Set up and verify your Google Business Profile

A step-by-step guide from Social Web. Updated 22 October 2026.

Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that puts your business on Google Maps and in the panel that shows up when someone searches your name. It used to be called Google My Business.

Can you have one?

Google gives profiles to businesses that customers can visit, or that travel to their customers. If you only sell online, you aren't eligible. A PO box or a rented mailing address doesn't count as a location.

Before you start: get your details in one place

Copy these from your website so your profile says exactly what your site says. The free listings guide explains why that matters.

Your business name, exactly as it appears on your signage and website. Google doesn't allow extras like suburbs, services or slogans in the name.
A phone number that rings at your business, not a call centre.
Your website address and opening hours.
Your address, and the suburbs you cover if you travel.
The category that best describes what you do.

No website yet? Leave that line out: a listing works without one. Our one-page site is A$39 a month: one page with tap-to-call and an enquiry form, checked by a person before it goes live.

Step 1: Find out if you're already on Google

Search Google Maps for your business name and suburb.

If it's there and nobody has claimed it, select Claim this business, then Manage now.
If someone else has verified it, request ownership from them through the profile.
If it isn't there, go to business.google.com/add and choose Add your business to Google.

Sign in with a Google account the business will keep. If you're making a new one, Google suggests your business email address.

Step 2: Enter your details

Enter your business name and choose your category.
Answer "Do customers visit this location?"
- Choose Yes if you have a shopfront with staff there during opening hours. Enter your address and check the pin is on your building.
- Choose No if you don't. You'll add a service area instead of a public address.
Add your phone number and website.
Select Finish, check your details, then choose Verify now.

If you go to your customers: hide your address

If customers don't come to your address, Google says to hide it. That covers most cleaners, tradies and mobile clinics working from home. Google still holds the address; customers just don't see it.

If you answered No in step 2, you've already done this. If your profile shows your address and it shouldn't:

Open your Business Profile and select Edit profile, then Location.
Next to Business location, select Edit.
Turn off Show business address to customers, then Save.

Then set your service area:

In Edit profile, Location, select Edit next to Service area.
Add the suburbs, postcodes or regions you cover. You can add up to 20, and Google asks that the whole area stays within about two hours' drive of your base. You can't use a radius.
Save.

If customers come to you and you also travel to them, you're a hybrid business. You can show your address and a service area.

Step 3: Verify

Google picks the method based on your type of business, your region and what it can find about you publicly. You can't change it, and it may ask for more than one. The options are:

Phone or text: make sure you can answer the business number. Automated phone systems won't get the code.
Email: a code goes to an address you can open.
Live video call: only during your opening hours, and you need to be at the business.
Postcard: not offered to every business. It usually arrives within 14 days and the code expires after 30. Don't change your name, address or category while you wait, or the code stops working.
Video recording: Google recommends it when it's offered.

For a video, Google wants one continuous, unedited take of at least 30 seconds, filmed live on your phone through your Business Profile, showing:

Where you are: street signs or landmarks near your business address. If you work from home, film your immediate neighbourhood.
That the business is real: your signage, or for service-area businesses, the tools and equipment you work with.
That you run it: doing a job, unlocking a branded van, or a business document such as an invoice or utility bill with the same name as your profile.

Don't film bank, tax or ID numbers, or other people's faces.

Reviews take up to five working days, sometimes longer. Customers can't find your profile until it's verified.

Step 4: Fill in the rest

Once you're verified, add your hours (including special hours for public holidays), a short description and a few real photos of your work. Most changes show within about 10 minutes, though Google says some can take up to 30 days.

Your profile can also carry posts. In our Studio, Google posts go out on schedule and can carry a Call now, Learn more or Book button to your site. Instagram and Facebook work differently: during the free trial they come as ready-to-post reminders, and on a paid plan they post automatically once your first post has been checked.

After you're done

A week later, search your business name on Google and on Google Maps, and check every detail against your website.
When your hours or phone number change, change them here, on Bing Places, on Apple Maps and on your website on the same day.
Don't write your own reviews or ask friends to. Google removes fake reviews, and it can cost you the profile.

Rather we did it?

On Website, looked after and above (from A$199 a month), we set up your Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business and the main Australian directories, and keep them matching your website. Studio only comes with these guides. See plans and pricing or email [email protected].