more features for businesses and more insights into how customers found your listing and engaged with it. Optimising the profile is no longer just about “having a listing” — it is about making that listing as complete, relevant and useful as possible.

 

 

What is Google My Business optimisation?

Google My Business optimisation is the process of improving your Google Business Profile so it is more complete, accurate, trustworthy and competitive in local search. Although the platform is now officially called Google Business Profile, many people still search for “Google My Business optimisation”, so the meaning is the same.

In practice, optimisation means making sure your profile gives Google and potential customers the clearest possible picture of your business. That includes your contact details, categories, services, description, reviews, photos, posts, attributes, hours and other details that help your listing appear more relevant and more useful.

It is also part of local SEO, not something separate from it. Your website still matters, your citations still matter, your reviews still matter, and your overall trust signals still matter. Your Google Business Profile is one of the most visible local SEO assets you have, but it performs best when it works alongside the rest of your online presence.

Why do I need a Google Business Profile?

If your business has a location or services one, and has been around for a while, then chances are you already have a listing. Whether or not you manage your listing is another question (see our section below on claiming your Google listing). 

If your business is fairly new, then you should know that a Google Business Profile packs a powerful punch in a local SEO strategy (and did we mention it’s free?).

Having an accurate, complete and verified Google Business Profile is incredibly valuable because it can:

• Help improve your local SEO performance
• Increase your visibility in Google Search, Google Maps and the local pack
• Provide extra ways for customers to communicate and engage with you
• Support trust and credibility before a customer even visits your website
• Help more searchers call, visit, message, book or click through

For many businesses, especially local service businesses, a Google Business Profile is one of the first things a customer sees. That is why optimisation is not just about rankings. It is also about making your business easier to trust and easier to contact.

How Google ranks local business profiles

Google’s local results are mainly influenced by three factors: relevance, distance and prominence.

• Relevance is how well your profile matches what someone is searching for.
• Distance is how close your business is to the searcher or the location named in the search.
• Prominence is how established, trusted or well-known your business appears to be online.

You cannot pay Google for a better local ranking. What you can do is optimise the parts that help Google understand your business better and help customers feel more confident in choosing you. That includes categories, completeness, reviews, local trust signals, activity and accuracy.

Enhancing Your Google Business Listing

This tool is available to all business owners that provide a local service or product. So how do you maximise its value? Here are the areas that most commonly influence how useful, competitive and visible your listing becomes in local search.

1. Start by claiming, verifying and cleaning up your listing

If your business has existed for a while, there is a good chance Google already knows about it. In some cases, that means a listing may already exist. It is usually better to claim that listing rather than create a new one, because duplicates can dilute the value of your local presence and create confusion for both Google and customers.

Verification is essential because it proves you are authorised to manage the profile. Depending on your business and what Google already knows about it, you may be able to verify by postcard, phone, email, or video. Some businesses may even need to complete more than one method.

It is also worth checking for duplicates, outdated listings or practitioner listings that need to be cleaned up. If multiple listings exist for the same business, they can compete with each other and weaken the clarity of your local signals.

2. Accurate & consistent N-A-P

Ensuring your Name, Address and Phone (N-A-P) details are accurate and up to date might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised at how often businesses fail to do this.

This advice is not just for your Google Business Profile either, but for your website and basically every other profile you have on the web.

Google collects information about your business from a cluster of third-party sources, including Yellow Pages, True Local, Trip Advisor, Facebook and Yelp, so it’s important to make sure your details are current and consistent across all of your online profiles.

Doing so gives your business that extra level of legitimacy, credibility and trustworthiness.

This is why NAP consistency remains one of the strongest local SEO fundamentals. It helps reinforce that all those mentions belong to the same business and makes it easier for Google to trust the information attached to your profile.

3. Make sure your profile is complete

Sure, you can fill out the basic details and then never look at your profile again, but this isn’t a great tactic.

Filling out all of the optional extras is recommended not only to help you stand out, but to give your profile a better chance of outperforming competitors in Maps results and local search.

Ensure your profile includes:

• A well-written, enticing description of your business
• Correct opening hours, plus holiday hours and any specific service times such as delivery hours or online operating hours
• Your service area (if applicable)
• Links to your social profiles where relevant
• Products and services information — you can go really in-depth here
• Photos of your team, premises, vehicles, signage, products, branding, customers, completed and in-progress jobs
• Special attributes and features — such as parking availability, wheelchair access, appointment only and so forth

The stronger and more complete your profile is, the easier it becomes for searchers to understand what your business offers and whether you are a good fit. Completeness also tends to support stronger engagement because the listing answers more of the questions people already have.

4. Choose your categories wisely

Google allows you to choose one primary category and up to 9 secondary categories, with the primary category carrying the most weight.

Be as specific as you can when choosing your primary category and always aim to describe your core business, not just your services or features. For example, choose “Mexican Restaurant” instead of simply “Restaurant”.

It’s also recommended that you use as few categories as possible.

Once you’ve chosen your category, you can then go through and list a number of services related to that category, with individual descriptions for each.

This matters because categories influence how Google understands the type of business you are and which searches you may be relevant for. Primary category selection is one of the most important profile decisions you make, so it is worth reviewing carefully rather than choosing something broad and generic.

5. Optimise your description, services, products and attributes

Your profile description, service list, product entries and attributes all help make your listing more useful to customers. These sections should be written for clarity, not stuffed with keywords. The goal is to help people understand what you do, where you operate and what makes your business relevant to their needs.

Services should reflect what you genuinely offer. Products should be added where relevant. Attributes should only be used when they truly apply. This all helps your profile feel more complete, more useful and more aligned with the actual experience a customer can expect.

6. Individual Practitioners

Lawyers, doctors, real estate agents and other individual practitioners can have their own dedicated Google Business listing. This only applies if the practitioner is in a public-facing role and can be contacted directly at the verified location.

To keep listings from competing against each other, choose the correct category for each listing. For example, a doctor would choose the category “Doctor” instead of “Hospital” and vice versa.

For the “website” field, link directly to the practitioner’s profile page rather than to the home page.

This is a useful feature in the right industries, but it should be handled carefully so individual listings support the brand rather than cannibalise or confuse the main business profile.

7. Reviews

Do you check out reviews for potential businesses you are thinking of using? As a consumer, reviews can be incredibly useful and help you make a decision on which business or product to choose.

As a business owner, being notified about a new review can cause a few butterflies in the stomach. “Oh gosh what if it’s a bad review?” “What will people think when they read it?” “Am I going to lose business from this?”

It’s ok. It’s not the end of the world to get bad reviews. Many businesses get them, and there are plenty of ways they can be useful to you. That’s right, bad reviews can be a good thing. Here’s how:

1. You get the chance to publicly respond. Responding to a negative review can be a positive step towards clearing the air with the person who had a bad experience. You could rectify the situation and get this customer back, or you can simply tell your side of the story. No matter what though, don’t make it personal, stay professional and be polite.
2. Fix potential issues with your business. Maybe there is an issue that you were previously unaware of? Are wait times too long? Do phone manners need to be improved? Is your website clunky or too slow? Negative reviews can be a good way to be notified of an issue that you can actually work on and improve.

Positive reviews on the other hand, well, we love them! Who doesn’t? The problem is — how do we get more of them? It might feel strange to ask your customers for a review, but these days it’s more common than you think. And there are plenty of great tools out there that can help automate the process and ask your customers for you (and remind them if they forget).

Building positive reviews, and responding to them, may also help your Google Business Profile gain stronger visibility in local search. Reviews support both trust and prominence, which makes them one of the most valuable ongoing parts of profile optimisation.

8. Use photos, posts and profile activity to stay relevant

Do your hours change on public holidays? Do you run deals for new customers from time to time? Is there a recent project that you have completed that you would like to share with your audience? A new staff member you would like to tell people about? Maybe you just won an award and want this front-and-centre of potential new clients?

Share all of this info and more on your listing. Add posts, special offers, new images and notify your customers about special hours or updates using your Google listing.

It’s more than common practice to keep people up-to-date on important information about your business — Google actually expects it.

Google Posts may not be the single thing that moves your ranking overnight, but they can absolutely make your profile look more active, complete and engaging. The same goes for photos. Fresh, high-quality images of your work, premises, products or team can make the listing more compelling and more trustworthy to searchers.

9. Q&A, messaging and conversion features

An optimised profile should not only rank well — it should also help people take action. That is why Q&A, messaging, appointment links, quote links, menu links and other engagement features matter.

If your business is eligible for messaging or bookings, it is worth reviewing whether those features make sense for your workflow. Likewise, the Q&A area should not be ignored. It can become a useful place to answer common questions and remove friction before a customer decides whether to contact you.

10. Follow Google’s guidelines

We can’t stress enough how crucial this is. Have the Google Business quality guidelines open in another tab while you complete your listing so you can be sure your listing isn’t flagged as violating Google’s terms.

There is no way to get around this; you have to follow the guidelines. By not doing so you can cause your listing to be removed which can have a rather negative impact on your visibility in search.

Some common ways people violate the guidelines include:

• Listing a PO Box for the address instead of a physical address
• Spamming the business name field with keywords
• Spamming the description field with keywords
• Multiple listings for the one business
• Listing a prohibited business (view eligibility here)

Guideline compliance is not optional. It is a core part of profile optimisation because breaches can weaken visibility, create duplicate confusion or even lead to suspension.

11. Google Ads link up

Did you know that you can link your Google Business listing to your Google Ads account? Local search ads appear at the top of results on Google Maps when a user performs a local search, and they work the same way as other Google PPC ads. You pay when a searcher clicks on your ad.

By using location extensions in your Google Ads dashboard, you can potentially reach a wider audience and generate more foot traffic by advertising your business to people who are nearby.

This should not replace your profile optimisation work, but it can complement it. If you already use Google Ads, linking the two can support stronger local visibility and better use of your business information across both paid and organic local search touchpoints.

How do I optimise my business on Google?

If you want the shortest practical answer, optimise your business on Google by:

• claiming and verifying the listing
• completing every section of the profile
• choosing the right categories
• keeping NAP details accurate and consistent
• adding services, products, attributes, photos and posts
• collecting and responding to reviews
• monitoring performance and refining the profile over time

In other words, optimisation is not one action. It is the ongoing process of making the profile clearer, more complete and more useful to both Google and searchers.

How much does Google My Business optimisation cost?

The platform itself is free. You do not pay Google to create or manage a Google Business Profile.

What optimisation costs depends on how you handle it. If you do it yourself, the main cost is time and consistency. If you need professional support, the cost depends on whether you only need a basic setup, help with duplicate cleanup, ongoing review management, local SEO support, content updates or multi-location management.

So the honest answer is this: Google My Business optimisation is free to use, but it still has a cost in time, effort and sometimes agency support if you want it managed well.

How to measure Google Business Profile performance

A stronger profile should not just “look better”. It should also perform better. That is why it is worth monitoring your Google Business Profile performance over time.

Useful indicators include:

• profile views
• calls
• website clicks
• direction requests
• booking or appointment actions
• review growth
• local keyword visibility in Maps and the local pack

This is one of the reasons Google’s dashboard insights are useful. They help you move beyond guesswork and see whether the listing is actually improving engagement and helping customers take action.

Is 75 a good SEO score?

There is no single universal “SEO score” that determines Google Business Profile success. A score of 75 in one tool may be perfectly fine as a diagnostic indicator, but it is not a Google ranking factor and it does not automatically tell you whether your local presence is strong.

For a Google Business Profile, the better measures are visibility, engagement, enquiries, calls, clicks, reviews and whether the profile is helping customers find and choose your business. Scores can be useful prompts for improvements, but they should not become the main goal.

Common Questions About Google My Business

Who can get a Google Business Profile?

Essentially any business that offers some sort of face-to-face interaction and is not 100% online. You can have a physical location like a shop, restaurant or office, or be service-area based such as a plumber, electrician or mobile mechanic. You can even be a home-based business.

I have multiple locations — can I list all of them?

Definitely. Depending on how many locations you need to add, you can either add them one at a time (each requiring separate verification) or, if your business has 10 or more locations, you may be able to add and verify them in bulk.

How do I register my business?

It’s a fairly simple process — log in to your Google account or create a new one and go to:

https://business.google.com/locations

Fill out all of the details including Name, Address, Phone, Website and Description. If you are service-area based, you should hide your address at this stage as well.

Whether you wish to show your address or not, you will need to verify that you are the business owner and that you’re located where you say you are.

How do I verify my Google Business Profile?

There are a few methods of verification and the option you get will vary. It depends on things like your category, existing information about your business that is publicly available, your region and so forth. Verification methods include:

• Postal — Google will mail out a verification code to the address you listed on your business profile.
• Phone or Email — not all businesses are eligible to verify using this method, but it involves a verification being sent via text, phone call or email.
• Video — this may be a live video call or a recorded video showing relevant signage, your location outdoors, proof of management, equipment and similar business evidence.

In some instances you may need to verify the listing using multiple methods.

How do I claim my listing?

In some cases, your business will already have an existing Google business listing. In this instance it’s best to claim the listing rather than create a new one, otherwise you’ll be creating a duplicate which will dilute the SEO value of your listing across multiple profiles.

Search for your business name and if it appears in the knowledge graph on the right-hand side of the screen, you have a listing already. Click the “Own this business?” button and go through the prompts to claim your listing. You will need to verify that you’re the owner using one of the methods listed above.

Importance of claiming your listing:

• Ensure you have control over your business information
• Easily update your contact details when they change
• Respond to customer reviews and address any negative reviews promptly
• Consolidate duplicate listings into one — Google can even merge reviews so no data is lost

Can I delete my Google Business listing?

Not really. You can delete the listing from your account, mark a business as closed or as a duplicate, but it will never really be deleted.

This article from Moz is an excellent reference to the different scenarios that arise where you may wish to delete a listing, and the correct steps to take:

How to Delete a Google My Business Listing – A Common Question with a Complex Answer.

A simple Google My Business optimisation checklist

• Listing claimed and verified
• Duplicates reviewed and cleaned up where needed
• NAP accurate and consistent
• Primary and secondary categories chosen carefully
• Description, services, products and attributes completed
• Hours and holiday hours updated
• Reviews being generated and answered
• Photos added regularly
• Posts used where relevant
• Q&A, messaging and booking features reviewed
• Guideline compliance checked
• Performance monitored regularly

Need Any Help?

Google My Business optimisation is really about making your Google Business Profile more complete, more trustworthy and more useful to local searchers. The strongest profiles do the basics exceptionally well and then keep them maintained over time.

If you’re not quite sure how to best manage your Google Business Profile and need some help, we are just a phone call away. Work with our in-house SEO team to improve your profile, strengthen your local SEO and generate more calls, enquiries and leads from Google.

Contact us for a phone consultation on (07) 5531 3810 or arrange a meeting to explore how we can enhance your online presence.

For more tips check out our blog posts on Google Places.

FAQs

1) What is Google my business optimisation?

Google My Business optimisation means improving your Google Business Profile so it is more complete, accurate and competitive in local search results. It helps support visibility, trust and customer engagement in Google Search and Maps.

2) How do I optimise my business on Google?

Start by claiming and verifying your profile, then complete every section, choose the right categories, keep your NAP details consistent, add services, photos and posts, and manage reviews actively. The strongest profiles are maintained consistently rather than set up once and forgotten.

3) How much does Google my business optimisation cost?

The platform itself is free. The real cost is usually the time and consistency required to optimise and maintain it, or the cost of professional support if you want an agency or consultant to manage it for you.

4) Is 75 a good SEO score?

There is no universal SEO score that determines Google Business Profile success. It is more useful to look at real outcomes such as visibility, calls, clicks, direction requests, reviews and local search presence.

5) Does Google Business Profile help local SEO?

Yes. A strong Google Business Profile is one of the most important local SEO assets because it can improve visibility in Google Search, Google Maps and the local pack, especially when the profile is complete, accurate and well maintained.

6) How often should I update my Google Business Profile?

You should review it regularly and update it whenever your hours, contact details, services or business information changes. It is also a good idea to add posts, fresh photos and relevant updates on an ongoing basis.

7) Do reviews help Google Business Profile rankings?

Reviews can support trust, engagement and prominence, which makes them valuable for local search performance. They also influence how potential customers judge your business before they click through to your website.

8) What are the most important parts of an optimised Google Business Profile?

The most important parts are accurate contact details, the right categories, a complete profile, strong reviews, relevant photos, updated hours, useful services/products information and ongoing maintenance. Together, these help your profile appear more relevant, trustworthy and competitive.