For your primary category, pick the category that best matches your business. It does you no good to choose a category that you’re not in, even if it’s bigger. Google will auto complete options with their existing categories.

You can also add subcategories. So if your main business is dog walking, but you also do dog grooming, you can add grooming as a secondary category.

Note: all edits will get reviewed for quality.

Service areas are the geographic locations where customers might be interested in buying your products and services. Many business owners simply enter their city, but this is a great opportunity to stand out from the competition by casting a wider net: Start broad and work your way down to listing more specific locations so your business can show up in more local Google searches.

If your business is online, you don’t need to input a service area. This is primarily for local businesses.

Being able to adjust your hours of business is one of the most practical reasons to claim your Google My Business listing. Having the wrong times or days posted online is almost like not being able to control a glowing neon “Open” sign hanging in your front window.

If a potential customer views your business during your posted hours, Google displays a bright green “Open” label on your listing. Green means go! Seeing this label makes people much more likely to visit your location or call with questions, so you want to be sure it only appears when you’re actually open for business.

This is what it looks like in the search results when you are open.

Google makes it easy to adjust your hours and days of business on the screen shown below. Make sure you add hours for every day. If you are an online business, you can just indicate that you are open 24 hours a day.

Google knows that businesses sometimes need to make exceptions to their normal hours for holidays and other planned closures. You can enter these specific dates and times in advance in the section titled “Special Hours,” and it’s best to do this now if you already have these dates on your calendar

Are you closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas, just enter those dates and marked closed. If you do this now you won’t have to worry about it until next year.

If your business is going to be closed for more than seven days, you can indicate that you are “Temporarily Closed.”

TIP: Set a reminder to adjust your dates for next year one year from today.

If you forget to add special hours for a major holiday, Google often sends a helpful reminder a few days prior. These reminders will be sent to the email address connected to your Google My Business account.

Google also allows you to label certain hours of business with unique categories called “More” hours. This is a powerful marketing tool because you can use this feature to appeal to certain customers. 

For instance, if you offer senior discounts during a certain time of the week, you could include those here. Restaurants can add “More” hours to highlight certain meals (“brunch”) or daily deals (“happy hour”). The possibilities are endless, so spend some time brainstorming whether you can appeal to specific customers by adding eye-catching “More” hours.

If you need to edit your phone number or add more phone numbers, you can do so here. It is very self explanatory, but don’t forget to do it. Take care to make sure your primary number is the number you want showing up first. When people Google “your business name” phone number, Google will pull from this. If you have multiple locations, do not put multiple location phone numbers here. As mentioned before, if you have multiple locations, you will need to set up and manage a listing for each one individually. The phone numbers should correspond to each location.

At one point in time, Google allowed businesses to claim their own short name. If you have one of these, congratulations. If not, that’s fine too, your link will just look more anonymous. You can find it on your main profile page about midway down. When you click to get reviews you’ll see a view like the image below appear. Save that link! You’ll need it a lot. 

If you have multiple locations, each location will have its own review link, so make sure you keep track of which link is for which location.

Because customers often like to browse a business’s website before making a purchase, Google offers a section for a site link on your profile. (If you don’t have a website, don’t worry! You can generate a free Google website based on your My Business listing once you have added all your relevant information.)

Google knows that many businesses allow customers to schedule appointments online. The great news is that your listing can integrate with dozens of popular scheduling tools so you can choose the right one for your company and then post the link on Google My Business.

If you take appointments on your own site, you can link to that as well. When you add appointment link(s), you’ll be given an option to set your preferred link. If you have more than one, just be sure to select this as you add them.

You can also potentially use Google’s free messaging services for appointments. This tool functions like a messaging service, similar to the emails and text messages you may already be using to coordinate appointments with customers. We’ll cover that here.

Products is the catch-all section of Google My Business profile where owners show customers what they sell. For instance, a farm-to-table restaurant could upload photos and prices of their hottest dishes, while a real estate agent could post their new home listings.

Service businesses like carpet cleaners or massage therapists can create a unique product for each service they offer. Your business’s unique offerings will determine how you can best make use of the Products section of your profile.

Here’s what adding a product looks like.

You really should get creative. People will click through on your products and browse through them, especially if you have a number of different services or offerings. Again, the key thing to remember here is that people can see what you offer on their Google searches, before they go to your site or your competitors.

Tip: Because people “buy with their eyes” online, you should definitely consider hiring a professional to take photos that will let your products and services shine.

Here’s what a real estate agent did with a new home listing. This listing shows up right in the search, and this is what a prospect sees when they view more detail.

This is just a list of services that your business offers within categories. Google has its own list of services, but you can add your own too. You can’t add new categories though, so just pick the one(s) that best fit your business.

If you have multiple business categories – say dog grooming and dog walking – you can add those and have individual services under each one. In that scenario you might have “Dog walker” as your main category with three different custom services, each of which is priced individually.

If the idea of posting every one of your services as a Product on your profile is overwhelming, you can easily list them in the Services section. You can even set distinct prices for each service you offer.

Below are a few tips for making your Services stand out to potential customers on Google:

• Be sure to thoroughly document all variations of your services. For instance, if you own an auto detailing business with four different car wash packages, you’ll want to add each one individually.
• Add a description for each service. By providing the information people need to make purchasing decisions up front, you can eliminate doubt and help them buy with confidence. The car wash business might be able to upsell more customers if they’re aware of the benefits of Premium-tier detailing listed right on the company’s Google My Business profile.
• Add specific pricing details. For the auto detailer, potential customers should know how much more they’d have to pay for the Premium service package than the Basic without having to call one of your employees.

As with all aspects of your Google My Business listing, your goal is to offer a search experience that is superior to your local competitors. Providing detailed Services information is a great way to set yourself apart!

Very few people take the time to do descriptions of their services, but this robs them of critical information to feed the Google algorithm. Take a few minutes and do it, and your services will look much better.

Attributes help people figure out whether your business is a “good fit” based on their unique values and needs. For example, you can designate your storefront as wheelchair accessible or highlight your status as a veteran-led company. In other words, Attributes allow you to convey small details about your brand or customer experience that often mean a great deal to specific shoppers.

This is where those attributes go.

What makes your business special? Why do you do what you do? Do you have special history or experience that would make someone want to work with you?

This is where you want to include those things. DON’T include URLS or HTML code – this is text only. You have 750 characters to work with. Here is Google’s example description for your reference. We’ve also included an image of a description from a photo studio.

“We’re an independent ice cream shop located steps from the center of town. We’re proud to be the favorite for locals to meet friends for a cone or call for a fresh pizza, delivered straight to their home. We serve 35 flavors of homemade, hand-churned ice creams and sorbets year-round. The pizza oven turns out New York-style pies every day from midday until close. Come see us today!”

If your business has been around for some time, the Opening Date section is a great way to show how long you’ve been a part of the community. Just enter the date of your opening and you are all set.