Google Business Profile: your most important free listing

Search for a company name, or for "roofing" plus your town, and often a box appears on the right or a pin on the map with a name, rating, opening hours and photos. That's a Google Business Profile, and for many local businesses it's the very first thing a customer sees. It's free, and even so most profiles sit half empty.

What a Business Profile is

The profile (formerly "Google My Business") is your place in Google Search and on Google Maps. It shows:

• Company name, category and the area you work in
• Phone number, website and directions
• Opening hours
• Photos of you, the team and your work
• Customer reviews and ratings

You fill it in yourself, free of charge, and connect it to your business. Then Google handles the display.

Why it's often decisive

Here's the point many people miss: a large share of customers call straight from the profile without even clicking through to the website. They see a good rating, a few sensible photos and a phone number, and dial. If your profile is empty, or missing entirely, they move on to the next firm that looks more serious.

The profile and the website work together: the profile catches the quick customer, the website convinces the one who wants to know more.

Customer reviews: what builds trust

The reviews on the profile are gold. They're reviews other people can read before they decide, and fresh reviews carry weight both for the customer and for Google. My advice:

• Ask for them. Happy customers are glad to leave a review if you ask. Send a link when the job is done.
• Reply to all of them, both criticism and praise. A measured reply to a sour review often impresses more than five stars.
• Keep it going. A couple of new reviews a month say more than twenty from 2022.

Bra Bygg is the clearest example I have. They got a new business profile, a routine for asking for reviews once the job is done, and a button on the site that leads straight into Google's review form, switched on in June 2026. The whole job is described in the Bra Bygg case.

Common mistakes

What I see most often:

• The wrong category, or none at all, which makes Google match you to the wrong searches.
• An empty profile without photos, which feels abandoned.
• No reviews, or old ones.
• Reviews that are ignored entirely.

All of them can be fixed in an afternoon, and after that, keep it alive. That is how the job looked at Bollnäs El & Energikonsult AB: claiming and verification first, then categories, services, service areas in Gävleborg, opening hours and contact details exactly as on the site, plus photos from the jobs.

If you want to see how the profile and an indexed page fit together, read How to get your company found on Google.