How do I create a Google Business Profile for my company?

Go to google.com/business and sign in with a Google account (your normal Gmail is fine, though a dedicated business one keeps work and personal apart). Search for your business name in case Google has already made an unclaimed listing for you: if it has, claim that one rather than making a second. Enter your trade, choose that you serve customers at their location (a service-area business), set your areas, pick your category, and Google will then ask you to verify. The whole thing takes about twenty minutes; verification is the part that can take a few days.

Is a Google Business Profile free?

Yes. Creating it, verifying it and managing it costs nothing, and there is no paid tier that buys you a higher spot on the map. If someone rings or emails asking for a fee to "verify", "renew" or "activate" your listing, it is not Google and you should ignore it. Google does not cold-call trades to charge for a free service, and has taken legal action against companies that pose as it to do exactly that.

Do I need a shop or office address to have a profile?

No. If you work from home or out of your van and visit customers, you set up as a service-area business and you do not show a public address at all. You list the towns, cities or postcodes you cover instead. Only a business customers actually come to, like a showroom or a yard, shows a pinned address. Most trades are pure service-area and should keep their home address off the profile.

Can I hide my home address as a mobile tradesperson?

Yes, and you should. When you set up as a service-area business you remove the address and it stays hidden from the public; only your service areas show. Leaving a home address on display is one of the common reasons a mobile trade's profile gets flagged, quite apart from putting your home on the map for every stranger who searches. Set it up as service-area from the start and the problem never arises.

How long does verification take?

The setup is quick; the wait is verification. If Google asks for a video, you record it there and then, and Google reviews it within about five working days. Sometimes it is same-day. You cannot rush it, so get the profile set up well before you are relying on it for work, not the week you go quiet.

Why do I have to record a video instead of getting a postcard?

Because you have no shopfront. A business with a real premises can sometimes prove it a simpler way, but for a mobile trade with the address hidden, Google needs to see you are genuinely trading where you say. A short video showing your van, your tools and a document with your business name on it does that better than a postcard to a house ever could. It feels like a hoop, but it is Google keeping fake trades off the map, which works in your favour.

How many service areas can I add?

Up to twenty, set by town, city or postcode. Google's guidance is that the whole patch should not stretch further than roughly a two-hour drive from your base, so do not list the entire country. List the places you genuinely work and would happily drive to. Adding areas you never actually cover does not win you those jobs and can work against you.

What category should a plumber or electrician choose?

Pick the single most specific, accurate one as your primary category: "Plumber", "Electrician", "Roofing contractor", "Heating contractor", and so on. That primary category is the strongest signal Google has for what you do, so be precise, not broad. Then add a couple of secondary categories for the extra things you offer, for example an electrician who fits EV chargers adding "EV charging station contractor". Only list what you actually do.

Someone rang asking to verify my listing for a fee. Is that Google?

No. Google does not phone trades asking for money to verify, renew or fix a listing, because the listing is free. These calls, often an automated voice warning that your listing is "about to be removed", are a long-running scam. Hang up. Everything you need to do to your profile you do yourself, for nothing, inside your Google account.

Is Google My Business the same as Google Business Profile?

Yes, it was just renamed. It used to be called Google My Business, and you may still see old guides and even trades calling it "my GMB". The standalone app was retired, so you now manage everything straight from Google Search or Google Maps while signed in, or from business.google.com on a computer. Same thing, newer name.

Can I run a profile without a website?

You can, and a profile on its own is far better than nothing. But it is a listing, not a website: you do not control it, you cannot say much on it, and when someone taps through wanting to size you up, there is nowhere for them to land. Google also shut down the free built-in websites it used to bolt onto profiles, so that stopgap is gone. The profile gets you found; a website is what turns the look into a booked job. That is the pairing we build.

How to set up your Google Business Profile.

Short answer: go to google.com/business, sign in, and add your business as a “service-area business” so you can hide your home address and list the towns you cover instead. Pick the most specific category for your trade, fill in your services, hours and photos, then get through verification, which for a mobile trade is usually a short video. It is free, it takes about twenty minutes, and it is the single most useful free thing a trade can do to get found.

The catch is that nearly every guide on this is written for a shop with a front door, or written for America. A plumber working out of a van is a different setup, and getting it wrong is how trades end up with their home on the map, the wrong category, or a profile that never verifies. Here is the version for you, in order, with the bits that actually matter to a trade.

First things first

It is completely free.

Creating, verifying and running a Google Business Profile costs nothing, and there is no paid tier that buys you a higher spot on the map. So if you get a call or an email asking for money to “verify”, “renew” or “activate” your listing, often an automated voice warning it is about to be removed, it is not Google. Hang up. It is a long-running scam aimed at trades, and Google has taken legal action against companies posing as it to charge for the free service. Everything on this page you do yourself, for nothing.

What you need before you start

A Google account (your normal Gmail works, though a separate business one keeps things tidy), your business name exactly as you trade, the list of areas you cover, your phone number, your hours, and a phone to hand for the verification video. That is it.

Step 1

Create it, or claim the one that already exists.

Before you make a new profile, search your business name on Google Maps. Google sometimes generates an unverified listing for a business it has heard of, and if one exists you want to claim that, not create a second and end up with two. If you see your business already there, tap “Claim this business” and follow it through. If there is nothing, go to google.com/business, sign in, and choose “Add your business”.

Either way you land in the same setup, entering your name, trade and details. The next two steps are where a trade's setup parts company with the shop-with-a-front-door version every other guide assumes, so take them slowly.

Step 2 and 3, the important ones

You are a service-area business. Hide the address.

This is the decision the whole setup turns on. Google asks whether customers come to you or you go to them. A plumber, electrician, roofer, landscaper, nearly every trade, goes to them. That makes you a service-area business, and it changes how you set the rest up.

Choose “I deliver goods and services to my customers”, not a storefront. Only pick the storefront option if you have a place customers genuinely visit, like a showroom or a yard. If you work from home or the van, you are service-area.
Remove your address so it stays hidden. A pure service-area business does not display an address. When you set it up this way your home address is hidden from the public and only your service areas show. Leaving your home address on display is one of the common reasons a mobile trade's profile gets flagged, quite apart from pinning your house on the map for every stranger who searches.
List the towns and postcodes you actually work. You can add up to twenty areas, by town, city or postcode. Google's guidance is to keep the whole patch inside roughly a two-hour drive of your base, so do not list half the country. List the places you genuinely cover and would happily drive to, and no more.

Get this pair right and everything downstream is easier. Get it wrong, home address showing or areas you do not really cover, and you are the trade wondering why the profile keeps getting knocked back.

Step 4

Pick the right primary category.

Your primary category is the strongest signal Google has for what you do, so it decides a lot about which searches you turn up for. The rule is simple: pick the single most specific, accurate one. Not “contractor” if you are a plumber. Not “handyman” if you are a qualified electrician. Then add a couple of secondary categories for the extra things you genuinely offer.

Your trade	A good primary category
Plumber	Plumber
Electrician	Electrician (add "EV charging station contractor" if you fit chargers)
Roofer	Roofing contractor
Gas / heating engineer	Heating contractor
Builder	General contractor
Joiner / carpenter	Carpenter

Only ever list categories for work you actually do. Padding the list with jobs you do not take on does not win you those calls, and Google can check.

Step 5

Fill in the bits that actually win jobs.

A half-finished profile looks like a half-bothered trade, and people scroll past it. The fields worth your twenty minutes:

Your services. List the specific jobs you take on, not the broad trade label: emergency callout, boiler service, bathroom install, drain unblocking. This is what people search for and how you match those searches.
Your hours, honestly. Set them so people know when to ring. If you run a genuine round-the-clock emergency service, there is no tidy 24/7 switch, so say so clearly in your services and description instead.
A consistent phone number. Use the same number here as on your van, your website and everywhere else. When the details match up across the web, Google trusts the listing more; when they clash, it trusts it less.
Real photos. Your van, finished jobs, a before and after, you on site. Not stock images. A dozen real photos of your work does more to win the call than any wording, because it proves you are a real trade who turns up.
A short description. Say what you do, the areas you cover, and any tickets that matter, Gas Safe, NICEIC, and the like. Keep it plain; it is the blurb, not a sales page.

Step 6

Get through verification.

Setup is quick; verification is the part people get stuck on, and it is where the guides written for shops fall down. Because you have no public premises, Google usually asks a service-area trade to prove itself with a short video, recorded there and then on your phone through the profile. It cannot be a clip you filmed earlier, it has to be at least thirty seconds, and it needs to run in one take without edits.

What Google wants to see is simply that you are a real trade operating where you say. A walk-through that covers these does the job:

What to film

Where you are: a street sign or recognisable landmark near your base, so it matches your area.
Proof it is your business: your branded van, your tools and kit, or a business card.
Proof it is yours to run: getting into the van, or a document with your business name on it.

Do not film people's faces, do not narrate, and keep anything sensitive like bank or tax paperwork out of shot.

Once you upload it, Google reviews it, usually within about five working days, sometimes the same day. You cannot hurry it, so set your profile up well before you are counting on it for work, not the week the diary goes quiet. If it does get knocked back, it is almost always because the location was not clear enough or there was no proof of the business in shot, so record it again with those front and centre.

Avoid these

The setup mistakes that get trades flagged.

Stuffing keywords into the business name. Your name on the profile has to be your actual trading name, not “Dave's Emergency Plumber Leicester 24hr”. It is against the rules and it gets profiles suspended, and if yours already has been, see Google Business Profile suspended: what to do for the fix.
Showing a home address you should hide. Covered above, but it is the big one: set up as service-area and take the address off.
Using a fake or virtual address. A rented mailbox or an address you do not really work from will not verify and can get you banned. Service-area with no address is the honest, working answer.
Listing work you do not do. Categories and services should match what you actually turn up and do. Padding them out backfires.

Once it is live

Set up is done. Now you make it work.

A verified, filled-in profile gets you on the map. Two things then decide whether it actually brings you work, and each has its own guide. First, where you show in the local results, the map pack, comes down to a handful of factors you can nudge, which we break down in how to get on Google Maps. Second, reviews do more than almost anything to turn a listing into a booked job, and there is a right way to ask, laid out in how to get more Google reviews.

One more thing worth knowing: Google used to bolt a free basic website onto profiles, and it shut that down. So the profile gets you found, but when someone taps through wanting to size you up, there is nowhere for them to land unless you have a proper website. That gap, found but not chosen, is exactly what we wrote about in do I need a website.

Straight answers

Questions trades actually ask.

How do I create a Google Business Profile for my company?: Go to google.com/business and sign in with a Google account (your normal Gmail is fine, though a dedicated business one keeps work and personal apart). Search for your business name in case Google has already made an unclaimed listing for you: if it has, claim that one rather than making a second. Enter your trade, choose that you serve customers at their location (a service-area business), set your areas, pick your category, and Google will then ask you to verify. The whole thing takes about twenty minutes; verification is the part that can take a few days.
Is a Google Business Profile free?: Yes. Creating it, verifying it and managing it costs nothing, and there is no paid tier that buys you a higher spot on the map. If someone rings or emails asking for a fee to "verify", "renew" or "activate" your listing, it is not Google and you should ignore it. Google does not cold-call trades to charge for a free service, and has taken legal action against companies that pose as it to do exactly that.
Do I need a shop or office address to have a profile?: No. If you work from home or out of your van and visit customers, you set up as a service-area business and you do not show a public address at all. You list the towns, cities or postcodes you cover instead. Only a business customers actually come to, like a showroom or a yard, shows a pinned address. Most trades are pure service-area and should keep their home address off the profile.
Can I hide my home address as a mobile tradesperson?: Yes, and you should. When you set up as a service-area business you remove the address and it stays hidden from the public; only your service areas show. Leaving a home address on display is one of the common reasons a mobile trade's profile gets flagged, quite apart from putting your home on the map for every stranger who searches. Set it up as service-area from the start and the problem never arises.
How long does verification take?: The setup is quick; the wait is verification. If Google asks for a video, you record it there and then, and Google reviews it within about five working days. Sometimes it is same-day. You cannot rush it, so get the profile set up well before you are relying on it for work, not the week you go quiet.
Why do I have to record a video instead of getting a postcard?: Because you have no shopfront. A business with a real premises can sometimes prove it a simpler way, but for a mobile trade with the address hidden, Google needs to see you are genuinely trading where you say. A short video showing your van, your tools and a document with your business name on it does that better than a postcard to a house ever could. It feels like a hoop, but it is Google keeping fake trades off the map, which works in your favour.
How many service areas can I add?: Up to twenty, set by town, city or postcode. Google's guidance is that the whole patch should not stretch further than roughly a two-hour drive from your base, so do not list the entire country. List the places you genuinely work and would happily drive to. Adding areas you never actually cover does not win you those jobs and can work against you.
What category should a plumber or electrician choose?: Pick the single most specific, accurate one as your primary category: "Plumber", "Electrician", "Roofing contractor", "Heating contractor", and so on. That primary category is the strongest signal Google has for what you do, so be precise, not broad. Then add a couple of secondary categories for the extra things you offer, for example an electrician who fits EV chargers adding "EV charging station contractor". Only list what you actually do.
Someone rang asking to verify my listing for a fee. Is that Google?: No. Google does not phone trades asking for money to verify, renew or fix a listing, because the listing is free. These calls, often an automated voice warning that your listing is "about to be removed", are a long-running scam. Hang up. Everything you need to do to your profile you do yourself, for nothing, inside your Google account.
Is Google My Business the same as Google Business Profile?: Yes, it was just renamed. It used to be called Google My Business, and you may still see old guides and even trades calling it "my GMB". The standalone app was retired, so you now manage everything straight from Google Search or Google Maps while signed in, or from business.google.com on a computer. Same thing, newer name.
Can I run a profile without a website?: You can, and a profile on its own is far better than nothing. But it is a listing, not a website: you do not control it, you cannot say much on it, and when someone taps through wanting to size you up, there is nowhere for them to land. Google also shut down the free built-in websites it used to bolt onto profiles, so that stopgap is gone. The profile gets you found; a website is what turns the look into a booked job. That is the pairing we build.

Found on the map, but nowhere to land them?

A profile gets you found. A website built to convert is what turns that look into a booked job. Tell us about your trade and we'll build you one. Got a question first? Just message us.

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