In this week’s episode of Local Search Tuesdays, I’m sharing our Ultimate Guide to Google Business Profile Optimization. There are hundreds of blog posts, videos, and courses out there that tell you how to optimize your GBP - but often they provide conflicting guidance.

To make things easier for everyone, I wanted to put together a simple, quick video guide that walks through the important elements of your Google Business Profile and how you should optimize for success. Check out the guide, and let us know if there’s something you think we left out!

Welcome back to another episode of Local Search Tuesdays. This week, I’ve got a special treat for you… I’m sharing our Ultimate Guide to Google Business Profile Optimization

If you’re not sure where to start with optimizing your Google Business Profile, or even if you’re a seasoned pro and you want a refresher, I’m going to walk you through optimizing your Google Business Profile in today’s episode.

There’s a ridiculous amount of information online about optimizing your GBP, from blog posts to videos to Local SEO courses. Unfortunately, most of these are released by digital marketing agencies or freelancers who are just trying to attract leads.

The coverage is spotty at best, often leaving out important elements and usually conflicting with other resources. To attempt to clear up some of the confusion, and to have an easy-to-refer-to resource to share when I speak at conferences, I’m going to quickly run through a Google Business Profile optimization checklist. Make sure you pay attention to the following elements when you’re setting up or optimizing your GBP:

The most important thing to remember is to fill out every possible thing you can fill out. And boom! That’s the guide, I hope it helped you know what to do. Thanks for watching, and…

Ok, obviously, I’m kidding. Let’s start with the info in the “edit profile” section. Make sure you enter your actual business name. Don’t add any keywords, this can get you suspended.

Make sure you select the appropriate categories. According to the most recent Local Search Ranking Factors study, the primary category is the most influential ranking factor in the GBP. It’s incredibly important to select the right one. If you’re not sure, check out my video about being strategic with your primary category selection at bit.ly/gmb-primary-category.

There are 9 additional category slots, but that doesn’t mean you need to use all 10 category slots. You should only choose categories that actually apply - don’t try to shoehorn in an unrelated category because you can make the case in your head that it applies.

Write a compelling business description next. Keep in mind, this has zero influence on ranking or visibility, so you shouldn’t get all keyword stuffy. This is a conversion element, so a well-written, compelling description will help you attract more customers.

Enter the date your business opened. While it doesn’t matter to Google, it can help build trust with potential customers, so it’s important to include.

Next you’ll need to enter your phone number. It’s best practice to use a unique tracking number here so that you can keep track of GBP-sourced calls easily. Make sure it’s a local area code tracking number to build more trust with potential customers.

Don’t worry about the fact that the number doesn’t match the number on your site or any of your directory listings. You can click the “add phone number” link to add up to two additional numbers for your business. These aren’t displayed to humans, but now Google can easily see that your actual number matches all of the other spots online that list the same number.

If you want to add chat, you can enter a phone number to use for SMS texting or WhatsApp. This won’t influence ranking or visibility, but for many businesses, offering a communication path directly from the Google Business Profile will result in more qualified leads.

The next field is where you enter the link to your website. If you’re a single-location business, you should link to your home page. If you’re a multi-location business, you should link to the location page for that location on your site.

It’s important to include UTM tracking on your website link - on all the various links to your website from your GBP, actually. Attribution is broken in GA, especially with mobile traffic where referral information isn’t sent due to privacy concerns. Using UTM tracking will help you ensure correct attribution in Analytics. You want credit for all of the awesome optimization work you’re doing, so be sure you’ve got your UTMs set up correctly.

Next, you can add your social media profiles. The system lets you enter 7 different profile links, but your GBP will only display 5 profiles, so you should only enter the 5 profiles you care the most about. Google sometimes includes social posts from your profiles in your GBP, so this is a key step you don’t want to miss.

Next in the list is your location information. Make sure you’ve listed the correct address for your business.  Suite numbers are only displayed to help humans find you, they don’t “count” for making your address unique - so don’t try to use suite numbers to cheat.

If you’re a service-based business that operates out of a residential address, uncheck the “show business address to customers” selector. Google still needs to know where your business is located, but humans won’t see your address.

Make sure your map pin is placed correctly on the map. Sometimes Google gets it slightly wrong, but since driving directions are based off of the pin location, you don’t want to skip this step. If you have a large building or facility, but the front entrance is where you want customers to go, you’d want to make sure the map pin is placed appropriately. Otherwise, customers might show up at the back of the building and get confused.

Next is the often misunderstood “service area” field. If you’re a brick-and-mortar location, Google completely ignores this field, so there’s no need to put anything in there. If you’re a service business, like a plumber or an electrician, the info you enter here is used to outline the area you’re willing to drive to in order to service clients. Stick to listing a service area that’s within 2 hours of driving time from your location. Including the entire state or the whole country won’t help you rank outside your area anyway.

Next, you’ll enter your hours of operation. Make sure they’re accurate, and be careful with the advice that some people will give you about claiming that you’re open 24 hours a day if you’re not actually open. In some verticals, Google will show preference to businesses that are open if you’re searching outside of business hours. For example, if I’m looking for an emergency dentist at 12:15 am, Google will assume that I’ve got an issue that needs immediate attention, so it’s going to show dental practices that are open when I’m searching.

Many people have misinterpreted this to mean that if you list your hours of operation as being open 24/7, you’ll rank better. That’s simply untrue. Google is serving the user’s needs and showing businesses that are open at the time of the search - so if you’re closed at night, it makes sense that you may not rank as well as you would when you’re open.

The “special hours” section is used to temporarily overwrite your standard hours during holidays or vacation. Just type in the updated hours and the date, and on that date, your hours will automatically be adjusted.

You can use the “add more hours” section to list additional hours that might apply based on unique business types. Simply select the option and enter those hours, and users will see the separate hours for that particular attribute.

The remaining elements are called “attributes”, and they allow you to select pre-definied information to be displayed about your business. You can click on each attribute group to see the available attributes. Select anything that applies to your business and you could potentially have those attributes displayed on your GBP or in the map pack when you show as a search result.

Once you’ve finished with the “edit profile” section, I suggest editing your services. Google includes a list of pre-defined services that you can choose, but you can also enter custom services. Here’s where you can help your profile really shine, so be diligent and create services that match what customers will be looking for. Don’t try to keyword stuff or add services you don’t offer.

Next, head to the Photos section. Upload high-quality photos - Google shows a preference for high-quality, well-lit photos over quick cell phone shots. Since user-uploaded photos will also be displayed in your gallery, it’s important to showcase how amazing you are with great photos. Keep in mind, photos are a conversion element, not a ranking factor. Show your personality and make sure that photos match the reality of what customers would experience at your business.

There are idiosyncrasies with certain verticals, so make sure you add any additional elements that matter for your vertical. Restaurants should add their menu. Hotels should add a booking link. Car dealers should include the Vehicles for Sale widget.

Google stopped displaying the Questions and Answers widget on the GBP, but it’s still showing in Google Maps, so don’t ignore any new questions that might come in. It’s still helpful to enter common questions that customers would ask - it’s perfectly ok to upload them yourself. This won’t influence ranking or visibility, but it could help you convert a few more customers.

Google Posts are another often misunderstood GBP element. When you click into the “add update” section, you’re able to publish Google Posts. This is another element that has zero influence on ranking, but potentially huge influence on conversions. They’re free ads that appear on your GBP, so treat them that way. Don’t share social media fluff, share promotions or compelling details about your business that will help you stand out from competitors.

The last area you need to pay attention to is your reviews. Since all the power of reviews rests in the hands of your customers, it’s technically not part of optimizing your Google Business Profile. But, since reviews have become such an influential signal, it’s important to pay attention to your reviews. In fact, reviews are probably the most powerful visibility signal on your GBP besides your primary category.

There’s no hard and fast rule with reviews. Review frequency definitely matters, as does the total number of reviews you receive. For some verticals, recency and frequency are much more important, while in other verticals, the total aggregate score is the most weighted factor.

The best approach is to concentrate on earning new reviews from happy customers. You should try to stay ahead of local competitors, both in the total number of reviews you have and your aggregate score.

And with that, we’re done! You’ve watched the whole video (or read the whole transcript), and now you know how to optimize your Google Business Profile.

That’s definitely all the time we have left for today’s episode, so you know what that means. Put your hand on the screen right here: We totally just high-fived ‘cause you learned something awesome. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you again next week for another episode of Local Search Tuesdays.