Module 2: Claiming and setting up your profile

Claiming and verifying your listing

Go to google.com/business (it redirects to the Business Profile manager) and sign in with the Google account you want to own the business. Search for your business name. If a listing already exists — Google auto-creates them from public data — click "Claim this business." If nothing exists, choose "Add your business to Google."

Google will ask you to verify, usually by mailing a postcard with a code to your business address, though some businesses get phone, email, or video verification options. The postcard takes 5–14 days. While you wait, fill in everything else — verification only locks the listing against edits by others; you can complete the whole profile meanwhile.

If someone else (a former employee, an old agency) already manages the listing, use the "Request access" flow. The current owner gets 7 days to respond; silence transfers management to you. Never create a duplicate listing for the same location — duplicates split your reviews and confuse Google. One location, one listing, always.

After verification, add a second owner — a trusted manager or your own backup account. Listings with a single owner are one lost password or one departed employee away from being unmanageable. Two owners costs nothing and prevents the most common access emergency in local SEO. Set this up now while you're thinking about it.

Name, address, and service areas — done right

Enter your business name exactly as decided in Module 1. Do not stuff keywords into the name field ("Mike's Plumbing — Best Plumber Austin TX"). Google explicitly forbids this, competitors report it, and it can get your listing suspended. Your real name, nothing more.

For the address: if customers come to you (store, restaurant, office), enter the full address and place the map pin precisely on your entrance. If you go to customers (plumber, mobile detailer, home services), choose the service-area business option, hide your address, and list the cities, towns, or ZIP codes you actually serve. Be honest — listing 40 towns you never visit doesn't help and can look spammy. Cover the area you can genuinely reach within your normal drive time.

If you have multiple locations, each gets its own listing with its own phone number and its own landing page on your website. Resist the temptation to manage them all identically — each location should have location-specific photos, hours, and reviews. Google treats each listing independently, so the work multiplies, but so do the rankings.

Hours, including the ones people forget

Enter regular hours for all seven days, and mark days you're closed. Then go further: Google lets you set special hours for holidays and "more hours" for specific services (like happy hour for a bar, or pickup hours for a restaurant). Businesses that show correct holiday hours get a visible "open now" badge when competitors show "hours may differ" — that badge wins clicks on exactly the days customers are deciding.

If your hours vary by season, set a calendar reminder to update them twice a year. Nothing erodes trust faster than a customer driving over because Google said you were open. While you're in there, write your business description: 750 characters max, front-load the first 250 (that's what shows before "more"). Say what you do, who it's for, and what makes you different — in plain words, not keyword soup.

Common pitfall: the description is not for stuffing city names. One natural mention of your city is fine; a paragraph of "Austin plumber, plumber Austin, best plumber in Austin" will read terribly to humans and earns you nothing with Google. Write it like you'd explain the business to a neighbor.

Update your hours the moment they change — new holiday schedule, summer hours, emergency closure — not "when you get around to it." Google shows your hours to people making real-time decisions about where to go. A customer who drives to a closed store because your listing was stale doesn't just lose trust in the listing; they lose trust in the business.