If someone searches for what you do and your town on their phone, your Google Business Profile is often the first thing they see, before they ever reach your website. A good Google Business Profile checklist takes an afternoon to work through properly, and it's one of the highest-return afternoons a small business can spend. Here's what to check, in order, whether you run a salon, a trades firm or a practice.
Your Google Business Profile checklist: claim and verify the right listing
Start by making sure you actually control the profile. Search your business name in Google Maps: if a listing already exists but nobody in your business manages it, claim it through Google Business Profile Manager and complete Google's verification step (the method varies, and is often a short video of your premises). If duplicate listings have crept in over the years, from an old address or a directory site, request they're merged or removed, so reviews and searches all point to one place.
Get the basics exactly right
Business name, address, phone number and opening hours should match your website and every directory listing word for word. Small mismatches (a missing suite number, an old phone number) confuse both customers and Google. Set your primary category as precisely as possible (a barber should be "Barber Shop", not the generic "Hairdresser") and add secondary categories for anything else you genuinely offer.
Write a description that says what you actually do
The business description is a plain-text field, not a keyword list. Say what you do, who you do it for and what makes you the right choice, in the kind of language a customer would use. A sentence naming your town and the specific service someone's searching for does more work than a paragraph of generic claims.
Add photos that show the real place
Genuine photos of the shopfront, the team and the work make a profile look looked after, and help someone recognise your actual premises when they arrive. Before-and-after or finished-work photos do more to build confidence than any amount of written copy. Update them every few months so the profile doesn't look abandoned.
List your services and check your links
Add each service you offer with a short description, so someone searching for a specific job can see straight away that you do it. Then check that the website, booking or quote links on your profile all go to the right pages: a link that's drifted out of date sends a ready customer nowhere.
Ask for reviews, and reply to every one
Reviews are the single biggest trust signal on the profile, and they also feed how well you rank locally. Ask happy customers directly, ideally with a short link straight to the review box, rather than hoping they'll find it themselves. Reply to every review, good or bad: a calm, specific reply to a poor review often reassures a future customer more than the review itself put them off.
Post updates the way you would on social media
Google Business Profile posts (an offer, a new service, a seasonal note) appear directly in your listing and cost nothing to publish. They don't need to be frequent, but a profile with a recent post looks active in a way a static one doesn't.
Run the Google Business Profile checklist every quarter
None of this is a one-off job. Set a quarterly reminder to check your hours are still correct, add any new photos, and read back through recent reviews. A profile that's kept current does steady, quiet work in the background for the businesses that bother to maintain it.
The bottom line
A Google Business Profile is free, and most of what makes it work well is simply keeping it accurate and answered. Work through this checklist once properly, then revisit it every few months, and it will do real work turning local searches into enquiries. A well-kept profile and a well-built website work together in local search: for YOUR Legal Costs, that meant local SEO across their target locations alongside their new site. If you'd rather someone else kept on top of it, that's exactly what our SEO & Marketing team does, including for businesses around Macclesfield.
