You will be able to claim, verify and fill in every relevant field of a Google Business Profile.
Every Chinese New Year, Wei Ming closes the stall for a few days. Every year, a handful of regulars check Google Maps, see "Open" and make the trip to Toa Payoh for nothing. One of them left a one-star review that said only "Closed when Google says open. Wasted my lunch." The food had nothing to do with it.
A Google Business Profile is often the first thing a local customer sees, before your website and sometimes instead of it. Keeping it complete and accurate is some of the most practical work in this course. This lesson covers claiming it, choosing categories, keeping details consistent, and adding the content that helps people decide.
Many businesses already have a profile they did not create. Google may have built one from public information, or a customer may have added the business to Maps. Search your business name in Google Maps first. If a listing exists, look for the option to claim it. If not, create one through Google Business Profile.
Google then asks you to verify that you own or manage the business. The methods it offers vary by business type and location and can include a phone call or text, an email, a video recording showing the business and its signage, a live video call or a postcard by mail. Use whichever method Google offers you, and follow its instructions exactly, because a rejected verification can take time to sort out. Until a profile is verified, you cannot manage most of what it shows.
If someone else, such as a former employee or an agency, verified the profile and you have lost access, Google has a process for requesting ownership. Start that early, because it takes time.
Your primary category tells Google what kind of business you are, and it directly affects the relevance factor from lesson 7.1, How local results are chosen. Choose the most specific category that accurately describes your main business.
Google provides a fixed list of categories, and you cannot invent your own. Start typing and the options appear. For Wei Ming, "Restaurant" is accurate but vague. If the list offers a more specific match for his stall, such as a chicken rice or Hainanese restaurant category, that is the better choice. Look at the categories your top competitors use, too, since you noted them in the activity for lesson 7.1. You can add secondary categories for other things you genuinely do, but do not add categories for services you do not offer.
For Priya, "Tutoring service" or a more specific maths tutoring category, if one exists in the list, is likely to fit better than "Education centre". Check what the list offers in Singapore when you set it up, because categories are added and renamed.
Your business name, address and phone number, often shortened to NAP, should be the same on your profile, your website and every directory that lists you. Use your real business name, without extra keywords. Google's guidelines for business names say to use the name you use consistently in the real world, on signage and stationery. Adding "Best Chicken Rice Toa Payoh" to the name breaks those guidelines and can get a profile suspended.
Consistency helps Google be confident about who you are and where you are, and it helps customers who find you in several places. If your website says one phone number and the profile says another, someone will call the wrong one. Priya's baseline in module 1 found exactly this: an old phone number on her profile.
Hours deserve special care. Set your regular hours, then use the special hours feature for public holidays and planned closures, entered before the day arrives. Singapore's public holidays are published by the Ministry of Manpower each year, so you can add special hours for the whole year at once and check them again before each one. Wei Ming now sets his Chinese New Year closure as soon as he decides the dates.
A complete profile answers the questions a customer has before visiting. Add real photos: the storefront or stall signage so people can find you, the inside or the counter, your products or dishes, and your team if you are comfortable with that. Photos you take yourself show what customers will actually see.
Add your products or services, with prices where you can show them. A menu with prices lets someone decide before queuing. For a service business, list each service with a short description. Write a business description in plain words: what you do, for whom and where.
Use the other fields that apply, such as attributes for wheelchair access or payment options, and a link to your booking or ordering page if you have one. Google Business Profile also lets you post updates, offers and events, which show on your profile and are a simple way to keep it current.
The activity below asks you to complete or update every field on your profile. If you do not run a local business, practise on a profile for a hawker brand you know well, writing what each field should say without changing the real listing. Work from the top: name, categories, address and pin, phone, website, hours and special hours, description, products or services, photos and attributes.
Complete or update every field of your profile, or a practice profile for a hawker brand you know, using the course checklist.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).