Google Business Profile: the complete guide

What is a Google My Business listing today?

Google My Business is the service’s former name. Google now calls it Google Business Profile in English and “fiche d’établissement Google” in French. People still type “Google My Business listing”: all these names refer to the same tool.

Not every business is eligible. Google’s guidelines reserve the profile for businesses that meet their customers in person, during their stated hours. On site or at the customer’s home. A 100% online business does not qualify.

The profile is the first lever of local SEO. It feeds the local results pack and directions in Maps.

How do you create and verify your Google My Business listing?

Creating it takes a few minutes. Verification, however, determines what comes next. Without it, you have no access to performance statistics.

1. Look for the profile: a customer or Google may have created it. If so, claim it instead of creating a second one.
2. Sign in with a Google account tied to the business. Prefer a shared address to an employee’s personal inbox.
3. Enter the essentials: exact name, primary category and address. Or the service area for a business that does not receive customers.
4. Add the phone number and website, then start verification.
5. Complete the profile once verified: hours, services, photos, description.

Verification methods

Google’s help page on verification lists several methods. Google chooses which ones you are offered based on the category, the area and the profile’s history. You cannot ask for another one.

Method	How it works	Good to know
Phone or text	A code is sent to the business’s phone number	An interactive voice response system cannot receive the code
Email	A link or code arrives at an address linked to the business	Only offered to some profiles
Recorded video	You film the signage, the premises and something proving you manage the business	Method recommended by Google when it is offered
Live video call	A Google agent checks live during business hours	Prepare the same proof as for the video
Mail	A code is posted to the business address	Delivery can take up to 14 days, code valid for 30 days

Once the proof is sent, Google announces a review that can take up to five business days, sometimes longer.

How do you access your profile and give access to other people?

To access your profile, type the business name into Google while signed in to the account that manages it. The management panel appears above the results. The official Business Profile page leads to the same place.

To delegate management to an agency or a colleague, Google provides two roles:

• Owner: all rights, including adding or removing users and deleting the profile.
• Manager: edits the information, replies to reviews, publishes photos and posts. They do not manage users or deletion.

A new owner must wait seven days before they can remove other users or delete the profile. Give a service provider the manager role: the business stays in control if the collaboration ends.

What should you fill in to make the profile visible?

Google ranks profiles by relevance, distance and prominence. Its help page on local ranking points out that no payment lets you move up. Visibility therefore depends on what you fill in and on the business’s reputation.

The name, with nothing added

The profile name uses the business’s real name, as it appears on the signage and documents. The guidelines forbid adding a city, a service, a slogan or a phone number to it.

The primary category and additional categories

The primary category says what the business is, not everything it sells. Choose it carefully. The 47 experts of Whitespark’s Local Search Ranking Factors report (published on November 6, 2025) rank it first among local pack signals. This is expert opinion, not Google data. Google recommends using as few additional categories as possible.

The address or the service area

A business that receives customers displays its address. A business that travels to its customers hides its address and declares a service area. That is the answer to the question “Google My Business listing without an address”. Virtual offices and PO boxes are not allowed.

Hours, photos, services and links

• Hours: the real opening hours, with special hours for public holidays and closures.
• Photos: storefront, interior, team, completed work. They help customers recognise the place.
• Services or products: the list of what you offer, with a short description.
• Website: a link to the most useful page, for example the page of the relevant branch for a network.

How do you manage reviews on your profile?

Reviews matter for customers and for Google, which cites their number and rating among the elements of prominence. BrightLocal surveyed 1,002 US consumers for its Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (published on February 11, 2026). 97% read online reviews; 89% expect the business to reply to them.

Reply to every review, positive or negative, factually and without personal data. A calm reply to a negative review speaks mainly to the future customers who will read it.

The Google Maps user-contributed content policy forbids several practices. Paid reviews, reviews obtained in exchange for a discount or a gift, abnormal volumes of reviews. Google can then block new reviews or hide existing ones for a set period. Asking every customer for a review, without conditions, remains allowed.

How do you measure the profile’s performance?

The profile’s Performance tab, described in Google’s help page on statistics, gives you:

• profile views in Search and on Maps, counted as unique visitors;
• the searches that showed the profile, updated once a month;
• interactions: calls, direction requests, website clicks, messages, bookings.

Views are deduplicated per person and per day, so they look lower than other figures. To track visits coming from the profile in your analytics tool, add UTM parameters to the website link.

Profile, website and AI engines: why consistency matters

The profile does not stand alone. Search engines cross-check its information with that of the website and directories. Three simple rules:

• the same name, address and phone number everywhere;
• a contact page or branch page that repeats this information, marked up with LocalBusiness structured data;
• identical hours on the profile, the website and social media.

This consistency also serves AI-generated answers: an assistant that finds two different sets of hours may pick the wrong one. Work on the entity, described in our page on GEO optimisation, extends the work on the profile. For the discipline as a whole, go back to our guide to organic search.