Google Business Profile checklist for service businesses

For most local service businesses, the Google Business Profile is the first thing a customer sees, before your website. Here is the checklist we use. Every item is free.

Basics

• Name: your real business name, exactly as on your sign and paperwork. Adding keywords or city names can get the profile suspended.
• Primary category: the single closest match to what you do. Add secondary categories only for services you really offer.
• Service area: if you go to customers, list the cities you serve and hide your street address. Home-based businesses should not show a home address.
• Hours: real hours, plus holiday hours before every holiday.
• Phone and website: the same number and web address you use everywhere else. Directories cross-check them.

Content that helps customers decide

• Services: list each one with a short plain description and a price or range if you publish prices.
• Photos: your team, your vehicles, real jobs (with the customer's permission). Real photos beat stock images.
• Posts: a short update every week or two: a seasonal tip, a finished job, an offer.
• Description: who you serve and what you do, in plain words. Google does not allow links or promotional pricing in the description.

Reviews: the rules that matter

Google's content policy forbids business owners from discouraging negative reviews or selectively asking only happy customers for reviews, and from offering anything in exchange for a review (Google policy). The FTC's rule on consumer reviews, in effect since October 2024, bans fake reviews, buying reviews and suppressing negative ones (FTC final rule).

• Ask every customer, the same way, with a direct review link.
• Never filter who gets the link based on how happy they seem.
• Never offer a discount or gift for a review.
• Reply to every review, good or bad, within a few days. Thank people by first name; take complaints offline politely.

Once a month

1. Check that hours, phone and services are still right.
2. Add new photos.
3. Answer any new reviews and questions.
4. Look at the profile's performance numbers: calls, website clicks and direction requests.

Want it done for you? Our one-time Google Business Profile tune-up is $495, and ongoing local SEO starts at $450 a month.