{"id":61,"date":"2026-07-16T04:04:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T04:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/2026\/07\/16\/how-to-set-up-your-google-business-profile-properly\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T04:04:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T04:04:40","slug":"how-to-set-up-your-google-business-profile-properly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/2026\/07\/16\/how-to-set-up-your-google-business-profile-properly\/","title":{"rendered":"How to set up your Google Business Profile properly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If your customers are local, your Google Business Profile is probably the first thing they will see about you: it powers the map results and the panel that appears when someone searches your name. It is free, and a well maintained profile routinely outperforms an expensive website that nobody finds.<\/p>\n<h2>Claim and verify<\/h2>\n<p>Search for your business name on Google. If a profile already exists, claim it rather than creating a duplicate. If not, create one at google.com\/business. Verification is usually by postcard, phone or video, and nothing you edit becomes fully visible until it is done, so start this first.<\/p>\n<h2>Complete every field<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Name:<\/strong> your real trading name, exactly as it appears on your signage and website. Stuffing keywords into the name breaches Google&#8217;s rules and risks suspension.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Categories:<\/strong> choose the most specific primary category available, then add secondary ones. &#8220;Emergency electrician&#8221; beats &#8220;Contractor&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Service area or address:<\/strong> if customers visit you, show the address. If you travel to them, hide the address and set a service area instead.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hours, phone and website:<\/strong> keep them accurate, including holiday hours. Wrong opening times are one of the fastest ways to lose trust.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Services and description:<\/strong> list what you actually do, in plain language, and write a description a customer would find useful rather than a slogan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Photographs matter more than you think<\/h2>\n<p>Profiles with real photographs get dramatically more clicks and calls. Add your logo, your premises or van, your team, and your work. Take them in daylight on a modern phone and add a few new ones every month; recency is a signal.<\/p>\n<h2>Reviews are the engine<\/h2>\n<p>Ask every happy customer for a review, ideally on the day you finish the work, with a direct link to your review form. Reply to every review, good and bad, politely and briefly. A steady drip of genuine reviews beats a one off burst, and buying reviews can get your profile removed.<\/p>\n<p>Spend thirty minutes a month keeping the profile fresh: a photo or two, a post about recent work, corrected hours. For most local businesses that half hour returns more than any other marketing task on the calendar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For local businesses, this free listing does more work than the website. Set it up right in an afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiqtap.com\/quiqstart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}