How to optimise
your Google profile
Google ranks the map on three criteria: relevance, distance and prominence. You don't get to choose the distance. The other two are worked on from the profile, and almost everything that works is free and unglamorous: the right category, your real name, opening hours you actually keep and photos that aren't stock images.
By Ismael Vázquez, founder and technician · Published 15 September 2026
Three criteria, and one isn't up to you
Before changing anything, it's worth knowing what can be moved and what can't.
When someone searches for "plumber" or "computer shop" on their phone, the map that appears isn't a quality ranking. Google orders it using three criteria it publishes in its own help pages: relevance, distance and prominence.
Distance is how far your business is from the person searching. It can't be worked on: if someone searches from Cardedeu, a competitor in Cardedeu starts with an advantage over one in Granollers, and no profile will change that.
Relevance is how well your profile matches the search, and prominence is how well known the business is: reviews, mentions on other websites, general presence. Those two do depend on you, and almost everything that moves them is done from the profile.
Google adds a sentence worth keeping handy for when a salesperson calls: you can't request or pay for a better local ranking. Anyone selling you a position on the map is selling you, at most, hours of work on what we explain below.
What really moves the map
In order of impact. The first two take ten minutes and are the ones most often done badly.
The primary category
It's the setting that matters most and the one least often reviewed. It decides which searches you compete in. To choose it, search for what your customer would search for, open the profiles at the top and look at the category shown below the name. The guidelines ask you to use as few categories as possible, with a simple test: the category completes the sentence "this business is", not "this business has".
Your real name, no embellishments
The name on your signage, website and invoices. No "Name – Service Town": the guidelines forbid it, any user can suggest the correction and it's grounds for suspension. It works for a few weeks and then you pay for it with a profile that has vanished from the map.
Opening hours you keep, bank holidays included
A customer who turns up to find the shutters down doesn't come back, and sometimes leaves a review saying so. Set special hours for bank holidays, long weekends and holidays before they arrive, not afterwards. In Catalonia each town has its own local holidays: they're the ones most often forgotten.
Your own photos, showing the place
Shopfront, interior, team and finished jobs. Google lists uploading photos and videos among its official recommendations, and people searching look at them before deciding. A stock photo is spotted instantly and conveys exactly the opposite of what you want: that there's nothing real to show.
Reviews answered, every one of them
Replying to reviews is on Google's official list, and it's read above all by the next customer. A brief, friendly reply to a good review, and a calm reply with no personal details to a bad one, say more about the business than the average rating.
Services, area and description written for a person
Fill in the services using the names your customers use, not the technical ones. Add whichever attributes apply, such as wheelchair access or parking. And write the description the way you'd explain it to someone on the phone: what you do, for whom and where. Repeating the keyword ten times adds nothing and reads terribly.
Three things that get sold and don't move the map
They aren't scams. They're work that's easy to itemise on an invoice and hard to link to a phone call.
Posting updates every day
Posts are useful for people already looking at your profile: an offer, special hours, a recent job. Google gives no indication that posting more often lifts you up the map. One useful post a month is worth more than thirty bits of filler.
Duplicate profiles or virtual offices
Opening a second profile in another town with a borrowed address, an unstaffed coworking space or a PO box to "show up there too". The guidelines exclude this unless there are staff present during business hours, and it's one of the most common reasons for suspension. If you work in several towns, that goes in the service area of a single profile.
Bought or incentivised reviews
Paying for reviews, offering a discount in exchange for one, or asking only happy customers. Google's policies expressly forbid it, it can remove the reviews and restrict the profile, and in the European Union buying or commissioning fake reviews has been an unfair commercial practice since 2022.
With premises open to the public or working on site
They're set up differently, and mixing the two is a common mistake.
Business with premises that welcome customers
Shop, workshop, clinic, office that receives visitors. The address is shown, it must match the one on your website and your signage, and the hours are your public opening hours. The map pin should sit on the front door, not in the middle of the block: check it, because it's sometimes misplaced when the profile is first set up.
Business that travels to customers
Installers, technicians, plumbers, home services. If you don't serve customers at your address, the guidelines ask you to hide it and define the service area by town. You'll still appear on the map for people searching within that area, without anyone turning up at your house looking for a shop.
The ten-minute monthly check
A well set-up profile deteriorates on its own if nobody looks at it. This is all it takes.
See whether anyone has changed anything
Any user can suggest edits, and Google also updates details off its own bat. That's how a profile wakes up with old opening hours or marked as closed. Log into the profile and review any pending or applied changes.
Reply to whatever has come in
Every new review, good and bad. If a month has gone by with no new reviews, that's information too: it means you're not asking for them. How to do it without falling foul of what Google penalises is covered in how to get reviews without buying them.
Set special hours in advance
Next month's bank holidays, holidays, closures for stocktaking. Setting them ahead of time is what prevents the review from the customer who found the door locked.
Upload one or two new photos
Of a finished job, a new product, the team. A little that's real beats a lot that's generic.
Call your own number
From a mobile that isn't yours, during working hours. It's the simplest check of all and the one that uncovers the most problems: call diversions that no longer exist, old numbers, lines nobody answers at lunchtime.
The profile brings the call; the website confirms it
A good share of the people who see your profile click the website link before calling.
The profile and the website reinforce each other. Google cross-checks the details on one against the other, so name, address, phone number and opening hours must match exactly in both places. A website with your old phone number undermines the profile's credibility, for Google and for the customer.
The website link on the profile deserves a detail almost nobody bothers with: adding campaign parameters to it, so that Analytics can tell visits from the map apart from those from search. Without that, you won't know how many customers the profile brings you, and you won't be able to decide with data whether it's worth investing in it or in ads.
If you'd rather we handled it, our SEO service includes keeping the profile up to date alongside the website, and it starts with a free audit.
What people usually ask
What has the biggest influence on my profile's position in Google Maps?+
Google explains it with three criteria: relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well your profile matches what someone is searching for, and the key factor there is the primary category, which is the most overlooked and the most important setting. Distance is how far your business is from the person searching, and you can't work on it: if someone searches from the other end of the county, a competitor closer to them has the edge. Prominence is how well known the business is, and Google measures it by, among other things, reviews and how often your company is mentioned on other websites. Everything else, from photos to the description, feeds into those three. Google insists that you can't pay to rank higher in local results, so any service promising you that in exchange for money is selling you something else.
Can I put keywords in the profile name?+
No. Google's guidelines require the name to match the business's real name, as it appears on your signage, website and invoices, and they expressly forbid adding slogans, products or locations. "Taller Martínez" is correct; "Taller Martínez – Car Repairs Granollers" is not. It works in the short term, which is why plenty of people still do it, but it's a visible breach: anyone can suggest the edit straight from the map, and Google can correct the name or suspend the profile. Getting a suspended profile reinstated takes weeks at best, and during that time the business disappears from the map. If you want the profile to show up for "car repairs", that's achieved with the primary category, services and reviews, not with the name.
How many categories should I choose?+
As few as needed to describe the business. That's what Google says, and it offers a useful test: the category should complete the sentence "this business is", not "this business has". A hardware shop that also cuts keys is a hardware shop, not a locksmith. The primary category is what decides which searches you compete in, so it's worth choosing it by looking at which category the competitors already ranking at the top for your target search are using: you can see it on their profile, just below the name. Secondary categories are there to cover genuine activities the primary one doesn't capture. Filling the profile with loosely related categories doesn't make you appear in more searches; it dilutes the primary category and makes the profile less credible to whoever reads it.
I work at customers' premises — do I have to show my address?+
No, and according to Google's guidelines you shouldn't. If you don't serve customers at that address, for example because you work from home and travel to each job, the profile is set up as a service-area business: the address is hidden and you list the towns or area where you work. That applies to plumbers, electricians, installers and technicians who make home visits. Showing an address where nobody will find you creates two problems: customers turning up at your house and a profile that breaks the rules. What also won't do is inventing premises, or using a virtual office or PO box to appear to have a presence in another town: Google doesn't accept them unless there are staff present during business hours, and it's a common reason for suspension.
Is there any point posting updates on the profile?+
They're useful for people already looking at the profile, which counts for something: a current offer, special opening hours or a photo of a recent job give them reasons to call. What there isn't is any indication from Google that posting every day lifts you up the map — and that's exactly what profile-management packages tend to sell, because it's easy to count. One useful post a month is worth more than thirty generic ones. If you're short on time, spend it first on replying to reviews and uploading real photos, which do appear on Google's official list of things that help, and save updates for when you genuinely have something to say.
Why has my profile information changed without me touching it?+
Because any user can suggest edits, and Google also updates details based on what it finds in other sources. It usually notifies you by email or in the profile itself, and the change is often applied if you don't review it. That's how a profile wakes up one morning with old opening hours, the wrong phone number or marked as closed. That's why the monthly check isn't optional: log into the profile, see whether there are pending or applied changes, and correct them. If a competitor repeatedly suggests false edits, rejecting them promptly and keeping your website consistent with the profile is the best defence, because Google cross-checks the information against your website.
Do I need a website to have a good profile?+
It isn't compulsory, but it helps a great deal. The profile has a website field, and a good share of the people who see it click there before calling, to check the business is legitimate and see exactly what it does. Google also cross-checks the profile against the website: if the name, address, phone number and opening hours match in both places, it treats the information as more reliable. A trick hardly anyone uses: add campaign parameters to the website link on the profile, so that in Analytics you can separate visits coming from the map from those coming from normal search. Without that, you won't know what share of your customers comes from the profile.
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