Guide to Google Business Profile in 2025 (Google My Business)
Google Business Profile—also known as Google My Business—is an indispensable tool for small and medium-sized businesses looking to attract customers online. You’ll learn all about it in this guide to Google My Business in 2025. I’ll provide you with all the tools you need to create and optimize a business profile that performs well and gets noticed on Google.
Would you like a basic introduction to Google My Business? If so, we recommend reading our previous blog post,“Google My Business—How to Set Up Your Online Business Card.”
How to Set Up Your Google Business Profile
First and foremost, it's important to check whether your business already has a business profile on Google. The easiest way to do this is to search for your business name in the search results.
The next steps depend on whether your business already has a business profile or not. If you already have a business profile on Google, any new one you create will be flagged as a “duplicate.” You’ll want to avoid that at all costs—otherwise, you’re in for a very long conversation with Google Support. Trust me, you’d rather be forced to watch an entire season of *Paradise Hotel* in one sitting than go through that.
You don't already have a Google My Business listing
If no profile appears when you search for your company name, you can start creating a new one right away.
Example
Search for“Amplify”on Google. If you’re using a computer, you’ll immediately see a business profile on the right side of the screen. If you’re searching on your phone, the profile will appear at the top of the page.
You have a Google My Business listing
If your business profile already exists on Google, try to access it instead of creating a new one. To do this, click “Do you own this business?” You’ll then be redirected to a new page where you’ll see some information that may indicate who the current owner of your business profile is.
You should now click “Request Access.” If it’s your own email address, you’ll immediately receive an email that you can use to gain access. If you don’t know the email address, you’ll be able to claim the business after 3–7 days, at which point you’ll need to reconfirm via postcard, phone, or email. I’ll go into more detail about the confirmation methods in a moment.
Verify your business profile on Google
Your new business profile isn't worth much if you don't get it verified. In fact, it won't show up at all in Google's search results.
There are several ways to verify your Google Business Profile—but you don’t always have control over which method you can use. In fact, it’s rare to have multiple options.
There are the following ways to verify a GMB listing
1. Postcard
In some cases, you’ll need to verify your ownership of the business profile via a postcard that will be sent to the address you provided. The postcard will arrive within 14 days. Verification via postcard is a good method, although you may have to wait a while for the postcard to arrive at your address. This is often the method you’ll need to use when creating a new business profile—even though it seems somewhat slow and old-fashioned, considering that we’re dealing with online marketing.
2. Email
In other cases, you can verify your profile via an email sent to the email address you provided. This is definitely the easiest method, and it works flawlessly most of the time. However, it’s not often that you’re lucky enough to have this option—but if you do, be sure to choose this verification method.
3. Phone Calls
You may also find that you can verify your business profile via a phone call. However, past experience shows that this isn’t the best method, as it’s often difficult to hear the first few numbers that are read aloud. You can certainly give it a try, and if it doesn’t work, you can always choose another option afterward.
4. SMS
SMS verification is the last option for verifying your business profile. It’s a good solution if the phone number you provided can receive text messages.
Problems with Google My Business Verification
After creating and verifying quite a few business profiles over the years, I’ve put together some helpful tips—I’ll share them with you here.
Entering a phone number that should not be displayed
Some people choose to add a personal phone number that can receive text messages if the number listed on the business profile can’t. It might seem pretty tempting, since it’s a quick way to verify your identity—but for heaven’s sake, don’t do it. Do you remember what I wrote about Paradise Hotel earlier?
Once you've verified your account using that phone number, you can't just change it later. Your GMB is just as tied to that number as Patrick Swayze is to "Baby" in *Dirty Dancing*.
If that happens, after an extended email exchange with Google’s support team, you’ll be asked to reconfirm via postcard—and the number will remain visible until you receive the postcard. In other words, you risk being bombarded with calls on your personal number until the error is corrected.
Submitting a change multiple times
Google takes security very seriously, and they don't appreciate it when you don't follow their guidelines. If you submit the same changes over and over again in the hope that Google will accept them, you're sorely mistaken.
In most cases, this will simply result in your business profile being suspended. You will then need to contact Google Support again and prove that your business profile complies with all guidelines.
Enter the correct company name
All businesses aim to appear in the coveted “local 3-pack,” and if you work in SEO, you know that the most relevant results show up first. That’s why many people try to create a business profile using the name of the service they want to rank for.
For example, let’s say you run a carpentry business, so you decide to create a GMB and name it “roofing,” “additions,” or “turnkey projects.”
That's not a good idea—Google is constantly updating its algorithms, and they're getting smarter and smarter. If you're caught engaging in that kind of "cheating," you risk being blacklisted.
If you take some of my advice to heart, you can, fortunately, easily make it to the top the honest way.
How do you fill out your Google My Business listing?
If you want to make sure your Google My Business profile is completely up to date, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. In addition, you actually need to check in on the profile regularly if you want it to perform well.
You should review the following areas:
- Business Category
- Description
- Website
- Service Areas
- Hours of Operation
- Extended Hours
- Labels
- Services
- Products
- Pictures
- Lookup.
If you’re already focusing on SEO for your website, it can be beneficial to be very thorough when filling out the points above. We’ve covered most of these points in detail in our previous blog post about GMB, and we’ll discuss the ones not mentioned here later in this guide.
The Purpose of Google My Business
Why should you have a business profile? There are several reasons, and you'll find some of them right here.
Appearing in Google's “local 3-pack”
The ultimate goal of a Google My Business listing is to appear in the famous “local 3-pack.” Google selects and displays the three most relevant business profiles when you perform a search.
Does your business profile appear for one or more keyword combinations? Well, then potential customers have a good chance of discovering your business.
Visibility, visibility, and more visibility
If you want to be visible in your local area, it’s essential that you have a Google My Business listing. Business profiles are among the first results that appear when you perform a search, and of course, your business needs to be listed there.
A 2019 study showed that 81% of respondents needed to trust a brand before making a purchase—and that trust is built through visibility and brand awareness.
It creates great customer experiences
Is there anything more important than a great customer experience? Good results are, of course, important, but you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t place just as much importance on customer satisfaction.
If you have a business profile on Google, your customers can quickly find all the relevant information about your business. If you’ve spent an unimaginable amount of time trying to find a business’s hours or address on multiple occasions, then you know how frustrating it is.
Google Business Profile: Increase Your Visibility Through Listings
If you want to get the most out of your Google Business Profile, it’s important to remember to give it some attention. It’s not enough to just update your business hours every now and then. As mentioned earlier, Google rewards active business profiles—and one of the best ways to keep a GMB profile active and relevant is by posting updates.
Google has announced that the listings enable customers to make better purchasing decisions by providing them with access to more business information and updates.
In addition, the benefits of creating posts also include the ability to:
- Communicate directly with your local customers.
- Provide customers with a better experience through timely information.
- Promote sales, special offers, events, news, and other promotions.
- Engage your customers with videos and images.
Read more about Google's post on listings for local businesses.
The various listings on Google My Business
What types of posts can you create on your Google My Business account? Well, you have three different options. Your posts will appear at the bottom of your business profile.
You can create the following entries:
- General Updates and News
- Offers
- Events (add event)
The main difference between general status updates and offers and events is that you must enter the start and end dates for the offer or event. The advantage of this feature is that the posts are automatically removed from your profile once they expire. General updates are not removed.
Add photos and videos to your posts
Most people are drawn to photos and videos, and that’s also true when it comes to Google My Business listings. Listings that include photos and videos of attractive products or friendly people simply get more views and clicks.
You can read much more about Google's guidelines regarding image and video uploads here.
Google recommends the following when you create a listing:
- “A captivating image that reinforces your message.”
- “Copy that speaks to customers: This is your chance to speak directly to your customers.”
- “A button with a call to action that asks users to take immediate action.”
8 Tips for a Great Google Business Profile
Are you having trouble filling out your business profile? Here are 8 tips for creating a great Google My Business profile that adds value for you and your current and future customers.
- Make sure that all fields that can be filled out are filled out. This includes everything from the website address and business hours to products and services.
- Remember to update your business hours if you have any days when you're closed; otherwise, you could quickly end up with dissatisfied customers and bad reviews.
- Create product listings for your most important services and products, and link them to the corresponding landing pages on your website!
- Use different categories when creating your products; if there are multiple categories, they will be displayed on your GMB.
- Grab the attention of potential customers with posts—these could be special offers, events, or status updates—and remember to include photos or videos in your posts so they perform better.
- Use high-quality photos featuring friendly people or relevant products. Also, be sure to add new photos frequently—not just when you first create the page.
- Respond to your reviews—both good and bad.
- If you want social media icons that link to your social media accounts to appear on your business profile, you can’t just add them. Place the icons with links in the footer of your website, and there’s a good chance they’ll appear on your GMB.
Data Collection: Get Insights into Page Views and Search Trends
Every month, Google sends you a performance report that provides an overview of the number of phone calls, website clicks from your business profile, messages, profile views, searches, and the number of people who requested directions.
In addition, you'll also see your top 3 search terms—that is, when and for which searches your business profile typically appears.
The efficiency report compares the most recent month with the previous month.
Stay up to date
If you’d like to stay updated on how your business profile is performing throughout the month, you can also access all the information through “Performance.”
Here, you’ll be able to retrieve data from several months and see how many people viewed your business profile through Google Search and Google Maps—and, importantly, whether they used a phone or a computer. In addition, you can also view all the search terms that were used when your business profile was displayed.
If you start creating posts, you'll also receive a separate "status email" for each post, so you can see how they're performing.
The Synergy Between Google My Business and SEO
Can Google My Business improve my SEO? Isn't it more important to focus on on-page SEO rather than off-page SEO? Doesn't it only affect local search results?
These are just a few of the questions people often ask when the conversation turns to the synergy between Google My Business and SEO. You can read more about the rest below.
- It drives more traffic to the website
If there's one thing we SEO geeks love, it's website traffic. That goes for all traffic—from traffic through the organic and paid search results to traffic from social media and external websites.Visitors to your website boost your site’s relevance in Google’s eyes—which is a ranking factor when it comes to SEO. So if you can drive even more traffic to your website by optimizing your Google My Business profile, what’s holding you back?
- Google gains a better understanding of your service areas
If you work in SEO, you hopefully already know how important content for your optimization. There's a good reason to implement a blogosphere, various guides, and has comprehensive texts on its website.Google always aims to show users the most relevant content based on their search. By providing information and listings on your Google My Business profile, you can clearly indicate the areas in which your business specializes. The more relevant content you provide about your business, the better.
- Google loves it when we use their tools
There’s no doubt that Google loves it when we use their tools and programs—and that’s also true for Google My Business. Have you ever wondered why you can only add email addresses registered to a Google account in Google Analytics? That’s right—they want you to use their tools. As Jakob Kjellberg would say: “Get started!” - Google prioritizes local searches
If you work in SEO, you’re surely keeping up with Google’s many algorithm updates. Google’s “Local Search Update"In 2021, Google sent a clear signal that it prioritizes and emphasizes local search results."If you own a dental clinic, a carpentry business, or a restaurant, you’ll most likely want to be visible in specific local areas. You’ll be missing out if GMB isn’t part of your local SEO strategy. In local SEO, programmatic SEO is also hard to ignore. With pSEO, you can publish hundreds of relevant location-based landing pages all at once!
- It builds brand awareness—get listed in up to three places:
. Imagine a customer seeing your company name in organic search results, in a paid ad, and even in Google’s “local 3-pack.” What are the chances you’d click through to that business? In my experience, the chances are about as good as Brazil qualifying for the World Cup. - You'll strengthen your company's credibility
How important is your website’s credibility? If you ask an SEO specialist, they’ll say “very important.” Opinions are divided on whether online reviews affect your Google rankings, after Google shared their Search Quality Rater Guidelines.You can get and showcase reviews through your Google My Business profile. There’s little doubt that positive reviews attract more customers to your website, which can contribute to a higher conversion rate. Wouldn’t you be more inclined to make a purchase or contact a business if good reviews were the first thing that caught your eye?
- Products can drive traffic to the most important pages
It’s quite possible that Google hasn’t stated that a Google My Business listing affects rankings in organic search results. However, we know that relevant internal and external links boost SEO.In Google My Business, you can create product listings where you can describe the product or service and link directly to its landing page. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether this can contribute to an improvement in your search rankings.
Get help with Google Business Profile
I hope my guide has given you a better understanding of how Google My Business can add value to your business.
Does it all seem a little overwhelming? Don’t worry—at Amplify, I or one of my talented colleagues is here to help you. You’re more than welcome to call us at 70 60 50 28, send an email to info@amplify.dk, or fill out our contact form.
Learn Even More
Whether you're a generalist or a specialist in marketing, our experts have put together a number of helpful tips for you on our blog.
