Google Business — A Business Index from Google

If you have a website already, then you will receive the following perks:

• Linking your site to a region.
• Bringing in users via Google services (Maps and Search) if your company is listed in them.
• Getting reviews for your company that can positively affect your reputation — not just for the public and potential customers, but for Google too.

This tool will be useful for any and all companies, not just the ones that have a real office or a sales outlet in a region. Companies that don’t have an office and provide some on-site services or work only online can register a Business Profile too. In that case, you would need only to list your region when registering.

1. On the map block in search results:
   

   

2. On the map block next to search results:

   

3. On a map itself in the list of companies that match the query:

   

4. On a map itself as a business listing:
   

   

Both registered and unregistered (those without a Google account) users can add information about their company. If possible, it’s better to do it while signed in to your Google account (creating one via Gmail is really easy). If you register a Business Profile while logged in, then you’ll be granted full rights over your listing so that later you can add or edit any information in it.

1. Go to the Google Business profile page.
2. Click the ‘Sign in’ button
   

   

3. After signing in, begin the process of registering. If you don’t have any business listed in your profile yet, then the tool will ask you to answer all necessary questions

Next, you will see how you can verify your profile:

You can also add more information about your services and business hours, opt in or out of receiving messages from customers, describe your business in detail, or add photos:

All additional information will be posted after your listing is verified: 

Next, you’ll be given an example of the way your business will be seen in the index:

During the registration, you might be asked different questions depending on your previous answer.

When you fill in the whole form step by step, you will need to verify your listing using one of the provided methods. These are:

• A text message with a verification code sent to the phone number you listed. 
• A call with a verification code to the phone number you listed. 
• An email with a verification code sent to the email address you listed. 
• A postal letter with the same code sent by the mail to the address you listed.
• Or you can verify later. 

If your profile already has other listings, then click “Add business” when adding a new one:

Next, you will be walked through the same steps as when registering your first business in Google.

After a new listing is added, it will appear in your Business Profile with one of the following statuses:

1. verified
2. verification required
3. code requested
4. duplicate

After your rights for the listing are verified, you can edit any information in it. Namely, you can change the following details:

• company name
• your line of business (categories; can be several)
• company address on a map
• company phone numbers
• business hours
• website URL
• company description
• photos
• area of service
• email
• additional info/attributes, etc.

Provided that you populated your listing well, your potential clients can see all information they need about your company:

• the location of your office, shop or sales outlet
• company working hours
• various facilities and amenities, such as free Wi-Fi
• busy hours and days 
• company photos and videos
• detailed contact info
• customer reviews
• online contact info: company site, email address, links to social media accounts.

From your profile you can see how your business is shown on Google Maps and in local search:

Your business profile has a separate section for reviews about your company. If your business is already seasoned and has been operating for some time, you might already have some customer reviews. Here, you can also respond to them and even report them if you think that the review in question spreads misinformation.

Review ribbon in your profile

Reviews are really important — they form your company rating that can be seen in the index and on Maps:

Google rating of a business listing based on reviews

You can add various types of photos to your business listing, such as:

• your logo, of course, for improving your brand awareness
• a cover for your listing: Google Maps and Search will show it in the top part of search results
• interior photos of your shops, offices, and warehouses
• photos of your building exterior
• photos of your staff
• photos of your products

Ultimately,, you can upload any photos that can attract potential customers. Images themselves should, of course, be good quality. The more photos your profile has, the better.

Main formatting requirements for photos:

• Recommended size for a logo: a 250 x 250 pixels square (min. 120 x 120; max. 5200 x 5200 pixels).
• Cover photo: 1080 x 608 pixels (not smaller than 480 x 270; not bigger than 2120 x 1192 px). 
• File types for other images: JPG or PNG.
• File size: from 10 KB to 5 MB.

This feature allows customers to message you online via your Business Profile. You can promptly answer their questions and tell them about your business, bringing in new clients. Messaging is effective because it allows you to establish communication with potential customers, so don’t neglect this tool.

When you enable this feature, your profile will get an ‘Ask a question’ button that your customers can use to message you. All messages will appear in your Business Profile in Google. You will also receive notifications about new messages.

Additional features:

• You can change your greeting message.
• You can send photos in your messages to customers.
• Your clients will be able to see your name and profile picture on your “About” page.

In the case where your company already has a listing in Google Business but you don’t own that listing, you should try to confirm your rights to it. To do so, add your company via your profile. The tool will tell you that this business already exists.

You will need to select the company from the list (if there are several possible variants) and request verification in your Business Profile using one of the offered methods. If you verify it, then you will become an owner of that listing and get full control over it.

If it turns out that you’re unable to complete verification — or if for you this is too much hassle but you can see that the listed information is wrong — there is a way to change some details in Maps even without a verification.

You will be able to change the following information:

This is a very useful tab that shows authentic data regarding the ways users interacted with your listing. Here you can access a lot of interesting data about views, search queries, and actions that users take resulting from Google Ads and Search. Google Business has six statistical sections.

Here you can see how users find information about your company. This section shows how many people have found you and how they did it. There are three main indicators:

• Direct lookup: the number of users who found your company by its name or address.
• Discovery by category: the number of users who found your company searching for some specific category —  for example, “furniture”.
• Branded lookup: the number of users who found your company searching for something related to your brand.

Here you can also see the total number of all search queries (Direct, Discovery, and Branded) and view statistics for a specific date interval.

This section tells you how many visitors have found you using Google Search or Maps. It also provides data regarding views of your company page from these two services. You can see numbers for the past week, the last month, or the quarter.

An interesting report showing statistical data of actions that customers took on your listing. It can inform you about several metrics:

• the number of clicks on your URL address shown in the listing
• the number of users who requested directions to your business
• the number of clicks on your phone number in the listing
• the number of messages sent from the listing

Here you can see when and how often customers called your company using the number provided in your listing. In the ‘Total calls’ graph, you can view the numbers by days of a week or times of a day to see when clients call you most often. You can also check data for various time intervals.

This report shows the number of photos linked to your business listing, the number of their views, and how often they were viewed when compared to your competitors. If there are several similar businesses near yours, you will see a comparative graph for your and your competitors’ photos.

We’d like to emphasize once again how important it is to register your organization on Google Business. Doing so makes looking for your company in Google services easier, as people will be able to find you on Search and Maps if they look for:

• the name of your company
• the sphere your company works in
• your address or phone number

Of course, you will have some competition, especially since this Google service is becoming more and more popular and important nowadays. So try to stay ahead of your competitors and remember that the more detailed your listing is, the higher the possibility that people will find you on Google, and then you can receive additional traffic from a local search when a local map is on display.

So don’t put off this important moment — register on Google today. After all, it’s so easy, free and, most importantly, profitable!