Someone in Leeds types “dentist” into their phone and gets three practices on the map. One is your competitor two streets away. One is a listing called “Bright Smile Dental Implants Invisalign Leeds City Centre”. The third closed last spring. Yours, closer than all of them, isn't there.
That's rarely bad luck. It's the sum of small decisions: the wrong primary category, an address written two ways, bank holiday hours nobody updated, reviews unanswered for months. This guide covers setting up a Google Business Profile properly, keeping it alive, collecting reviews within the rules, running several locations and the platforms beyond Google, with examples from clinics, restaurants, garages, law firms and trades.
How does Google rank the local pack?
Google's help centre says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well your profile matches the search. Distance is how far the searcher is from you, estimated if they haven't shared a location. Prominence is how well known the business is: reviews and ratings, the sites that mention and link to you, your wider presence on the web.
Distance is out of your hands; short of moving premises, you can't change where the searcher is standing. So the effort goes into the other two: a profile that matches what people search for, and a business that looks trustworthy on Google and beyond.
The same page also says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Results marked “Sponsored” are ads. Anyone promising a guaranteed top-three map position is talking either about advertising or about tactics that break the rules.
The foundations: name, categories and address
Get these three wrong and the rest of the profile won't rescue you. Google's Business Profile guidelines cover each in detail, and breaking them can end in suspension.
Business name: whatever is on the sign
Your business name should be your real-world name, as it appears on your shopfront, website and stationery. Taglines, service descriptions, neighbourhoods, phone numbers, opening hours and store codes are off limits. “Bright Smile Dental” is fine; “Bright Smile Dental | Implants, Invisalign, Leeds” is not. If your registered company name differs from your trading name, use the trading name; “Ltd” only goes in if customers genuinely see it as part of the name.
Keyword-stuffed names can seem to work for a while. But it's the violation competitors spot and report most easily, and the guidelines name it as grounds for suspension. While you're fighting to get a suspended profile back, you're off the map entirely.
Primary and additional categories
The primary category should be the most specific option that completes “This business IS a …”. Google's own example: “Nail salon” rather than “Salon”. A practice focused on orthodontics should look at the orthodontist category rather than general dentist; a tyre and alignment shop should look past generic car repair. If nothing fits, pick the closest broader option; you can't create your own.
Additional categories describe real departments, not every service. Google's example is a supermarket adding categories for its bakery and deli. A restaurant's takeaway service is a service, not a department. Categories also decide which features appear (menus and ordering links for restaurants, for instance), and changing them can trigger re-verification, so don't keep experimenting.
Address, service areas and virtual offices
The address must be a real place with permanent signage where customers can turn up. PO boxes, virtual offices and desks rented as a registered address don't qualify. Businesses that work at the customer's location (plumbers, mobile mechanics, cleaners) are service-area businesses: they remove the address and list up to 20 service areas as towns, cities or postcodes. There's no radius option, and Google asks that the area stays within roughly two hours' drive of your base.
| Business type | Address | Service area | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Storefront (clinic, restaurant, garage) | Shown | Not needed | Permanent signage, staffed during opening hours |
| Service-area business (works at customers' homes) | Removed from profile | Up to 20 areas | No radius; roughly two hours' drive from base |
| Hybrid (premises plus call-outs) | Shown | Can be added | Customers must genuinely be received at the address |
| Virtual office or mail drop | Not eligible | Not eligible | No profile without real operations there |
| Several branches | Each with its own address | Per branch | Same name everywhere, consistent categories |
Verification and consistent name, address and phone
Until it's verified, the profile isn't fully yours. Google picks the method based on business type, region and public information: phone, text, email, live video call, recorded video or postcard, and you can't choose. For video, you're generally expected to show the location (street signs, neighbouring shops), the business (signage, equipment) and that you run it (opening up with your key, using the till) in one continuous take. Google says reviews usually take up to five business days.
A costly mistake is letting an agency or web designer verify the profile with their own Google account. The primary owner should always be the business's account, with agencies and staff added as managers.
Keeping name, address and phone identical everywhere (NAP consistency) isn't a written Google rule, but the logic holds: Google recognises your business partly by comparing it with other sources. If your website says “Unit 3, 12 Mill Lane, Leeds LS1 4AB”, a directory says “12 Mill Ln” and your Facebook page shows the old address, you're creating doubt about where you are.
- The same name, address and phone in the website footer and contact page as on the profile
- A direct local number per branch, not a central switchboard (premium-rate numbers aren't accepted)
- After a move, every directory and social profile showing the old address updated
- LocalBusiness structured data on the site: name, address, phone, hours, coordinates
- One trading name, used the same way everywhere
Keeping the profile alive: hours, photos and services
Google says businesses with complete, accurate information are more likely to appear in local results. Complete doesn't mean filled in once and forgotten. A customer who finds a locked door rarely comes back, and quite often leaves a review on the way home.
Opening hours and special days
Enter special hours well ahead of bank holidays, Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year and Easter, including early closing on Christmas Eve. For a restaurant with summer hours, a garage open Saturday mornings or a clinic that closes for lunch, these details prevent the one-star reviews that follow a profile saying “open” while the shutters are down.
Photos and video
Google lists photos and videos among the steps that support local visibility, but their real effect is on whether people choose you. An exterior (so people find the door), the interior, the team and the work itself are enough. Skip stock images and heavy filters. A technician at the ramp for a garage, real plates for a restaurant, the entrance and a meeting room for a law firm.
Services, products and updates
The services list holds what a category can't: implants, clear aligners and whitening for a dental practice; servicing, MOT preparation, brakes and air-con regassing for a garage. Give each a short, plain description. Updates (posts) are for offers, events and new services; post when you have something to say rather than forcing a weekly update.
Google also changes this product often. The built-in chat feature was switched off in July 2024, and the simple websites created through profiles were retired the same year. Don't build your plan on any single feature; what lasts is accurate core information, reviews and your own website.
Reviews: asking, replying and where to draw the line
Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and that replying shows you value feedback. Asking is allowed, even expected. The limits are about how you ask.
Google's red lines
Google Maps' fake engagement policy is clear. All of the following are prohibited; offending reviews are removed, and repeated abuse can lead to account-level action:
- Offering discounts, gifts, money or complimentary services for a review, or to change or remove a negative one
- Asking only customers who seem happy, or steering unhappy ones to a private form (review gating)
- Pressuring customers to review on the premises, or asking for specific content such as naming a staff member
- Reviews from current or former employees, relatives or business partners
- Review quotas for staff
- Buying reviews or working with anyone who sells them
This isn't only Google's concern. In the UK, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has banned fake reviews and concealed incentivised reviews since 6 April 2025, and the CMA has published guidance on it. In the US, the FTC's rule on fake reviews and testimonials has applied since late 2024. Note the gap: UK law allows clearly disclosed incentivised reviews, while Google allows no incentives at all. On Google, Google's rule is the one that counts.
Ask at the right moment, and ask everyone the same way
The method that works best is almost boring: when the job is done, send everyone the same short message with a link. The review link and a QR code are in the profile management screen. A garage can ask at handover, a restaurant with a small card brought with the bill, a law firm with one line in the email that closes the file. Write “we'd appreciate hearing about your experience”, not “we'd love a five-star review”.
If the request goes by email or text, keep it a plain request. Add an offer and you may be in direct-marketing territory, where PECR and your consent records matter.
Replying, especially to the bad ones
Reply to every review: briefly to positive ones, calmly and specifically to negative ones. Don't try to win the argument; the real reader is the next customer deciding whether to choose you. A short apology or explanation, the channel where you'll fix it and a named person are enough.
Healthcare and legal services have an extra line. A clinic must never confirm in a reply that someone is a patient or mention their treatment: that's health data under UK GDPR, and regulators such as the GMC and GDC are clear that confidentiality still applies when responding to criticism online. Solicitors should keep replies factual and say nothing about a client matter.
Several locations: profiles and location pages
Take a dental group with practices in Headingley, Roundhay and the city centre. Each gets its own profile, because each is a separate place that receives patients. All locations in a country should use the same name, and locations offering the same service should share a category. If the neighbourhood isn't on the sign, it doesn't go in the profile name; it's already in the address.
Chains with ten or more locations can apply for bulk verification; once approved, new locations can be added without postcards or videos. Service-area businesses aren't eligible, and each brand applies on its own. Grouping locations in Business Profile Manager and giving each a store code makes later bulk updates far easier.
Each profile's website link should go to that location's page, not the home page. A good location page has the address, phone and hours, a map, the clinicians or technicians based there, services offered only at that branch, parking and transport, and real photos. Three copies with the neighbourhood swapped won't fool Google or patients.
Pages for towns where you have no branch
An old local SEO trap is producing near-identical pages such as “dentist Horsforth” and “dentist Pudsey” for areas where you have no practice. Google's spam policies call this doorway abuse. If you genuinely serve an area, as an emergency plumber might, area pages can make sense, but each needs real local information: services offered there, typical response times, nearby jobs completed.
Practitioner profiles
Public-facing practitioners such as doctors and solicitors may have their own profile. Where several work at one location, the organisation has a profile and each practitioner's carries only their own name. For a solo practitioner at a branded firm, Google suggests one profile in the form “Firm name: Practitioner name”.
Beyond Google: Apple, Bing and directories
Google is the biggest source of map traffic, not the only one. Many iPhone users open Apple Maps by default, and some customers search on Bing. Setting these up takes an afternoon.
- Apple Business (formerly Apple Business Connect) lets you claim your Apple Maps place card and manage photos, hours and action buttons; Apple lists location management as available in the UK, much of Europe, North America and the Gulf.
- Bing Places for Business can import your Google profile and keep it in sync.
- Sector platforms beat generic directories: TripAdvisor and OpenTable for restaurants, Checkatrade or TrustATrader for trades, Yelp in North America, Yell in the UK. They send customers directly and help Google understand who you are.
Hundreds of old-style directory listings, on the other hand, are time wasted. A few well-kept ones beat hundreds of abandoned entries.
Local links
Part of prominence comes from sites that link to you. For a local business, good links are usually the digital trace of things you already do: chamber of commerce membership, the junior football team you sponsor, a story in the local paper, a manufacturer's list of approved installers. Buying links breaks Google's spam policies, at local scale too.
Measuring results and dealing with rule-breaking competitors
The performance view shows profile views, the search terms people used to find you, calls, direction requests and website clicks, plus menu, booking or product data depending on your business. Search terms update monthly. Watch the trend: which services you're found for, what moved after a change. The calls figure only counts taps on the profile's call button; people who dial by hand don't appear.
Every few months, check your three or four key searches (say “garage” and “brake repair”) from several points around your premises. Because of distance, results a mile away can look completely different.
Competitors who break the rules
Keyword-stuffed names, profiles at virtual offices and three listings for one business genuinely take up space in the local pack. Start by suggesting an edit from that listing on the map. If that fails and the problem is misleading information in the name, phone number or website, use Google's Business Redressal Complaint Form, with evidence such as a photo of the sign, the name on their own website or their Companies House record. Google says it can't guarantee action and won't send updates, so keep your own records. And report only what genuinely breaks the rules; a business whose real name happens to be long isn't keyword stuffing.
Where to start
- Check that the primary owner of your profile is the business's own Google account; add your agency and staff as managers.
- Make the business name match your sign, and set the most specific accurate primary category.
- Decide between an address and service areas based on how you actually work; never use a virtual office.
- Make the name, address and phone on your website, directories and social profiles match the profile exactly.
- Enter special hours now for the next bank holidays and Christmas.
- Add real photos, a full services list and short descriptions.
- Set up a routine that sends every customer the same review request after the job, with no incentives and no filtering.
- Reply to the last three months of reviews, starting with the negative ones.
- If you have several locations, link each profile to its own location page with real content.
- Claim your Apple Business and Bing Places listings, tag the profile link with UTMs and review performance every quarter.
At AYTE Digital, local SEO work starts with a joint audit of your profiles, location pages and directory listings, after which we put this list in the right order for your business. The profiles stay in your account, and every change we make is shared with you in writing.
