It is free, it is the single biggest local search win available to most small businesses, and a surprising number of listings around Oxfordshire and Swindon are either unclaimed, half-finished or silently wrong. This guide walks you through setting it up properly from scratch.
Google Business Profile (GBP, formerly Google My Business) is the box that appears on the right side of Google when someone searches for a business by name, and the map panel of three local results that shows up when someone searches for a trade in a town. It is how you get into those results.
When someone in Wantage searches for "plumber near me" on a Sunday evening, the map results come from Google Business Profile, not from websites directly. A business with a complete, accurate listing has a much better chance of appearing there than one with a blank or unclaimed profile. It costs nothing to set up and nothing to maintain, which makes it the best return on time you will find in local marketing.
Before you create anything, search for your business name on Google. If it appears with information you did not put there, Google has already created an unverified listing from data it found elsewhere. Claim that listing rather than creating a duplicate.
Search for your business name plus your town. If a listing appears, look for a "claim this business" or "own this business?" link beneath it. Click it and follow the verification steps. Claiming an existing listing is the correct first move. Two listings for the same business will confuse Google and confuse customers.
If nothing appears at all, go to business.google.com and click "Add your business to Google".
Enter your business name exactly as it appears everywhere else: on your website, your invoices, your van, your Facebook page. Do not add keywords, towns or extra words to try to rank better. "Dave's Plumbing Swindon Emergency Plumber" is not your business name. It is "Dave's Plumbing", and Google will pick up the location separately. Keyword stuffing your business name is against Google's guidelines and can get your listing suspended.
Consistency is the whole game here. Settle on the exact form of your name and use it identically everywhere.
Category is one of the most important fields in your profile. Google uses it to decide what searches your listing appears for. You get one primary category and can add secondary categories later.
Be specific. "Plumber" is a category. So is "Electrical installation service" and "Hairdresser". Start typing what you do and see what Google suggests. Pick the category that most accurately describes what most of your customers hire you for. If you are an electrician who also installs CCTV, "Electrician" should be your primary category and "Security system installer" a secondary one.
Resist adding every vaguely relevant category. Two specific ones work better than ten broad ones.
If customers come to you, such as a salon, a shop or an office, add your full address. Google will put you on the map and customers can get directions.
If you go to customers rather than them coming to you, such as a mobile plumber, a gardener or a mobile beautician, set up as a service-area business. You can hide your home address from the public and list the towns or postcodes you cover. Be honest here. Do not claim to cover half of England if you realistically work within twenty miles of home.
For businesses near Faringdon, that typically means listing the places you genuinely reach: Wantage, Abingdon, Swindon, Witney, Oxford, Highworth, Didcot and nearby towns, depending on how far you actually travel.
If you run a shop but also do home visits, you can add your address and set a service area at the same time.
Add your main business phone number. Make sure it matches the number on your website and any other directory where your business appears. Google cross-references your listing against other mentions of your business to build confidence in your details. A number that varies across sources chips away at that confidence.
Add your website URL if you have one. A website gives people somewhere to go when they click through from your profile, answers questions that would otherwise go unanswered, and helps convert interest into an actual enquiry. Without a website you are relying entirely on Google to display your information, with no control over what it shows.
Fill in your hours for every day of the week. If you are closed on Sundays, mark it closed. If you finish at 5pm on Fridays, put 5pm. Wrong hours frustrate customers who arrive when you are shut and lead to negative reviews you could have prevented.
Use the "special hours" feature for bank holidays, Christmas closures and any periods you will be away. Google shows users a notice if they search for you while you are closed. If you work by appointment only, note it in your description rather than leaving hours blank.
You have 750 characters for a business description. Use them to say what you do, where you work, and what kind of customer you help. Plain language works better than promotional language. Customers reading your description want facts, not slogans.
Something like: "Independent plumber based in Faringdon, covering Oxfordshire and north Wiltshire. Boiler servicing, bathroom fitting, emergency call-outs and general plumbing work. Fully qualified. Free quotes." That is the kind of description that is useful. Do not make claims you cannot back up and do not invent credentials or awards.
The services section lets you list individual things you do, each with a name, optional description and optional price. Google uses this to match your listing to more specific searches. A hairdresser might list "haircut", "colour", "highlights" and "blow dry" as separate services. A plumber might list "boiler service", "bathroom fitting", "emergency call-out" and "radiator installation".
Add as many services as genuinely apply. If you do not want to publish prices, leave that field blank. Do not invent prices just to fill the field.
Listings with photos get more attention than listings without. Useful photos include: your finished work, your premises if customers visit, your equipment, you at work, and an exterior shot of any building customers come to. What does not help: blurry photos, stock images of strangers, or photos with no connection to your business.
You do not need a professional photographer. A modern phone in good natural light takes photos that are more than good enough. Take twenty photos on an afternoon and pick the ten sharpest. Update them every few months as you complete more jobs.
A logo upload is also worth doing. It appears when your business comes up across various Google products and makes the listing look more finished.
Google will not show your profile publicly until it is verified. Verification methods include a postcard sent to your business address (typically takes about a week to arrive), a phone call or text to your listed number, or email verification. In some cases Google now offers video verification via a short call.
Complete verification as soon as the option appears. An unverified listing is invisible to customers searching for you.
Reviews are where most businesses fall short, not because they do bad work, but because they never ask. Happy customers rarely think to leave a review unprompted. Customers with a complaint often do. So without active effort, the listing slowly builds a skewed picture.
The simplest approach: go to your Business Profile, find the option to share a review link, save that link, and send it to customers after a job is done with a short message asking them to leave a review if they were pleased. A text message works well. An automated review request that fires a day or two after a job closes is even more reliable, and it is one of the small automations we help businesses set up.
Respond to every review, positive and negative. A reply to a good review shows appreciation. A calm, professional reply to a complaint shows potential customers you take feedback seriously. Do not argue in public. Acknowledge any genuine issue and offer to discuss it directly.
Never pay for fake reviews. It is against Google's terms, it is dishonest, and Google is increasingly effective at detecting and removing them. Build your reviews genuinely, one job at a time.
This is the step most guides skip, and it matters more than it sounds. NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone. Google compares what you say in your profile against every other mention of your business across the web: your website, your Facebook page, a Checkatrade profile, Yell, local directories. When the details match exactly, Google becomes more confident your information is correct. When they vary, that confidence drops and your local visibility suffers.
Check your website footer. Check your Facebook "About" section. Check any directory listings you are on. Make sure the business name is identical everywhere, including whether you write "Ltd" or "Limited", whether you use your full address, and whether your phone number is formatted the same way. These small inconsistencies are common and they quietly drag local rankings down.
Your Business Profile lets you post short updates, offers and event announcements, similar to a simple social post. These appear on your listing and help it look active. You do not need to post every week. Once or twice a month with something genuine, whether that is a seasonal offer, a note about availability, or a recently finished job, is enough to keep the listing looking current.
A complete profile is not a magic switch. It does not guarantee you will appear at the top of local results this week. What it does is put you properly in the running. Google decides which businesses to show based on relevance (does your category and content match the search), distance (how close are you to the searcher), and prominence (how well-known and reviewed is your business online). You control the first two directly. Prominence grows over time through reviews, through a website that answers questions well, and through your listing being complete and consistently maintained.
For most local businesses that have done little or nothing with their profile so far, going from a blank or unclaimed listing to a complete, verified, consistent one with a handful of real reviews typically produces a noticeable change in how often they appear locally. It will not happen overnight, and a profile alone will not flood you with enquiries. But it is free, it compounds over months, and the businesses that bother to get it right gain a steady, quiet advantage over those that do not.
If you want help with this, or you want the review request process automated so you collect feedback consistently without having to remember to ask, get in touch. We include Google Business Profile setup with every website we build, and we work with businesses around Faringdon, Oxford, Swindon and across the UK.
Google Business Profile setup is included free with every website we build. If you just need the profile set up or tidied without a new website, drop us a line and we will give you an honest answer about what would help most.
See our website packages →