How to list your startup on Google Business Profile
TL;DR
Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business, is the free listing that shows your company on Google Search and Google Maps. Creating and verifying a profile costs nothing. It only fits startups that meet customers in person, at an address or by travelling to them, because Google excludes online-only businesses.
What is Google Business Profile?
Google Business Profile is the panel that appears beside the results when someone searches for your company, and the pin people tap in Google Maps. The profile holds your name, address or service area, opening hours, phone number, website link, photos, posts and customer reviews.
A word on the domain authority of 100 shown here: it belongs to google.com. What a profile gives you is local visibility, measured in calls, direction requests and website clicks from people near you.
Who should list their startup on Google Business Profile?
Google's eligibility guidelines say a business "must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours."
Good fit:
- Startups with a shop, studio, clinic, café or office that customers visit.
- Service-area businesses that travel to customers, such as cleaning, repairs, home tutoring or local delivery. You hide your address and set the area you serve.
Skip it:
- Online-only businesses. Google lists "brands, organizations, artists, and other online-only businesses" as ineligible, so a SaaS (software as a service) startup without a customer-facing location does not qualify.
- Founders whose only address is a P.O. box or a mailbox. Google rejects those.
How much does Google Business Profile cost?
Nothing. Google's help page on adding or claiming a profile states that adding or claiming a business is free. Google Ads is a separate, optional product.
How do you add your startup to Google Business Profile?
- Go to business.google.com/add, sign in with the Google Account that will manage the profile and click Add your business to Google. If your company already appears on Google Maps, open it there and use the claim option to take it over.
- Enter the real-world business name with no taglines, keywords or city names added, then the category, address or service area, phone number and website. Google suspends profiles that stuff the name.
- Pick one of the verification methods Google offers you: video recording, phone or text code, email, live video call or postcard. A postcard code arrives within 14 days in most cases and expires after 30 days. Once you finish, Google reviews the profile, which takes up to 5 business days, according to the verification help page.
Tips to get more out of Google Business Profile
- Choose the most exact main category you can, such as "Bakery" in place of "Food", and add extra categories only for services you really sell.
- Ask your first ten customers for a review right after a good experience, and reply to every review, positive or negative, under your own name.
- Publish posts for launches, offers and events. They appear on your profile in Search and Maps, where people decide whether to call or visit.
- Upload real photos of the space, the team and the product.
- Leave the name, address and category alone while a postcard is in the mail. Google voids the code if you edit them.
Our verdict
For a startup with a physical location or a local service, Google Business Profile is the first free listing to set up, because it puts you on Maps exactly where nearby customers search. Online-only startups cannot list there and should use startup directories instead.
More options: see all business directories and local listings. Planning the launch around this listing? The Fe/male Switch startup game walks women founders from idea to first customers.