Setting up your Google Business Profile properly: a checklist.

When someone searches for “plumber near me” or your business name, the panel with your hours, phone number, photos and reviews is your Google Business Profile. It's free, and it often decides whether someone calls you or the next result. Yet many profiles are half-finished, out of date, or don't match the business's own website.

1. Claim and verify it

Search for your business on Google Maps. If a listing already exists, claim it. If not, create one. Google will ask you to verify that you own the business before you can manage the profile; the method it offers varies by business. Use an email address the business controls, not a personal one that might leave with an employee.

2. Get the basics exactly right

Your name, address and phone number should be identical everywhere: on your profile, on your website, and on any directory listings. Small differences, like “St.” on one and “Street” on another, are fine. Old phone numbers and previous addresses are not.

• Business name: your real name, as it appears on your sign. Don't add keywords or locations to it; Google's guidelines don't allow that.
• Address or service area: show your address if customers visit you. If you go to them, like most trades, set a service area instead.
• Phone number: one that's actually answered.

3. Choose the right category

Your primary category tells Google what you are, so pick the most specific one that fits: “Plumber”, not “Contractor”. You can add secondary categories for other things you genuinely do, but don't add categories for services you don't offer.

4. Fill in everything else

• Hours: including holiday hours. Nothing loses a customer faster than showing up to a closed door.
• Services or menu: list what you actually do, in the words customers use.
• Description: a plain, honest paragraph about who you are and who you serve.
• Website link: to your homepage, or the most relevant page.
• Photos: real ones. Your storefront, your team, your work. Stock photos tell customers nothing.

5. Match it to your website

Your profile and your website should agree with each other. Your site should show the same name, address, phone number, hours and services, and ideally mark them up so search engines can read them clearly. When the two disagree, customers and search engines are left guessing which one is right.

6. Keep it alive

• Update hours before holidays and whenever they change.
• Reply to reviews, good and bad, briefly and politely. Future customers read the replies.
• Ask happy customers for reviews. Never pay for them or post fake ones; it breaks the rules and customers can usually tell.
• Add new photos now and then, especially of recent work.

The short version

1. Claim and verify the profile with a business email.
2. Make your name, address and phone match everywhere.
3. Pick the most specific primary category.
4. Fill in hours, services, description, website and real photos.
5. Make sure your website says the same things.
6. Keep it updated and reply to reviews.

Setting this up is part of every Northcraft build and rebuild, and it's available on its own for a site you already have. Either way, the accounts stay in your name.