How to rank a local business on Google

Claim, verify and complete Google Business Profile

Everything else depends on this. Search the business name on Google Maps; if a listing exists, claim it, otherwise create it at google.com/business. Verification is by video call, phone, email, postcard or, for some businesses, instant via a verified website domain; Google chooses which options to offer. The step-by-step listing guide covers verification and the common rejection reasons.

Then fill in every field: name exactly as on the signage (no added keywords or towns, which violate the guidelines and get suspended), address or service area, hours including holidays, phone, website, opening date, description (750 characters; the description generator drafts one), services with descriptions, attributes (wheelchair access, women-owned, outdoor seating), booking and messaging links. Google states that complete profiles rank better and get more engagement; in practice most competitors leave half the fields empty, which is the opportunity.

Choose the primary category precisely

The primary category is the single strongest relevance signal. "Dentist" and "Cosmetic dentist" and "Pediatric dentist" produce different map results. Pick the most specific category that describes the main business, then add up to nine secondary categories for other services. Check what the top three competitors for your main search use (their category shows under the name on Maps) and match the most specific one unless it is wrong for you.

Review the category list annually; Google adds new ones (there are more than 4,000) and a newer, more specific category can lift a listing above competitors still on the generic one.

Build a review habit, not a review campaign

Reviews feed prominence and conversion at once. What matters is a steady flow of recent reviews with text, a high average, and owner replies to every one, positive and negative. Google explicitly says responding to reviews shows that the business values customers. Make asking part of the process: a card at checkout with a QR code to the review link (the QR code generator builds one), an SMS or WhatsApp message the day after a job, a line in the invoice email.

Never buy reviews, offer incentives for them, or set up a "review gate" that only sends happy customers to Google; all three violate Google's policies and the US FTC's 2024 rule on fake reviews carries civil penalties. Reply to negatives within a day, briefly and without arguing; the reply is read by future customers, not the reviewer. Our posts on getting more reviews and handling negative ones have scripts.

Add photos, posts, Q&A and products every month

Activity signals a live business. Upload new photos monthly (exterior, interior, team, work, products), each geotagged by the phone and named sensibly. Publish a Google post every one to two weeks: an offer, an event, a new service or a seasonal note, with a link to the website; posts expire from the main view after a week, so cadence matters. Seed the Q&A section with the ten questions customers ask by phone and answer them yourself. Add products or services with prices where the profile allows. The posts guide has formats that work.

Make the website support the listing

Google uses the linked website to judge relevance and prominence, so the site must say what the business does and where, in words. On the homepage: the primary service, the town or neighbourhood, and the surrounding areas served, in the H1, the first paragraph and the title tag ("Family dentist in Henderson, NV"). A page per main service and, for businesses serving several towns, a page per area with genuinely different content (local landmarks, local photos, local reviews) rather than the same text with the town name swapped.

Put the name, address, phone and hours in the footer in exactly the listing's format, embed the Google map, and add LocalBusiness structured data with the free schema generator. Make the site fast on mobile (the speed test shows the fixes). Managed builders including Neweb generate the location copy, the footer details and the structured data automatically; see the local SEO guide for the deeper website work.

Get the free listings on Apple and Bing, then the major directories

Google is not the only map. Apple Maps is the default on iPhones and feeds Siri; Apple Business Connect (businessconnect.apple.com) is free, and verification is by phone call, email, document or, fastest, a DNS record on the business domain. Bing Places for Business is free, powers Bing Maps and the local results Microsoft Copilot cites, and can import the whole Google Business Profile in a few clicks, inheriting the verification. Both take under 30 minutes and most competitors skip them.

Then the directories that matter in your country: Yelp, Facebook, Nextdoor and the BBB in the US; Yell, Thomson Local and Checkatrade or Trustpilot for trades in the UK; Yellow Pages and TrueLocal in Australia; Yellow Pages and 411 in Canada; Justdial and IndiaMART in India. Consistency of name, address and phone across these "citations" is the point, not volume; a wrong phone number on three directories hurts more than ten listings help. The local SEO audit tool checks the basics.

Earn local mentions and links

Prominence grows when other local sites mention the business: the chamber of commerce member list, a sponsored youth team's website, a local newspaper piece, a supplier's "stockists" page, a neighbourhood blog's "best of" list, a charity you support. Each is a link and a mention Google can connect to the listing. One or two a quarter is realistic and enough. Avoid buying links or joining link networks; they are the fastest way to lose rankings.

Measure monthly and adjust

Google Business Profile shows performance data: how many people found the listing, from which searches, and how many called, asked for directions, clicked the website or booked. Review it monthly alongside Search Console for the website. Watch which searches bring views and make sure the website and services list cover them. Check the listing for unauthorised edits (Google accepts public suggestions) and for duplicate listings, which split reviews and should be merged or removed. Movement typically shows within four to twelve weeks of completing the profile and starting the review habit.