How to show up on Google Maps in your town: your Google profile, step by step

When someone searches for "physiotherapist Mataró" or "restaurant Argentona", the first thing they see isn't a list of websites: it's a map with three businesses. Getting onto it depends mostly on something free that many businesses only half fill in: their Google Business Profile. This is the complete guide to doing it right yourself, based on what Google says rather than what ranking salespeople say.

How Google decides who shows up on the map

Google explains it in its own help pages: local results are mainly based on three things.

• Relevance: how well your profile matches what the person is looking for. It depends on your category, description, services and how complete your information is.
• Distance: how far your business is from the person searching. You can't change this one.
• Prominence: how well known the business is. Reviews, ratings and how many websites mention or link to you all count.

And one line worth remembering next time someone calls offering to "put you first": according to Google, there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Google Maps ads exist, but they're labelled as sponsored and are a different thing.

In short: you don't control distance, but relevance and prominence depend almost entirely on how you set up your profile and on your reviews. Step by step.

1. Check whether you already have a profile (you often do)

Search for your business name on Google Maps. Very often the profile already exists: Google may have created it from public data, or a customer added you, or an agency you used years ago set it up. There are three cases:

• It doesn't exist: create it at business.google.com with a Google account that belongs to you, not your nephew or your web provider.
• It exists and nobody manages it: claim it from the profile itself ("Claim this business") and move on to verification.
• It exists and someone else manages it (a former provider, an ex-partner): request access. Google emails the current owner and gives them three days to reply. If they don't, you can often claim it yourself, though Google says this option isn't always available.

If a web designer or agency "set up your profile" in the past, check right now who the owner is. It must be your account. If someone else needs access, make them a manager, never the owner.

2. Verify it

An unverified profile barely counts. Verification is how Google checks that the business exists and that you run it. You don't choose the method: Google offers one or more depending on your case. The usual ones are:

• Video: now the most common. It can be a recording or a live video call with someone from Google during opening hours.
• Phone or text to the business number, or email in some cases.
• Postcard with a five-digit code sent to the business address. It usually arrives within fourteen days and the code expires after thirty.

For video, Google asks to see three things, and this is where most verifications fail:

1. Where you are: the outside sign, the street number, the street sign or the businesses next door.
2. What you do: the premises, equipment, materials, products, whatever you use to serve customers.
3. That you run it: unlocking the door with your key, a staff-only area, the till, or a business document with no sensitive data.

Practical tips: film it in daylight, in one take with no editing, starting outside and walking in without cutting. If you don't have a permanent sign on the front, put one up first: Google asks businesses that show their address to have permanent signage with their name.

If you work at customers' homes (plumber, childminder, home-visit physio), you don't have to show your home address. Set it up as a service-area business: hide the address and list the towns you cover. Google asks that the area be no more than about two hours' drive from your base.

3. The name: your real one, nothing more

This is the most common temptation and the one that gets most profiles suspended. Google's guidelines say the name must be the one you use in the real world: on your sign, invoices and website. No slogans, services, towns, phone numbers or shouty capitals.

Keywords in the name might bump you up for a few days, but anyone can suggest an edit and Google can suspend the profile. Losing it is far worse than not being first. If your business is literally called "Fisioteràpia Mataró", then fine: that's your name.

4. The primary category, the decision that matters most

The category tells Google what you are, and it has the biggest influence on which searches you appear for. Google recommends using as few categories as possible and the most specific ones. A takeaway pizza shop isn't a "Restaurant": it's a "Pizza restaurant" or "Pizza takeout".

• Choose the primary one carefully. Type what you do into the box and look at every option. There's often a more precise one than the first that comes to mind.
• Look at competitors. Search for your service in your town and note the category under the name of the top three. It's a hint, not a rule.
• Add secondary categories only if they're true. A clinic offering physio and podiatry can list both. One that only does physio shouldn't add "Wellness centre" to appear in more searches.

5. Hours, phone and website: identical everywhere

Many people call or visit straight from the profile without opening your website. If the hours are wrong, you've lost that customer, and they'll probably leave a bad review.

• Regular hours and, above all, special hours: public holidays, 26 December, 11 September, your town's festa major (Les Santes in Mataró), August closures. Google asks you in advance; answer.
• If you close for the season, mark the profile as "temporarily closed". Don't leave it open with hours you won't keep.
• A local phone number you control, not a call centre or premium-rate number.
• Website: the link should go to your website, not Instagram. With several locations, each profile links to its own location page.

The golden rule: name, address and phone must be exactly the same on your profile, your website, Apple Maps and social media. Google compares these details across sites, and inconsistencies make it unsure which is right.

6. Description, services and attributes

• Description (up to 750 characters): what you do, for whom, where and what makes you different. Write it for people, naturally. Google doesn't allow links, offers or promotional prices.
• Services or products: add them one by one with a line of explanation. It's one of the clearest ways to tell Google which searches you're relevant for.
• Attributes: wheelchair accessible, terrace, Wi-Fi, parking, card payments… Small things, but some people filter by them.

7. Real photos (and show the front of the building)

Google says photos help show what you offer and tell your business's story. In practice, they're what makes someone pick one of the three profiles shown together.

• The front, in daylight, as people arriving on the street will see it. It helps them find you and builds trust.
• The inside, tidy and in natural light.
• Your work: dishes, treatments, the workshop, before and after. Always yours, never stock photos.
• People, if you're comfortable. A business with faces feels more trustworthy.
• Logo and cover, properly cropped.

Add new ones now and then. A profile with five-year-old photos makes people think the business has been abandoned.

8. Reviews: ask everyone, and reply

Reviews count towards prominence and towards the decision of whoever is looking. How to get good ones within the rules:

• Always ask, everyone, at the right moment: when the customer leaves happy, not three weeks later. From the profile you can get a direct link and a QR code to ask for reviews. Put the QR on the counter or the invoice and send the link on WhatsApp.
• Offer nothing in return. Google's policy forbids discounts, gifts or free services in exchange for a review, for changing one or for removing a negative one.
• Don't filter. You also can't ask only happy customers or discourage negative reviews. Systems that ask "Were you satisfied?" and only send the yeses to Google break the rules.
• Don't write fake ones or buy them. Not from family, not from staff, not from packages sold online. Google removes them and can penalise the profile.

Reply to all of them, including the good ones. Google recommends short, professional, specific replies signed with your name, without using them to advertise. For a negative review:

• Don't argue in public or share the customer's private details.
• Thank them, apologise if appropriate and explain what you've done or will do.
• Invite them to talk it over by phone or email.

An example: "Thanks for telling us, Jordi. You're right that on Saturday we were running late with bookings and you waited too long. We've already changed how we organise weekend shifts. If you give us a call, we'd like to make it up to you. Marta, Bar La Plaça." That reply isn't for Jordi: it's for the fifty people who'll read it afterwards.

What's changed in the last two years

If you haven't looked at your profile in a while, you might be looking for things that are gone:

• Profile chat no longer exists. Google shut down messaging from profiles in July 2024. That makes the call button and the WhatsApp link on your website more important.
• Websites built with Google were also shut down in 2024. If you had an address ending in business.site, it no longer works and your profile needs a real website.
• Public "Questions & answers" have been replaced, since late 2025, by a button where people ask and Google's AI writes the answer from your profile and reviews. The more complete your profile, the better its answers about your business.

Mistakes that can cost you your profile

• Keywords in the name.
• An address where you don't work, a virtual office or a PO box.
• Duplicate profiles for the same location (if you have them, ask Google to merge or close one).
• Changing your name, address or category often without reason.
• Bought reviews or reviews from people close to you.

How long it takes

Verification takes from a few days to a few weeks. Profile changes show up within days. Climbing the rankings is slower: it depends on the competition in your town and the reviews you build up. Anyone promising "first on Google Maps in a month" is promising something Google says can't be bought.

Where does the website come in?

The profile and the website work together. The profile puts you on the map; the website is where people make up their minds before calling, and it's one of the sources Google uses to confirm who you are and what you do. A website with the same details as your profile, a page per service and a tappable phone number reinforces everything you've done here.

Don't forget Apple Maps: it's the map every iPhone opens by default. It's managed separately through Apple Business Connect and has its own verification.

If you'd rather not do it yourself

With this guide you can do it yourself, and I encourage you to. If you don't have time, I can do it with you for €60 (you have to do the verification at your premises, but I'll guide you through it). The Masia package includes both the Google and Apple profiles. See what each website includes or write to me.

Sources: official Google Business Profile help: improving local ranking, guidelines for representing your business, verification, requesting ownership, reviews and fake engagement policy. Checked October 2026.