Google Business Profile: A Practical Guide for Hampshire Businesses

When someone searches for a service near them, such as “web designer Waterlooville” or “emergency plumber Portsmouth”, Google usually shows a map with three businesses before the normal results. Those listings come from Google Business Profiles. For many local businesses, the profile brings in more calls and direction requests than the website itself.

The profile is free, and you control most of what it shows: your business name, category, opening hours, services, photos and how you respond to reviews. Google decides who appears in the map results based on three broad factors it describes publicly: relevance (how well your profile matches the search), distance (how close you are to the person searching or the place they named) and prominence (how well known and well regarded your business is, including reviews and mentions across the web).

You cannot change where you are, but you can make your profile as relevant and trustworthy as possible. That is what the rest of this guide covers.

Search for your business name on Google or Google Maps. If a profile already exists, choose the option to claim or manage it. If not, create one at business.google.com using the email address you want to manage it with long term, ideally one you control rather than a former employee’s or a previous web designer’s.

Google then asks you to verify that you run the business. Depending on your business type, this can be by video, phone, text, email or post. Follow the instructions carefully, and make sure the details you enter match your real signage, website and paperwork. Verification can take a few days, so start early.

Once verified, add at least one other trusted person as a manager. That way you will not be locked out if an email account is lost.

Consistency matters more than most people realise. Use your real business name, without extra keywords: “Smith Plumbing”, not “Smith Plumbing Best Emergency Plumber Portsmouth”. Adding keywords to the name breaks Google’s guidelines and can get a profile suspended.

• Primary category: choose the single category that best describes what you do, such as “Website designer”, “Plumber” or “Nail salon”. This is one of the strongest signals for which searches you appear in. Add a few accurate secondary categories, but do not list things you rarely do.
• Address or service area: if customers visit your premises, show your address. If you travel to customers, such as trades, cleaners and mobile beauticians, set service areas (the towns you cover) and hide your address if you work from home.
• Opening hours: enter the hours you actually answer the phone. Avoid “Open 24 hours” unless it is genuinely true, and add special hours for bank holidays and Christmas.
• Phone number and website: use the same number as your website, and link to the most relevant page, usually your homepage.

Then check that your business name, address and phone number are written the same way on your website, Facebook page and directory listings. Small differences, such as an old phone number on a directory, make it harder for Google to be confident the details are correct.

Fill in the business description with a clear, plain explanation of what you do, who you help and where. You have up to 750 characters, and the first couple of sentences matter most. Write it for a customer, not for a search engine.

Then use the services section to list each service you offer, with a short description and a price or starting price where you can. A Waterlooville electrician might list rewiring, fuse board upgrades, EV charger installation and electrical safety certificates as separate services rather than one vague “electrical work” entry. Each service gives Google another way to match you to a search.

Add any attributes that apply, such as wheelchair access, online appointments or onsite services. They help customers decide and can help you appear for filtered searches.

Profiles with genuine, recent photos look more active and trustworthy than those with a logo and nothing else. Add your logo and a cover photo, then real pictures of your work, your premises or van, your team and you. A salon can show finished nails and the treatment room; a cleaner can show before-and-after shots; a builder can show completed projects around the area.

Avoid stock photos and heavily edited images. Aim to add a few new photos every month. It takes minutes, and it shows customers and Google that the business is active.

Reviews are one of the most visible parts of your profile and a significant part of how prominent Google considers your business. The best way to get more is simply to ask, at the right moment: when a job is finished and the customer is happy.

• Use the share review link from your profile and send it by text, WhatsApp or email.
• Ask every happy customer, not just a chosen few. A steady trickle of reviews looks more natural than a sudden burst.
• Do not offer discounts or gifts in exchange for reviews, and never write reviews yourself or ask friends to. Both break Google’s policies and can lead to reviews being removed.
• Reply to every review, good and bad. Thank people by name and mention the job. For a negative review, stay calm, acknowledge the problem and offer to sort it out offline. Future customers read your replies as closely as the reviews.

It also helps when customers mention the service and area in their own words, such as “new website for our salon in Cowplain”, but never tell people what to write.

You can publish updates on your profile: news, offers, events, seasonal reminders or a recent project. They do not need to be long. A photo of a finished job with two sentences about it is ideal. Regular updates show that the business is active and give people another reason to choose you.

Keep your hours, services and photos current too. If you change your phone number, move premises or stop offering a service, update your profile first, then your website and directories.

Your profile and your website support each other. Google compares them, so the more they agree, the better. Make sure your website shows the same business name, address or service area, phone number and opening hours, and that it has clear pages for your main services and the areas you cover.

Structured data (LocalBusiness schema) on your website also helps Google match the two. If your website is slow, hard to use on a phone or says little about your services, improving it will often help your local results as much as any change to the profile. Read why your business might not be showing on Google for the website side of the checklist.

Once the profile is set up, a few minutes a month keeps it working for you:

1. Reply to any new reviews.
2. Add three or four new photos.
3. Publish one update about a recent job, offer or piece of news.
4. Check your hours, especially before bank holidays.
5. Look at the performance figures to see how many calls, website visits and direction requests the profile is bringing in.

If you would rather hand this over, our local SEO service looks after your profile alongside your website, and our website maintenance plans keep the website side up to date.