TL;DR: To get your business to show up in Google Maps, create and verify a free Google Business Profile, complete every section with accurate information, and build customer reviews consistently.
Google ranks local results based on three factors: relevance, distance, and prominence. All three are within your control and this guide covers exactly how to improve each one.
Table of Contents
Why Google Maps Matters for Your Business
When someone searches “plumber near me” or “accountant in Leeds,” Google shows a map at the top of the results with three business listings underneath.
These three spots, known as the local pack or map pack, get the lion’s share of clicks. According to Backlinko’s local SEO research, 42% of all local searches result in a click on a local pack listing.
If your business isn’t in those three positions, the majority of searchers move on without seeing you.
You don’t need to pay Google to appear in these results. Nearly half of all Google searches have local intent, according to data cited by Backlinko and Forbes, so the opportunity is significant even for small, niche businesses.
Organic map pack rankings are free.
What you do need is a properly set-up and maintained Google Business Profile (GBP), the tool that controls how your business appears on Google Maps and in local search.
This guide covers everything from creating your profile from scratch to the ongoing actions that keep your ranking healthy over time.
What Is Google Business Profile and Why Does Your Business Need It?
Google Business Profile (previously called Google My Business, or GMB) is a free tool from Google that lets you manage how your business appears in Google Search and Google Maps. It’s separate from your website and controlled through a dashboard at business.google.com.
Your profile shows your business name, address, and phone number, your opening hours, photos, customer reviews and your responses, links to your website, and the services you offer.
When someone searches for your type of business in your area, Google pulls information from your profile to decide whether to show you and where to rank you.
If you haven’t claimed your Google Business Profile yet, that’s the first thing to sort out.
What to Do When Someone Else Has Claimed Your Google Business Profile
How Do You Claim or Create Your Google Business Profile?
Go to business.google.com and sign in with a Google account. Search for your business name to see if a listing already exists.
Google sometimes creates basic listings based on information it finds online, so your business may already be there without you knowing.
If a listing exists, click “Claim this business” and follow the steps to take ownership. If nothing comes up, you can create a new profile from scratch.
What counts as an eligible business?
Not every business can have a Google Business Profile.
You need either a physical location that customers can visit (a shop, office, or salon, for example) or a defined service area where you travel to customers (a plumber, cleaner, or mobile hairdresser, for example). Online-only businesses, without a physical presence or service area, are not eligible.
If you’re a service-area business, you can set your operating area without showing your home address publicly. This is the right approach if you work from home but serve customers across a town or region.
How Do You Verify Your Business on Google Maps?
Google requires you to verify that you’re the legitimate owner of the business before your listing goes live.
Verification options include:
- Video verification – The most common method currently. You record a short video showing your business location, signage, and equipment. Google’s guidelines are specific about what needs to be visible.
- Postcard by mail – Google posts a card with a verification code to your business address. This can take 5-14 days.
- Phone or email – Available for some established businesses.
Without verification your business won’t appear publicly on Google Maps.
Research from Birdeye’s 2025 State of Google Business Profile report found that fully verified and completed profiles are 80% more likely to appear in search results than unverified or incomplete ones.
Fill in Every Section of Your Profile
Once verified, put proper time into completing every section of your profile.
According to research by Google and Ipsos, businesses with complete listings are 2.7 times more likely to be considered reputable and 70% more likely to attract visits than businesses with incomplete profiles.
The sections that matter most:
Business name
Use your real business name exactly as it appears on your signage and official documents. Don’t add keywords or your town into the name field unless they’re genuinely part of your trading name. Google’s guidelines prohibit this and your profile can be suspended for it.
Business category
Your primary category tells Google what type of business you are and directly affects which searches your listing appears in.
Choose the most specific category that fits your main service. You can add secondary categories for other services you offer. This is one of the most important choices you’ll make when setting up your profile.
Address and phone number
Enter your address exactly as it appears on your website and anywhere else your business is listed online.
Use the same format consistently: if your website says “123 High Street,” don’t use “123 High St” on your profile. This consistency is called NAP consistency (Name, Address, Phone), and Google uses it to verify your business is legitimate.
Opening hours
Keep these accurate and update them for bank holidays and seasonal changes. Customers often make decisions based on whether you’re open right now, so an incorrect “closed” status can cost you an enquiry.
Business description
You have 750 characters to describe what you do. Write clearly and naturally, mentioning the services you offer and the areas you serve. Avoid keyword stuffing. Think about what a customer would want to know before choosing you.
Photos
Add photos of your premises, your team, your work, and your products.
Profiles with photos receive significantly more clicks and enquiries than those without.
According to Birdeye’s 2025 data, profiles with 100 or more photos receive dramatically more calls and direction requests than profiles with few or no images.
Even a modest set of quality photos improves your click-through rate. Add new photos regularly, as fresh content signals to Google that your profile is active.
How Does Google Decide Which Businesses to Show in Maps?
Google uses three factors to rank businesses in local search results: relevance, distance, and prominence.
According to Google’s official local ranking documentation, these three signals determine which businesses appear in Maps results and how prominently they rank. Understanding each one helps you focus your efforts where they matter most.
Relevance
How closely does your business match what the person searched for? Google assesses this based on your business category, the services listed on your profile, the keywords in your description, and the content on your website.
A complete, detailed profile that clearly describes your services scores higher for relevance.
Distance
How close is your business to the person searching, or to the location they specified? You can’t change where your business is located, but you can make sure your address is accurate and, if you’re a service-area business, that your service areas are set correctly.
Prominence
How well-known and trusted is your business, both online and in the real world? Google measures this through your customer reviews, how many websites mention your business, links to your website from other sites, and how often people interact with your listing.
Of the three, prominence is where most businesses have the most room to improve.
How Do Customer Reviews Affect Your Google Maps Ranking?
Customer reviews are one of the strongest signals of prominence.
According to Birdeye’s 2025 State of Google Business Profile report, Google reviews accounted for 81% of all online review volume in 2024, making Google the dominant platform for customer trust signals.
The number of reviews, their quality, and how recently they were left all feed into your ranking.
Research from BrightLocal found that 88% of consumers read Google reviews before making a decision.
Businesses with more positive reviews tend to rank higher and convert more searchers into customers.
How to get more reviews without being pushy
Ask customers directly, make it easy for them, and do it consistently.
After completing a job or sale, send a follow-up message with a direct link to your Google review page. You can find this link in your Google Business Profile dashboard. The easier you make it, the more responses you’ll get.
Respond to every review, positive and negative, 89% of consumers are more likely to choose a business that responds to all its reviews.
A thoughtful response to a critical review often reassures potential customers more than you might expect. It shows you take your service seriously. When responding, you can naturally mention your services and location, which adds a small relevance signal to your profile.
Don’t buy reviews or ask friends and family to leave fake ones. Google’s spam detection is effective, and the risk of having your profile suspended isn’t worth it.
Why Does NAP Consistency Matter for Google Maps Rankings?
Your business details appear in many places beyond Google: Yell, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Facebook, Checkatrade, and dozens of other directories. Google cross-references these sources when assessing how trustworthy your business information is.
If your phone number, address, or business name appears differently across these platforms, Google loses confidence in your listing.
Research compiled by Marketing LTB found that 63% of consumers say inaccurate or inconsistent information on business listings reduces their trust in that business, which also feeds into how Google evaluates your profile.
Common problems include old phone numbers on forgotten directory listings, address abbreviations that don’t match your profile, and slight variations in your trading name.
Go through the main directories and make sure your details match your Google Business Profile exactly.
Start with Yell, Bing Places, Apple Maps, and Facebook. Then check any industry-specific directories relevant to your trade.
What Should You Post and Update on Your Google Business Profile?
Google favours active profiles over neglected ones. According to data from SQ Magazine cited by Content by Cass, listings with recent posts receive 21% more user interactions than inactive listings.
A few actions each week keeps your profile working well.
Google Posts – You can publish short updates to your profile, similar to social media posts. Use them to announce offers, share news, or highlight a service. Each post stays visible for a week before being archived.
Services and products – Make sure all your services are listed with clear descriptions. This builds Google’s understanding of what you offer and which searches you’re relevant for.
What Google Maps Tactics Should You Avoid?
A few things businesses try that don’t work, or can actively damage your profile:
Adding keywords to your business name – If your legal name is “Smith’s Plumbing,” registering on Google as “Smith’s Plumbing Boiler Repairs Bradford” violates Google’s guidelines. Profiles doing this face suspension.
Using a virtual office address – Google’s guidelines require your address to be a real location where you’re staffed during business hours. Virtual offices listed purely to get a presence in a city you don’t actually work from are against the rules.
Setting large service areas to rank everywhere – Setting your service area to cover the whole of England doesn’t make you rank across England. Distance still matters, and Google ranks you based on where your actual business is located.
How Long Does It Take to Appear in Google Maps Results?
After verification, your listing usually appears on Google Maps within a few days. How prominently it ranks is a separate question.
For new profiles with no reviews and limited prominence signals, you’ll likely rank in your immediate vicinity for your business name. Ranking for competitive terms like “plumber in Manchester” or “accountant near me” takes longer, typically three to six months of consistent work on your profile, reviews, and website content.
Existing businesses with some online presence often see improvements within four to eight weeks of properly optimising their profile.
When Should You Get Professional Help with Google Maps SEO?
Most small business owners can set up and manage their Google Business Profile themselves. It’s not technically difficult, and Google has clear guidance available.
Where it gets more complex is when you have multiple locations to manage, citation inconsistencies across dozens of directories, a competitive local market where rivals are well established, or a profile that’s been suspended or has duplicate listings.
These situations benefit from professional local SEO support.
A specialist can audit your entire online presence, fix inconsistencies, and build a strategy for improving your prominence in your area.
If you’d like help with your Google Business Profile or local SEO more broadly, our local SEO service is designed specifically for UK small businesses.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, completely free. Creating a listing, managing your profile, responding to reviews, and adding photos all cost nothing. There is a paid advertising option called Google Local Services Ads, but organic map pack rankings are not pay-to-win. You can build a strong local presence without spending a penny on Google directly.
Google sometimes creates basic listings based on information it finds online. You need to claim this listing to take control of it. Search for your business at business.google.com and click “Claim this business.” You’ll then go through verification to confirm you’re the legitimate owner.
Focus on the three ranking factors: relevance (complete your profile thoroughly and list all your services), distance (make sure your address is accurate), and prominence (build reviews consistently, keep your details consistent across directories, and keep your profile active). There’s no quick fix, but consistent effort across these areas produces results within three to six months.
No. If you’re a service-area business, such as a plumber, electrician, or mobile beautician, you can set your service areas without displaying a home address publicly. You still need to verify a real location with Google, but your address won’t be visible to customers.
Possibly, if that town falls within your genuine service area and you have good prominence signals there. Setting your service area to include a town doesn’t automatically make you rank there. Building local citations, collecting reviews from customers in that area, and creating location-specific content on your website all contribute.
Suspensions usually happen because your listing violates Google’s guidelines. Common causes include adding keywords to your business name, using a virtual office or ineligible address, or having duplicate listings. You can appeal through Google’s Business Profile support, but you’ll need to address the underlying issue first before the appeal is likely to succeed.
NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. It means your business details appear identically across every directory, website, and platform where you’re listed. Even small inconsistencies, like “Street” versus “St,” can confuse Google’s verification process and reduce your rankings. Check your details on Yell, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Facebook, and industry directories.
Aim for weekly activity. This could be adding a photo, publishing a Google Post, responding to a review, or updating your services. Active profiles signal to Google that you’re a genuine, operating business. Neglected profiles tend to lose ground to competitors who maintain theirs consistently.
Yes, provided you’re a service-area business that travels to customers, or a home-based business that genuinely receives customers at your home address. If you work from home but serve customers remotely online only, you’re not eligible. If you serve customers in a defined geographical area from your home, set up as a service-area business and keep your address hidden from public view.