They search for you on Maps and find the business next door

It is nine on a Saturday morning. Someone has a flat tyre, pulls over and searches for “tyre repair near me” on their phone. Google shows several options. Your workshop is the closest, only 300 metres away and almost visible from the road.

The profile says “Closed. Opens Monday at 9:00 am.” You have been open every Saturday for three years. A nephew entered the hours before Saturday opening began, and nobody has checked them since.

The customer does not call to make sure. They tap the competitor marked as open and, ten minutes later, are drinking vending-machine coffee there. You never even learn that the customer existed.

The example is hypothetical, but the same thing can happen to any business that receives visitors or travels to customers: a salon, dental practice, electronics repair shop, bakery, veterinary clinic or mobile tradesperson. Some people will never reach your website or Instagram. Their entire introduction to your business begins and ends with its Google profile.

Below, we will look at which parts of that profile affect a customer’s choice, what tends to go out of date, and how to check everything yourself without a contractor or any “local SEO magic”.

The official name is a Google Business Profile. It appears beside search results when someone searches for your company name and in the Maps list when they search for something like “dentist near me”.

The owner is not always the person who created the profile. Google collects business information from several sources, including user reports and licensed data, and may update a profile when someone reports outdated information. Google says this in its help page about profile updates. Your profile can therefore contain a phone number, opening hours or even an address that you never entered.

Google also explains what determines local results: how well a profile matches the query, the distance from the person searching, and how prominent the business is, including the number of reviews and links it has. The same guidance says that you cannot pay Google for a higher position in local results at all. Read the contract carefully if someone sells you a “guaranteed top position on Google Maps”.

You cannot change the distance unless you move closer to your customers. Relevance and accurate information are within your control. Google says that businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to appear in local search. It sounds obvious, but many profiles lose customers here. Competitors are not the problem when the opening hours were last edited around the switch to daylight saving time.

Before you edit the hours or photos, find out who has permission to do it. Otherwise, you may spend an evening writing the perfect description and then discover that only a marketer you stopped working with last year has access.

Open business.google.com with the Google account you believe the company uses. If the profile is there, check the people and access settings. A profile can have owners and managers. An owner has full control: they can add and remove people, change information and delete the profile. A manager can do almost all the same things except manage people and delete the profile. There is one primary owner. To transfer that role, another person must already have access. Google explains the details in its guidance for profile owners and managers.

The practical rule is simple: the business itself should be the primary owner. A contractor can be a manager, which is both normal and convenient. If the only owner is the personal email address of someone who once “set everything up online”, your Google shop window depends on whether that person replies. We covered the same dependency in “Your contractor disappeared. What’s left of your website?”. A Business Profile is no different.

If the profile exists in search but not in your account, somebody else controls it or nobody does. You will need to go through verification. Google chooses the available method: video recording, phone call or text message, email, video call, and sometimes a postcard with a code. Verification usually takes up to five working days. Without it, you may be unable to change details such as the name or opening hours. This is described in Google’s verification help.

There is one more detail. During the first seven days after someone becomes an owner or manager, they cannot transfer primary ownership or remove other users. If you plan to take control of the profile from a contractor, do not leave it until the final day of the relationship.

At some point, people noticed that words in a profile name can help it appear in search. That is how Maps acquired businesses called things like “Smile Dental | implants | London | affordable” and “24/7 TYRE REPAIR DISCOUNTS”.

Google’s Business Profile guidelines ask you to use the real name shown on your signage, website and documents. No slogans, lists of services, cities, opening hours, phone numbers or links. The rules explicitly prohibit unnecessary information in the name.

That also helps customers. Someone standing under a sign that says “Smile” searches Maps for “Smile”. A long, keyword-stuffed name looks like an advert pinned to a lamppost. Google may also make its own edits to bring a profile into line with the rules.

If your name has accumulated extra words, restore the real one. Changing the name of a verified profile may trigger another verification, so do it when you have a few days to spare rather than just before a holiday.

The category is a quiet but influential line. Google says directly that the categories you choose affect local ranking.

The primary category should describe the business as precisely as possible. Specific is better than broad: if you mainly do manicures, “nail salon” is more accurate than “beauty salon”. You cannot invent a category; you must select one from Google’s list. You can add up to nine additional categories, but Google recommends using as few as possible rather than creating a category for every service.

Consider a hypothetical veterinary clinic. Its primary category is “veterinarian”, and it adds “pet groomer” because the clinic genuinely has a separate grooming room and specialist. “Pet shop” would be excessive just because there is a shelf of food beside the till. The category answers “what kind of place is this?” Services and photos explain what else customers can buy there.

Try a quick exercise. Ask someone seeing the company for the first time to describe it in one phrase. If their answer does not match your primary category, decide which of you has the clearer description.

Only the people who already went elsewhere see the cost of incorrect opening hours. Check three things.

Regular hours. Google asks for the hours when you actually serve customers. Time spent on site sorting stock does not count.

Special hours. Holidays, shorter days, annual leave and other temporary changes have a separate field, so you do not need to alter the regular schedule. Google’s special-hours guidance says this is suitable when hours change or the business closes for up to six days in a row. Google also recommends confirming your hours on public holidays, even if they stay the same.

Temporarily closed. If you close for seven days or longer, or for an unknown period, mark the profile as temporarily closed. That is more honest than leaving it “open” and later explaining that “we did put it in our Stories”.

Appointment-only businesses are a special case. Google’s guidelines say that some businesses, including those that work only by appointment, should not list opening hours. If you accept both walk-ins and appointments, the hours should answer a customer’s question: “Can I come in now?”

Grandma’s advice: set a reminder one week before every public holiday and your own time off with one item on it, “Google profile”. Two minutes of work can stop a Saturday customer from kissing a locked door.

A profile has buttons to call, get directions, visit the website and sometimes send a message. Each should lead somewhere a customer is expected.

Phone. Where possible, Google recommends using the number for that specific location rather than a general hotline. You can add up to two more mobile or landline numbers, but not a fax number (profile editing help). Test it the simple way: call the number from someone else’s phone during working hours. Who answers? How many rings does it take? Does that person know their number is on Google? If it belonged to a former administrator, some of your customers may currently be telling her about their problems.

Website. The link should open a working page for your business without redirecting to an unrelated service. If you have several locations, each profile should lead to the page for that location. Open the link from a phone. If the address is buried below three sliders, some people will return to Maps. If they reach a form, make sure the enquiry is actually delivered. We explain how in “The form said ‘Thank you.’ Where did the enquiry go?”.

Address or service area. This often confuses businesses that travel to customers, including plumbers, cleaners and repair specialists. If you do not serve customers at your address, Google recommends removing it from the profile and setting a service area instead. You define service areas by city, postcode or district; you cannot draw a radius around a point. You can add up to twenty areas, and the overall boundary should not extend much beyond a two-hour drive from the business base (service-area guidance). If you have a workshop where customers can bring an item and you also make call-outs, you can show both the address and a service area.

Messages. In some regions, a verified profile can include WhatsApp or text messaging. If the button is there, somebody should answer it during business hours. A message button that nobody checks can do more harm than having no button. We covered a useful first response in “How to reply to a client in a messenger”.

Once the basic information is correct, the profile can help customers choose. They know you are open and nearby; now they want to understand whether you are right for them.

Photos. The most useful pictures answer practical questions. What does the entrance look like from the street? Where can someone park? What is the space like inside? What do you actually do: finished work, a display, a treatment room? Google lets you set a logo and cover photo separately, although it warns that the cover will not necessarily be the first image shown. The requirements are straightforward: JPG or PNG, 10 KB to 5 MB, a recommended size of 720 by 720 pixels, in focus, well lit and without heavy filters (photo and video guidance).

If the newest picture shows an old sign or the premises before a renovation, someone may walk past without recognising you. Instagram has the same problem when your latest post is from 2023. We wrote about that in “Your last post was in 2023. Are you still in business?”.

Services. Business Profiles have a separate services editor. You can choose suggested services for your business type or add your own with a description and price. Do not put a price or phone number in the custom service name, because Google will reject it automatically (services guidance). Name the service the way a customer searches for it. “iPhone screen replacement” is clearer than “comprehensive display-module restoration”.

Description. It appears in the “From the business” section and has a 750-character limit. It cannot contain links or HTML, and the rules do not allow promotions or prices. Do not spend those characters on “a personal approach and high quality”. Say who you help, what you do, where you work and what makes the business different. Read the description aloud and replace your name with a competitor’s. If it still fits perfectly, it is not helping you yet.

Here is a hypothetical description for an electronics repair shop:

This description does not use the words “best” or “professional”. It does tell the reader where the shop is, what it repairs, how the process works and what to expect. Before mentioning a warranty or turnaround time, make sure you genuinely offer it.

Any Google user can suggest a change to your profile: different hours, another number, or even “permanently closed”. Some people mean well, some make mistakes, and others do neither.

Google says you may receive an email or a notification in the profile when a suggested edit needs your decision. You then have four days to accept or reject it. If you do not respond, Google may publish the change when other public information, such as your website, supports it. Google can also apply some edits without advance review when they are needed to meet its policies (profile updates help).

This leads to two practical steps.

First, Google Business Profile emails need to reach an inbox that somebody reads. An account created “for registration” and then forgotten is not suitable. Neither is a contractor’s inbox if nobody in the business has access.

Second, keep your information consistent. If the website has one set of opening hours, Instagram another and the profile a third, someone else’s edit may look more plausible to Google. Your website acts as a witness here. Accurate address, phone and opening hours make the profile easier to defend.

Your own edits also undergo review. This usually takes minutes, but Google warns that it can sometimes take up to 30 days. It may reject a change if it cannot confirm the information is accurate (edit status help). Set holiday hours in advance, not at six in the evening on 31 December.

You can run through this sequence today. Open the profile on a phone, preferably while signed out, so that you see it the way a customer does.

1. Search like a customer. Type what people search for into Google Maps without using your name: “laptop repair near me” or “manicure Shoreditch”. Check whether you appear and what the compact card shows before a click: category, rating, and “open” or “closed”.
2. Check who owns it. Open business.google.com, go to the access settings, and see who is an owner and who is a manager. The business should be the primary owner.
3. Compare the name with the sign. No extra words.
4. Read the categories again. The primary category should be the most precise. Additional ones are only for genuinely separate parts of the business.
5. Compare the hours with reality. Regular hours, special hours for the next holidays, and your own leave.
6. Call the number on the profile. Use someone else’s phone during working hours.
7. Open the website link. Use a phone. Is it immediately clear that you are in the right place?
8. Get directions. The pin should lead to the entrance, not the back yard or the next street.
9. Review the photos. Would you recognise the location from the first picture?
10. Check notifications. Are there any suggested edits from Google or users waiting for review?

Fix what you find straight away if you have access. If you do not, message the person who does. You can send this:

A profile that nobody opens will go out of date, however carefully it was completed on day one. A short monthly habit works better than one large annual update.

Open the profile and check its performance. This is available for verified profiles and shows how often people called, visited the website or requested directions, along with the search terms they used to find you (Business Profile performance help). Search-query data is updated at the beginning of each month.

You do not need a dashboard with a hundred metrics. Check three things:

• Search terms. Are people finding you for what you actually sell? If they search for “coffee machine repair” and the profile never mentions coffee machines, add the service.
• Actions. If calls or direction requests fall sharply without an obvious reason, check whether something changed in the profile.
• New photos and reviews. See what other people have added. Our article “Reviews: how to ask and respond to negative feedback” explains how to request reviews and reply to them.

One rule applies outside the calendar: when the phone number, address, opening hours or sign changes, update the Google profile and the website on the same day. If you leave it for “when there is time”, that time may arrive after someone has already stood outside a locked door.

A Google profile does not need creative copy. It needs the truth: the real name, an accurate category, hours that match reality, a phone number somebody answers, and photos that help a visitor recognise the entrance. You can fix most of this in one evening. After that, ten minutes a month and same-day updates when something changes are enough.

If the profile is only one part of your question about getting local customers from search, see how we approach SEO. If you would like an outside pair of eyes to review the profile as a customer sees it, contact us.

Reviewed on 24 October 2026. Business examples are hypothetical. The order of checks is an editorial recommendation, not a Google requirement or a guarantee of ranking. Profile features and interfaces may vary by country and business type.