How to set up a Google Business Profile

by Harry Watts · Last reviewed 7 October 2026

A Google Business Profile is the free listing that puts your business on Google Maps, so people can find you when they search locally. Until late 2021 it was called Google My Business. Three things matter more than the setup screens suggest: whose Google account it sits in, whether your address shows, and keeping your business name and details identical everywhere else.

I make a point of educating my clients on what "being on Google" actually consists of. When a client tells me their web designer "sorted the Google listing", my first question is which one. "On Google" can mean the organic results, AI Overviews, ads or a Business Profile, and they're four different things. If you're serious about maximising your business's visibility, you need to be more specific than "on Google". This guide is about the Business Profile.

Before you start: whose account it lives in

Whoever holds the primary owner role controls who else gets in. If a web designer, an agency or a former employee set it up from their own account, getting it back starts with them.

So start from a Google account the business controls, ideally one tied to a business email address rather than a person's. Make that account the primary owner. Add anyone who helps you, whether an agency, a web designer or a consultant, as a manager: they can do the work, and they can't remove you or delete the profile.

Google has three roles, and only one primary owner per profile (Google's owners and managers page):

Managers used to be called site managers, so older guides still use that name. To hand primary ownership to someone else, they must already be on the profile as an owner or manager.

Setting it up

Google's own add or claim your Business Profile page has the click-by-click, and it's the version that stays current. The decisions it asks you to make are the part worth thinking about first.

First, check you qualify. Google gives a profile only to a business that makes in-person contact with customers during its stated hours, at a place they can visit or by travelling to them (Google's eligibility guidelines). Online-only businesses aren't eligible, and neither is a virtual office.

Then, address or service area. If customers come to you, show your address. If you go to them, Google says to remove your address and set a service area instead: up to 20 places, within about two hours' drive of where you're based (Google's service area page). For anyone working from home, that also keeps your home address off the map.

When I set up Search Lucid's profile, I didn't show an address. I tend to visit clients; they don't come to me, and that is the question that decides where to start on Google. Google verified it by postcard, and the card took at least a week to arrive.

Then, verification. Google checks the business is real before the profile goes live, and it decides which methods you're offered: a phone call or text, email, a live video call, a recorded video, or a postcard, which isn't available to every business (Google's verification page). Its help pages say most postcards arrive within 14 days, codes expire after 30, and verification reviews take up to five working days.

If someone else already claimed it

If you search for your business at business.google.com/add and Google offers Request access, someone else already holds the profile. It may be a web designer, a previous agency or a former employee.

• If you know who it is, ask them. They add your Google account to the profile, then transfer primary ownership to you.
• If you don't, or they won't, request access. Search for the business at business.google.com/add, select it and choose Request access. Google emails the current owner, who has three days to respond. If they don't, you may be offered the option to claim the profile yourself (Google's request ownership page).

Once it's back, add the person who had it as a manager if they still work for you, and nothing more.

Keep your name and details identical everywhere

Google's rule for the business name is that it should reflect your real-world name, as used consistently on your shopfront, website and stationery. Adding anything else to the name, such as a service, a location or a tagline, isn't permitted and can get the profile suspended (Google's guidelines). If you trade under a name that differs from your registered company name, use the one customers know, and use it the same way everywhere.

"Everywhere" means more than Google:

• Bing Places. Bing Places can import your Google Business Profile and keep it in sync. If you're already verified on Google, Bing verifies the imported listing automatically, and publishing typically takes 7–12 days (Bing's sync page).
• Apple Business. Formerly Apple Business Connect, which Apple replaced with Apple Business in April 2026. Apple says it's free in more than 200 countries and regions, and it's how you manage your place card in Apple Maps.
• Directories and your own website. The same name, address and phone number in your website footer and on any directory that lists you.

It also matters beyond maps: consistent details are part of how a business gets mentioned in ChatGPT's answers.

Linking it to Google Ads

If you run Google Ads, or plan to, link the profile to your ads account. That lets your ads carry location assets: your address, a map to your location or the approximate distance, and a call button on mobile (Google's location assets page). To link, the Google account you use for Ads needs access to the profile, or you request access from its owner by email, which is one more reason to have the ownership right first.

If you haven't started yet, what to have in place before you start Google Ads covers the rest.

Quick answers

If you'd like a second opinion

If you're not sure whether the profile, your website or ads should come next, a free intro call is thirty minutes, and enough to settle it.