Your shop on Google, step by step: create, verify and fill in your Business Profile.

Put your business on Google Search and Maps for free: create or claim your Business Profile, get through video verification, and fill it in so customers can find you and call.

By
Yucti
Reviewed by
Satish Pophale, founder
Last checked
Reading time
6 min read

The short answer

A Google Business Profile puts your business on Google Search and Google Maps, with your hours, phone number, photos, reviews and directions. It’s free.

There are three steps: create or claim the profile, verify that you run the business (often with a short video from your phone), then fill in every field. Google takes up to 5 working days to check the verification.

Before you start

Keep these ready:

  • A Google account that belongs to the business owner. Not a nephew’s, an employee’s or an agency’s. Whoever owns the profile controls it; others can be added later as managers.
  • The business name exactly as it is on your signboard.
  • Your address, or, if customers don’t come to you, the areas you serve.
  • A phone number you control, ideally the one customers already call or WhatsApp.
  • Your opening hours, and a few photos: the signboard, the inside, your work.

Step by step

1. Check whether you’re already on Google

Search for your business name and area in Google Maps. Your business may already be there, added by Google or by a customer.

  • It’s there, unclaimed: select it, then Claim this business and Manage now (in the Maps app: tap the business, then About, then Claim this business).
  • It’s there, and someone else already manages it: Google lets you request ownership from the current owner.
  • It isn’t there: create it (step 2).

2. Create the profile

  1. Go to business.google.com/add (opens in a new tab) and select Add your business to Google.
  2. Enter the business name, as on the signboard.
  3. Choose a category: the one that finishes the sentence “this business is a …”, such as “Dentist” or “Hardware store”. Use as few as possible.
  4. Say whether customers visit you:
    • Yes: enter the address of the shop, clinic or office.
    • No (you go to them, like AC repair, a plumber or a home tutor): don’t show your address. Add the areas you serve instead: up to 20, within about 2 hours’ drive of where you’re based.
  5. Add your phone number and website, if you have one.

3. Verify that it’s yours

Google chooses which methods you’re offered, and you can’t change them. The usual ones are a phone call or text, an email, a video recording, a live video call, or a postcard. If video is offered, Google recommends it.

A verification video that passes:

  • At least 30 seconds, in one continuous take: no cuts, no edits. Record and upload it from your phone, through your Business Profile.
  • Where you are: a street sign, the building number, nearby shops or a landmark.
  • The business: your signboard, with the business name on something permanent (a board, wall or window), matching the name on your profile.
  • That you run it: something only staff can open, such as the cash counter, the store room, the kitchen or your billing system.
  • If customers don’t come to you: also show your tools, equipment or products, and a business document such as a licence, an invoice or a utility bill.
  • Never show: bank, tax or ID numbers, private information, or other people’s faces.

Plan the route before you record: start at the street sign, walk to your signboard, go in, and open the counter.

Google’s check takes up to 5 working days. If it’s a postcard, most codes arrive within 14 days and expire after 30. Don’t change your name, address or category while you wait: that can restart the check.

4. Fill in everything

Once you’re verified, open your profile and complete each section:

  • Hours, plus special hours for festivals and holidays, so nobody arrives at a closed shutter.
  • Description, up to 750 characters: what you offer, what makes you different, how long you’ve been in business. No links, prices or offers.
  • Photos: the signboard (so people recognise you from the street), the inside, your work, your products.
  • Services or products, and any attributes that apply to you.
  • Website, if you have one.

Google says complete, up-to-date details help your profile appear in local results, and so do reviews and replies. There’s no way to pay Google for a better position.

5. Keep it alive

  • Reply to every review. Our guide to Google reviews explains how to ask for them within the rules.
  • Update your hours before every holiday.
  • Add new photos now and then.

What it costs

Nothing. Creating, claiming, verifying and updating a Business Profile is free: Google says it “doesn’t charge for this service”.

Mistakes to avoid

  1. Paying a caller “from Google”. Google doesn’t charge for Business Profiles, and doesn’t call to sell them. It will never ask for an OTP or PIN. Hang up.
  2. Keywords in the name. “Sharma Dental Clinic: Best Dentist Near Station” should be “Sharma Dental Clinic”. Google doesn’t allow taglines, places, phone numbers, website addresses or words in all capitals, and a profile that breaks the rule can be suspended.
  3. The name twice, in two scripts. One name, as it appears on your signboard, not the same name in English and again in Marathi.
  4. The profile in someone else’s account. If a relative, an old employee or an agency set it up, get ownership moved to you, and add them as a manager instead.
  5. The wrong address. No PO boxes, virtual offices or co-working desks without your own signboard and staff. If customers don’t come to you, hide your address.
  6. A call-centre number. The phone must be one your business controls.
  7. Different details in different places. Your name, address and phone should match on Google, Justdial, IndiaMART or Practo, and your website, character for character.
  8. Changing details mid-verification. Wait until the check is done.

Last checked

4 October 2026, against Google’s Business Profile Help pages. Google changes its steps and verification rules from time to time, so we re-check this guide before we share it again.

Sources

Want a second pair of eyes?

Yucti Studio’s free visibility check takes about 20 minutes. We look together, on your phone, at your Google profile: photos, hours, categories, reviews and unanswered questions. We also check your name, address and phone on Google, Justdial and IndiaMART, and how you show up in searches and AI answers. You keep a one-page report with the three biggest fixes.

Book a free visibility check

How we make these guides: we draft them with AI from the sources listed, check every fact against those sources, and a person approves each one before it goes live.

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