Google Business Profile: how to fill it in and optimise it, step by step

For many local customers, your Google Business Profile is the first thing they see of your business — on Google Maps, or in the map block at the top of the results — before they ever reach your website. What it needs above all is accurate, complete and up-to-date information. This guide works through each section in order, based on Google’s official help pages.

How Google ranks local profiles

Google’s help page on local ranking names three factors:

• Relevance: how well your profile matches what someone searched for.
• Distance: how far your business is from the person searching.
• Prominence: how well known your business is. Google notes that reviews and positive ratings contribute to it.

You can’t change distance. Relevance, however, depends directly on what you put in your profile, and Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up.

Start by verifying your profile: it tells Google you are authorised to represent the business, and performance data is only available for verified profiles.

The basics: name, address, phone, website

Google’s guidelines for representing your business are precise on these fields.

Name. Use your real-world business name, as it appears on your storefront, website and stationery, and as customers know it. Adding “Antibes”, “cheap” or a service keyword to gain visibility breaks the rules.

Address. It must be accurate. PO boxes and mailboxes at remote locations are not allowed.

Service area. If you serve customers at their location — a plumber, a gardener, a home tutor — the guidelines say to hide your address and set a service area, such as Antibes, Cannes and Grasse. Hybrid businesses that also receive customers can show both, provided staff are there during the stated hours.

Phone. The number must be under the direct control of the business. Use the same number as on your website.

Website. It should represent your business, not redirect people to landing pages. Check that your site shows exactly the same name, address and phone number — consistency is one of the foundations covered in our local SEO guide for the French Riviera.

Choosing your categories

According to Google’s help page on categories, the categories you select affect your local ranking. The rules:

1. One primary category that best describes your business.
2. Additional categories only to tell customers about specific services or products.
3. Be specific: pick a specific category from the list.
4. Keep it short: don’t choose a category for every product or service.
5. No custom categories: you can’t create your own.

Adding categories that don’t match anything you actually do, just to catch more searches, goes against the guidelines and blurs what your business is.

Hours and description

Hours

Set your regular hours, then your special hours. Google’s help page on special hours recommends confirming your hours on public holidays even if they don’t change. On the Riviera, where many businesses follow the seasons, this matters: a customer who finds the door closed because of wrong hours rarely leaves a kind review. If you close for seven or more consecutive days, mark the business as temporarily closed instead.

Description

Google’s help page on editing your profile sets clear limits: no more than 750 characters, no URLs or HTML, and a focus on the business itself rather than promotions, prices or sales. A good description answers three questions in a few sentences: what you do, for whom, and where. Google reviews edits before applying them, so changes may not appear immediately.

Photos and videos

Google’s photo guidelines specify:

• Format: JPG or PNG.
• Size: between 10 KB and 5 MB.
• Recommended resolution: 720 px tall by 720 px wide.
• Quality: in focus and well lit, without significant alterations or excessive filters — the image should represent reality.

Videos can be up to 30 seconds long and up to 75 MB.

At a minimum, add a logo, a cover photo, your storefront (so people recognise it when they arrive), the interior, your team and your work or products — and keep adding new ones. Using the same quality visuals on your website keeps your brand consistent, something we build into every website design project.

Posts: keeping the profile alive

Google’s help page on posts describes three types: updates about your business, offers for promotions, and events. Posts older than six months are archived unless a date range is set, and once published, Google reviews each post against its content policy.

There’s no need to post daily. A sustainable rhythm — a post for each new product, event or change of season — is enough to show the profile is active. A beach restaurant might announce its terrace opening in spring; a builder might show a finished project with before-and-after photos.

Reviews

Reviews feed prominence and weigh heavily on customers’ decisions. Our guide to getting Google reviews and responding well covers the method and what is prohibited. In short: ask every satisfied customer, reply to every review, and never offer anything in return.

Tracking results in Performance

Once verified, your profile’s Performance section shows what it brings you. Google’s help page on performance lists metrics including the search terms people used to find you, profile views on Search and Maps, direction requests, calls and website clicks. Only metrics that apply to your business are shown. Check them once a month: the search terms in particular reveal how customers describe you, which can inform your description, posts and website pages.

A final checklist

1. Profile verified.
2. Name identical to your storefront, no added keywords.
3. Accurate address, or a service area if you travel to customers.
4. Specific primary category, few additional ones.
5. Regular and special hours up to date.
6. Description of 750 characters at most, no links.
7. Recent, sharp, honest photos.
8. A post for each piece of news.
9. A reply to every review.
10. A monthly look at performance.

Your profile doesn’t replace a website — it points to one. They work together with pages that answer local searches, like those we build for businesses in Antibes and across the French Riviera. Our SEO service covers your Google Business Profile from setup to monitoring.

Would you like a second opinion on your profile or your local visibility? Get in touch.