How to put your business on Google Maps

When someone nearby searches for a dentist, a salon or a massage, Google shows a map with a few businesses on it before anything else. Those businesses have a Google Business Profile: a free listing with their hours, phone number, directions, photos and reviews. If yours isn't there, people looking for exactly what you offer may never see you. It is free, you can do it from your phone, and the only slow part is waiting for Google.

What you need before you start

• A Google account for the business. Use an email address the business will keep, not a staff member's personal account, so you don't lose access when someone leaves
• Your business name exactly as it appears on your sign. Don't add places or services to it, such as "Dental Clinic Davao Best Prices": Google's guidelines forbid it, and it can get a profile suspended
• Your address and phone number, written the same way everywhere they appear: your sign, your Facebook Page and your website
• Your opening hours, including the days you close

Step 1: Check whether you're already listed

Search Google Maps for your business name. Google sometimes creates a profile from public information, so you may already be listed. If you find yourself and it says "Own this business?" or "Claim this business", choose that and skip to step 3. If someone else, such as a former staff member, already manages it, you can request access from the same place.

Step 2: Add your business

If you're not listed, go to Google Business Profile and choose to add your business. Google asks for your name, a category, your address (or the area you serve, if clients don't come to you), your phone number and your website.

Many addresses here have no house number, and clients find you by the landmark. Keep the address field to what is on your business permit, and put the landmark ("across from the public market, beside the pharmacy") in your description and your website, where it helps people and doesn't get your profile flagged.

Take care with the category. Your primary category is one of the strongest signals Google uses to decide which searches you appear in, so pick the most specific one that fits, such as "Dentist", "Dental clinic", "Hair salon" or "Day spa". You can add a few secondary categories later.

Step 3: Verify that it's yours

Google has to confirm that you run the business before your profile shows in full. It decides which ways to verify it offers you: a short video, a phone call or text message, an email, or a postcard by mail. A video is common. Be ready to show, in one continuous recording:

• Your sign outside, and the street around it, so Google can match the location
• Inside the business: the reception, the chairs or rooms where you work
• Something only the owner or manager has, such as keys that open the door, the cash register, or a business permit

Verification can take a few days. Don't edit your name or address while it's under review, because that can start it over.

Step 4: Fill in everything

Every detail you add is one question fewer that someone has to call about, and one fewer reason for them to pick the profile below yours that does have the answer.

• Hours, plus special hours for holidays such as Holy Week and Christmas, so nobody turns up to a locked door
• Services and prices, even as ranges
• Photos: the outside, so people recognise you from the street, then the inside and your team. Real photos, taken in daylight, beat stock pictures
• A short description of what you do and who you do it for, in plain words
• Your website and booking link, so people can go from the map to a booking

Step 5: Keep it current and ask for reviews

Your profile is never finished. Update your hours whenever they change, add new photos now and then, and reply to reviews, the kind ones and the unhappy ones, politely and briefly. Ask clients who had a good visit to leave a review: a simple request at the counter, or a link in your thank-you message, works well. Never pay for reviews or offer a discount in exchange for one: Google's policies forbid it, and it can get reviews removed.

Common problems

• The pin is in the wrong place. Edit your address and drag the pin to your door
• There are two profiles for your business. Keep the one you manage and ask Google to remove the duplicate
• Verification keeps failing. Make sure your sign is visible from the street and that the name matches it exactly
• Your profile was suspended. Check your name for added words and your address for anything that isn't on your permit, then use Google's appeal form to ask for it back

Where Greetfolk fits

Google compares what your profile says with what it finds elsewhere, so your website and your profile should agree. A Greetfolk website shows your hours, address, services and prices as plain text that search engines and AI assistants can read, and a guide in your dashboard walks you through your Google profile step by step and checks that the two match. The website, and your place in Greetfolk's own directory, are free. See the plans.