The fields most often left empty on your Google profile

Your profile is often seen before your site

When someone searches Google or Maps for your business name, or for something like "hairdresser near me", the first thing they see is usually not your website. It is your Google Business Profile: opening hours, phone number, directions and photos.

A profile that was set up once and then forgotten collects gaps. When a visitor cannot find what they need, they move on to the next business.

A five-minute check

The most honest check is to look at your profile the way a customer would: open Google Maps on your phone and search for your business name. Then go through these fields one by one.

• Category. Does the primary category describe your business correctly? Have additional categories been added? If a dental clinic's profile does not say it also does orthodontics, it is harder to appear in that search.
• Opening hours. Are they current? Are special hours set for public holidays? Showing "open" on a day you are closed is the easiest way to lose trust.
• Phone and website. Is the number still answered? Does the website link work?
• Business description. Google allows up to 750 characters. Is yours empty, or a single sentence?
• Photos. Are there photos of the outside, the inside and your work? When was the last one added?
• Services. Are your services listed, or does the visitor have to guess?

Whose account is the profile in?

There is also an invisible side to the check: can you manage the profile? If you can sign in at business.google.com with your own account and see it, all is well. If you cannot, the profile sits in the account of whoever set it up for you.

We covered this in more detail in Whose name is your domain registered in?

How we handle it

Setting up and managing the Google Business Profile is part of our SEO and GEO work. The profile is always opened in the business's own account, so it stays yours if you ever move on. We keep the information current, and the calls and direction requests that come through the profile appear in the monthly report.

We do not promise rankings, because nobody can measure and guarantee them. What we measure is whether the person who finds your profile gets in touch.