Google Business Profile Help for Georgia Business Owners

What Is a Google Business Profile?

A Google Business Profile is the record Google keeps about a local business: its name, its category, where it is or which areas it serves, its hours, phone number and website, plus photos and customer reviews. Google describes it as a way to manage how your business shows up on Maps and Search at no charge.

Plenty of owners find a listing they never built. Google updates profiles from sources such as user reports and licensed content, so a business can have a public listing, reviews and all, before anybody who works there has claimed it. Claiming it and passing Google's verification is what gives you ownership of what it says.

Not every business qualifies. Google limits profiles to businesses that make in-person contact with customers during their stated hours, either at a location customers visit or by traveling to the customer. Its policy overview rules out online-only businesses, lead generation companies and properties listed for rent or sale.

Older articles call it Google My Business, or GMB. It's the same listing under its current name.

Where a Google Business Profile Shows Up

One profile feeds three places on Google, and each one is a chance to get the call.

• The map results on a local search. Search a service and a town, and a short list of businesses with a map beside it usually sits near the top of the results. Every entry in that list is a Business Profile.
• Google Maps. The same listings, found by somebody searching inside the Maps app or on the Maps website.
• The panel beside a name search. Search a business by name and its profile fills a box with the hours, the star rating, the reviews, and buttons to call, visit the website or get directions.

A customer can call you, get directions or read your newest review straight from the listing, without ever opening your website. Google counts those actions. A verified profile's performance report shows how many people viewed the listing, the search terms that surfaced it, and how many called, asked for directions or clicked through to the website.

Using a Google Business Profile for Local SEO

Google's own help names three things behind local results. Relevance is how well a profile matches the search. Distance is how far the business sits from the person searching. Prominence is how well known the business is, which Google says draws on things like how many reviews it has and how many websites link to it. The same help says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

That splits the work three ways. Relevance comes from the profile itself: the primary category, the services and every field filled in completely and accurately. Distance is fixed by where the business is and where the customer stands, which is why a listing that leads in its home town can drop out of the map two towns over. Prominence builds over time, through the reviews customers leave and the other websites that link to yours.

The website matters for a second reason. The map results come from profiles, and the ordinary results underneath come from websites, so a business needs both to show up in both. The profile's website link decides where a tap lands, and the name, address and phone on the website should match the profile exactly, so the details customers and Google find on each one agree.

Owners who'd rather have somebody else working the profile side every month use our Google Business Profile management, which covers the categories, service areas, photos, posts and review requests.

The Rules Google Holds Every Profile To

Google publishes its rules in the guidelines for representing your business, and a profile that breaks them can be suspended. Five of them apply to every local service listing:

• The name is the real-world name. It's the name on your signage, website and paperwork, with no services, towns or slogans added. Google says unnecessary information in the name can get a profile suspended.
• The address is a real place of business. P.O. boxes, mailbox rentals and virtual offices don't qualify, and a business that serves customers only at their locations hides its address and lists its service areas.
• There's one profile per business. A second listing for the same business counts as a duplicate, and Google keeps duplicates out of Search and Maps.
• Prices and promotions stay out of the listing's own fields. Google's content policy bars time-limited promotions, prices and direct calls to action there. Offers and updates go in posts.
• Reviews come from real customers, unpaid and unsteered. That means no incentives, no asking only the customers you expect to be happy, no requesting particular wording, and no pressing anybody to write one on the spot.

How Do I Remove or Answer a Google Review?

An owner has two moves on a customer's review: a public reply, which any review can get, and a report, for the ones that break Google's policy.

• How to remove a Google review. Which reviews Google takes down, how to report one from your profile, the one-time appeal, and the shortcuts that get a profile restricted.
• How to respond to Google reviews. Where replies get written, example replies to a glowing, a mixed and an unfair review, and the customer details that never belong in one.

Keeping the asks going after every job and the replies written the same week is the routine our review management runs.

How Do I Set Up and Verify My Profile?

A profile has to be claimed and verified before an owner can change what it says, and a few choices made during setup decide how it competes afterward. If no profile exists yet, getting your business on Google walks through creating one.

• Google Business Profile verification. The methods Google offers, how video verification works for a storefront or a service-area business, and what to try when it fails.
• Is a Google Business Profile free? What Google charges for, what it gives away, and where the money around a listing actually goes.
• Google Business Profile without an address. The service-area setup for a business that works at the customer's place, and what hiding the address costs in the map results.
• How to find your Google Business Profile. Tracking down which Google account holds the listing, and getting ownership back from whoever has it.
• Adding a user to your Google Business Profile. Manager access for an employee or an agency, with the ownership staying in your name.

How Do I Change Photos, Categories and Keywords?

Once a profile is yours, the primary category does the most to decide which searches it can appear on, and the photos and details shape whether a stranger calls.

• How to edit your Google Business Profile. Hours, phone, website and categories from Search or Maps, and which edits wait in review before anyone sees them.
• How to choose Google Business Profile categories. The primary category customers actually search for, and secondary ones added without blurring it.
• Google Business Profile keywords. Where the words customers type belong on a listing, and the name-stuffing shortcut that gets profiles suspended.
• Google Business Profile photo sizes. Dimensions for the logo, the cover and gallery shots, and the photos customers actually stop on.

What If My Profile Is Suspended, Missing or Doubled?

A listing that vanished, doubled or got suspended each needs a different repair, so the first job is working out which one you have.

• Google Business Profile suspended. What a suspension means, the causes Google names, and how the appeal you can file only once works.
• Google Business Profile not showing up. Checks for a listing that exists and still misses the searches it should win, starting with whether the trouble is the profile or the website.
• How to merge duplicate Google Business Profiles. Two listings for one business, and the order that keeps the review history together.
• How to delete a Google Business Profile. When deleting is the right call, and when marking the listing closed or merging it serves you better.
• How to contact Google Business Profile support. The routes into Google's support team, in order, and what to have ready before you open a case.

Google's own Business Profile Help Center holds the official version of every rule and procedure, and its community forum is where you can post a question and get answers from other members.