Before you start
Have these ready. It takes about twenty minutes.
- A Google account. Use your business email if you have one, so the profile stays with the business.
- Your business name exactly as customers know it. Don't add keywords to it; Google can suspend profiles for that.
- Your address, or the suburbs you travel to if you work at customers' places.
- Your phone number, website, opening hours and a few photos.
Step by step
- Go to business.google.com and choose to add your business.
- Enter your business name and pick the category that fits best. You can add more categories later; the first one matters most.
- Say whether customers visit you. A café or salon has a location to show. A tradie or mobile service is a service-area business: you can hide your home address and list the suburbs you cover instead.
- Add your phone number and website.
- Verify that you're the owner. Google will offer one or more ways, such as a phone call, a text, an email, a short video of your business or a postcard. Use whichever it offers.
- Once verified, fill in everything: hours, services, a short description, and photos.
Tip: Your name, address and phone number should be written exactly the same way on your profile, your website and anywhere else you're listed.
After it's live
- Ask happy customers for a review. Google gives you a link to share; send it in a text or email after the job.
- Reply to every review, good or bad, politely and briefly. It shows future customers you care.
- Add new photos every now and then: finished jobs, your space, your team.
- Keep your hours up to date, especially over public holidays.
Never buy reviews or write your own. It breaks Google's rules and Australian consumer law, and profiles get removed for it.
Where your website fits in
Your Google profile gets you found. Your website is where people decide. Most will tap through to your site to check your prices, see your work and work out if you're the right fit, so link your profile to a website that answers those questions quickly.