Getting found on Google Maps: a practical checklist for local businesses

For many cafés, salons, shops and trades, the first impression isn't the website — it's the Google Business Profile that appears in Maps and in the panel beside search results. It's free, it's often neglected, and small improvements can make it far easier for nearby customers to pick you.

This checklist covers what's within your control. It won't guarantee a position (nobody can), but it will make sure Google has accurate, complete information and that people who find you have reasons to act.

1. Get the basics exactly right

• Business name: use your real trading name. Adding keywords to it ("Smith Plumbing Hitchin Best Plumber") is against Google's guidelines and can get a profile suspended.
• Address or service area: shops and venues show an address; businesses that visit customers can hide their address and set a service area instead.
• Opening hours, including bank holidays and seasonal changes. Wrong hours are one of the most frustrating experiences for a customer.
• Phone number and website link that are monitored and working.

2. Choose categories carefully

Your primary category is one of the strongest signals about what you do. Pick the most specific one that genuinely fits — "Italian restaurant" rather than "Restaurant", "Emergency locksmith service" rather than "Locksmith" if that's your focus. Add secondary categories only where they're true.

3. Fill in services and products

Most profiles leave these sections empty. Listing your actual services, with short descriptions, helps Google match you to more specific searches and helps customers understand what you offer before they call.

4. Use real, recent photos

Show the outside (so people recognise you on the street), the inside, your team at work and your products. Update them through the year. Photos taken on a good phone in natural light are far better than stock imagery.

5. Build a simple review habit

• Ask happy customers at the natural moment — when they say thank you.
• Make it easy with a short link or QR code on receipts, tables or follow-up emails.
• Reply to every review, positive or negative, politely and specifically.
• Never buy reviews, offer incentives for them or post them yourself. It breaches Google's policies and UK consumer law.

6. Post occasionally

Google posts — offers, events, news — show customers the business is active. Once or twice a month is plenty for most local businesses.

7. Check it's working

The Performance section shows how many people viewed your profile, asked for directions, called or clicked through to your website. Look at the trend over a few months rather than week to week.

Where to start

If you only have an hour this week: correct your hours, choose the most accurate primary category, add five real photos and reply to your last ten reviews. That alone puts you ahead of many local profiles.