Check it does not already exist
Do this before anything else, because creating a duplicate is the single most common way people make a mess of it.
Search your business name and your town. Then search your phone number. Google generates listings automatically from other sources, and a great many businesses already have one they have never seen — sometimes with wrong hours, an old address, or reviews nobody has read.
If one exists, claim it rather than creating a new one. Claiming inherits the reviews and the history. Creating a second listing means two entries competing, a suspension risk, and a merge request later that may or may not go your way.
If somebody else has claimed it — a former employee, an agency you no longer use, a previous owner of the premises — there is a documented request-access process. It takes time and it is still the right route. Creating a duplicate to get around it is not.
The details that decide everything later
Four fields do most of the work, and three of them are easy to get wrong in a way that is hard to undo.
The name
Your actual business name, exactly as it appears on your signage, your invoices and your website. Not "Smith Plumbing | Emergency Plumber Bury | 24 Hour". Keyword-stuffing the name is against the guidelines, it is the most frequently reported violation by competitors, and it is a common route to suspension. It also stops working the moment it is caught, which means the ranking you borrowed disappears along with the listing.
The address, or the service area
If customers come to you, use the real address and make sure it matches your website and everywhere else you are listed, down to the formatting. If you go to customers, do not publish a home address — set service areas instead, listing the towns you genuinely cover. What does not work is a virtual office, a mailbox, or a co-working address you do not staff; those are a documented suspension cause.
The primary category
One category, as specific as the list allows, describing what the business primarily is rather than everything it does. This has more effect on which searches you appear for than anything else on the listing. Add secondary categories for the rest, but get the primary one right — "Emergency plumber" and "Plumber" surface differently.
The phone number
A real number that is answered, ideally a local one, and the same number as on your website. A tracking number that differs from the one everywhere else creates an inconsistency Google notices.
Verification, and why you do not choose the method
This is where most people get stuck, and most of the frustration comes from one misunderstanding: Google decides how you verify. You cannot pick.
Depending on the business, the category and what Google already knows, you may be offered video recording, a live video call, phone, text, email, postcard, or Search Console if you already have a verified site. Video is now common for service-area businesses and catches people out because it is not what they expected.
If you are asked for a video, you will usually need to show, in one unbroken recording: the location or the area, evidence you operate there, your equipment, tools or stock, and proof you manage the business — keys, a signed-in till, branded paperwork. Plan it before you start recording; you cannot stitch clips together.
Postcard verification, where offered, takes days to a couple of weeks. Do not edit the listing while you wait — changing the name, address or category mid-verification restarts it, which is the second most common way people lose a fortnight.
Until verification completes the listing is barely visible. This is the step, not a formality.
The three things that get a listing suspended
Worth knowing in advance, because reinstatement is slow and uncertain in a way that setting it up correctly is not.
- Keyword stuffing the business name. The most reported violation, and competitors do report it.
- An address that is not a real place of business — a virtual office, a mailbox, a friend's address, a unit you do not staff.
- A category or description that misrepresents what the business does.
Two further causes catch honest businesses out. Making several significant edits at once — name, address and category together — can trigger a review. And a service-area business that also publishes a street address it does not staff is mixing two models Google treats separately.
If a listing is suspended you can appeal, but you will need documentation: a utility bill, a lease, business registration, signage photographs. Keep those somewhere findable before you need them.
Getting onto Google Maps specifically
People ask about Maps as though it were a separate thing to join. It is not — Maps and the local results in Search are driven by the same Business Profile. Verify the profile and you are on Maps.
What varies is where you show up, and that is distance, relevance and prominence together. You cannot change distance. Relevance is your categories, services and description matching what somebody typed. Prominence is reviews, how complete the profile is, and how well known the business is more generally, including from your website.
A service-area business without a visitable address will show in the results for its service areas but will not display a pin at a street address, which is correct rather than a fault.
Two practical notes. A new listing takes time to settle, so judge it over weeks rather than days. And searching your own business repeatedly tells you almost nothing — your results are personalised by your location and history. Ask somebody across town, or use the profile's own performance data.
The first week after it goes live
Verification is the beginning. Most listings then sit untouched for two years, which is why the ones that are maintained do so well.
- Fill in everything. Services with descriptions, attributes, opening hours including bank holidays, the year you were founded, payment methods, accessibility.
- Add real photographs — the premises, the team, the actual work. Not stock. Add more every month; a profile whose last photo is two years old reads as a business that may have closed.
- Write the description for a human: what you do, who for, where. No keyword lists.
- Ask your next five happy customers for a review, at the moment they are happiest. There is a separate guide here on doing that properly, including what you may and may not offer.
- Reply to every review, good and bad. There is a right way to answer a bad one and it is not defensive.
- Check the phone number is answered and the hours are true. More enquiries are lost to a wrong opening time than to anything on this list.
Once it is running, the strategy — why this outperforms a website, what really decides the map pack, how to measure it honestly — is covered in the Google Business Profile guide on this site. This page is the setup; that one is what to do with it.
