What to put on your Google Business Profile first

Before you build a website, get six things right on your Google Business Profile: your opening hours, your main category, your service areas, a handful of real photos, a plain-English description, and your contact details. It's about a 20-minute job, it's free, and it's what most customers see before they ever reach a website.

Picture a Saturday morning at your café in Geelong. A tourist searches "coffee near me," finds you on Google Maps, sees "Closed" and drives past. You've been open since 7am. Nobody updated the hours after the long weekend, and you'll never know that customer existed.

Why this profile matters more than you'd think

Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that appears on Google Maps and in the box of local results when someone searches for what you do. For a lot of small businesses, it's the first thing a customer sees, and sometimes the only thing.

Think about how someone chooses a cleaner in Leeds. They search "end of tenancy cleaning Leeds," glance at three businesses, and look at the stars, the photos and whether the business is open. They'll ring one of them. The listing with missing hours, no photos and a vague name often doesn't get a look.

There's a second reason to do this first. A tidy profile is the foundation a website gets built from. Your hours, services, location and photos all have to be written down somewhere, and if they're accurate on Google, they're ready to use. (We cover exactly what gets used in what BizPage pulls from your Google listing.) If you're curious how Google decides who shows up on top, how Google picks the three businesses in the map pack explains it.

The 20-minute checklist

Search for your business name on Google while signed in to the account that manages it. You should see an option to edit your profile. Then work through these in order.

1. Opening hours (3 minutes). Check every day, including public holidays. Set special hours for Christmas, Easter or bank holidays if they're coming up. Wrong hours are the quickest way to lose a customer, because they cost you the call and the trust.

2. Primary category (2 minutes). This is the label that tells Google what you are. Pick the most specific one: "Café" rather than "Restaurant," "House cleaning service" rather than "Business." Then add a few secondary categories that genuinely apply.

3. Service areas (3 minutes). If you travel to customers, like a cleaner, plumber or mobile hairdresser, list the suburbs, towns or postcodes you actually cover. If you work from home, you can hide your address and show only the areas you serve. Leave out places you wouldn't drive to.

4. Photos (7 minutes). Upload at least five real photos taken on your phone: the front of your shop or your van, your team, your work, and the inside of your premises. Natural light beats a stock image every time. Customers can tell the difference, and they trust a real photo of a real place.

5. Description (3 minutes). Write two or three plain sentences covering what you do, who for, and where. For example: "Family-run café in Geelong's Newtown, serving locally roasted coffee and all-day breakfast. Dog-friendly courtyard, open seven days." No sales pitch needed.

6. Contact details (2 minutes). Check the phone number rings somewhere you'll answer, and add your website address if you have one. Check the address is right too.

Which gaps cost you calls

If you only have time to fix two things, fix the hours and the category. Wrong hours send people away. A wrong category means Google doesn't show you to the people searching for exactly what you do.

Missing photos are the next biggest leak. A listing with none looks abandoned, even if you're flat out. And an empty service area means a customer two suburbs over may never find you. If you're curious what someone sees when they look you up, someone Googled your business name walks through it.

"But I get enough work from word of mouth"

You may well do. Word of mouth is the best kind of business. But even a referred customer usually looks you up before they call. If they find wrong hours or a blank profile, a warm recommendation can go cold. Your profile isn't replacing word of mouth. It's making sure it lands.

"I'm not technical" is fair too, and you don't need to be. Everything above is typing and uploading photos from your phone. It costs nothing but the time.

What to do now

Set a timer for 20 minutes, open your profile, and work down the checklist. Don't aim for perfect. Aim for accurate.

Once it's done, you've already done most of the groundwork for a website. When you're ready, Get a free website preview and we'll build it from your Google listing, with no technical knowledge needed. And if you're wondering whether you'd have to write anything yourself, do you have to write anything for your own website has the answer.