The Google Business Profile checklist most local businesses have never completed

The fields that carry the most weight

Primary category

The strongest single signal on the profile. It should describe what you mainly do, in Google's vocabulary rather than yours. A business whose primary category is slightly off is capping everything else it does, and this is worth getting right before touching anything else.

Secondary categories

Add the ones that genuinely apply and nothing else. Adding unrelated categories to reach more searches dilutes the profile and can attract a suspension. More is not better here.

Business name

Your real business name, exactly as it appears on your signage, licensing and legal documents. Adding keywords to the name is against the guidelines, it is one of the most commonly reported violations, and competitors do report it.

Service area or address

If customers come to you, show the address. If you go to them, hide it and define service areas. Displaying an address where you do not actually receive customers is a common cause of suspension.

Hours, including special hours

Accurate hours, updated for holidays. Incorrect hours produce a specific and damaging kind of bad review: someone turned up and you were closed.

The fields most businesses skip entirely

• Services. Every service you offer, listed individually with a description. This is a large, mostly empty field on most profiles.
• Products. Usable by service businesses too, and it renders prominently.
• Attributes. Accessibility, payment methods, appointment requirements, ownership attributes. These appear in filters customers actually use.
• Description. 750 characters describing the business honestly. Not a keyword list.
• Opening date. Establishes tenure, which matters for trust.
• Booking link. If you can be booked online, connect it.

Photos

Photos are a ranking signal and a conversion signal, and this is where the gap between businesses is widest. A complete profile has your exterior, your interior if customers visit, your team, your vehicles, your equipment and your finished work. Real photographs, not stock, added regularly rather than in one batch three years ago.

Geotagging photos is not necessary. Google strips most of that data. Taking genuinely good photos of real work is what moves this.

Reviews

• Ask every satisfied customer, systematically rather than when you remember.
• Ask when they are happiest, which is immediately after the job.
• Reply to every review, positive and negative.
• Never buy reviews or incentivise them. It is against the guidelines and it is detectable.
• Keep the flow steady. Recency counts, and a stalled review profile looks like a stalled business.

The settings that quietly cause problems

• Unclaimed duplicate listings. Search your business name and phone number and see what else exists.
• An old address still live somewhere. Previous locations that were never removed continue to send conflicting signals.
• Suggested edits accepted automatically. Anyone can suggest a change to your profile. Check it periodically, because changes go live without asking you.
• Multiple managers nobody tracks. Old agencies and former staff often retain access years later.

Maintenance, which is where most profiles fail

A profile is not a one-off task. Photos monthly, review replies weekly, hours updated for holidays, services kept current as the business changes. The profile that outranks yours is usually not better optimised, it is more recently attended to.