Start here: the fields that actually move rankings
A Google Business Profile has dozens of fields and they are nowhere near equal. If you only have an hour, spend it on these four.
| Why it matters | Common mistake | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Does more ranking work than any other single field | Choosing something broad like ‘Contractor’ over ‘Roofer’ |
| Business name | Must match your real-world trading name exactly | Adding keywords or a town — a common cause of suspension |
| Address or service area | Determines where you are eligible to appear at all | Leaving a home address visible when customers never visit |
| Reviews | Feed both ranking and how AI tools describe you | Asking in bursts, or not at all |
Everything below is worth doing. None of it rescues a profile that has the wrong primary category or a keyword-stuffed name.
The full checklist
Identity and eligibility
- Business name matches your signage, invoices and website exactly — no added keywords or locations.
- Address is either genuinely visitor-facing, or hidden with service areas set instead.
- Primary category is the most specific one that fits. Add secondary categories only where you really offer that service.
- Phone number is a real, answered number for this business, used consistently everywhere.
Completeness
- Opening hours filled in, including special hours for bank holidays.
- Every service listed and described — not just named.
- Business description written for a person, mentioning what you do and where, without keyword stuffing.
- Website link pointing at the most relevant page, not always the homepage.
- Attributes set honestly: wheelchair access, appointment required, payment methods.
- Real photographs, including the premises or van, the team, and finished work.
Ongoing
- A post every few weeks — an offer, a job, a seasonal note. A profile that has not been touched in months tends to fade.
- Reviews requested steadily and replied to, including the critical ones.
- Questions in the Q&A section answered by you before someone else answers wrongly.
- Details re-checked after any change to hours, phone number or services.
UK-specific traps
Most Business Profile advice is written for the US market and misses several things that trip up UK businesses:
- Landlines and verification. Verification increasingly happens by video rather than postcard, and if your listed number is a landline you cannot receive a verification text. Ask for the call or video route rather than waiting for an SMS that cannot arrive.
- Ltd versus Limited. Pick one form of your legal name and use it everywhere. Mixed forms across directories weaken the entity picture — see the citation cleanup guide.
- Home-run businesses. Very common in UK trades, and the single most frequent reason for a suspension when the address is left visible.
- Serviced offices and virtual addresses. Not eligible unless you are genuinely staffed there during your stated hours. Google does check.
- Seasonal hours. Bank holidays differ from the US calendar and Google will not fill them in for you. A profile showing you open on Boxing Day when you are not is a poor first impression and a source of bad reviews.
What gets a profile suspended
Suspensions are common and usually avoidable. The recurring causes are keywords added to the business name, an address that is not a real place of business, a category that misrepresents what you do, and abrupt edits to several core fields at once.
If it has already happened, do not simply reappeal. Fix the underlying problem first, then appeal once with evidence — the reinstatement guide covers the process and what to prepare.
Why this matters more than it used to
A complete profile has always helped you in the map pack. What has changed is that AI systems now read this data directly. Google’s Gemini and AI Overviews draw on Business Profile information when answering local questions, so a thorough profile is now groundwork for AI visibility as well as for Maps.
It is also the cheapest work available to a local business. It costs an afternoon and no money, and at low domain authority it will outperform almost anything you could do on the website itself.