The Google Business Profile checklist I work through, field by field

Name, categories and services

The business name field is your real business name. Stuffing keywords into it is against the rules and is the single easiest thing for a competitor to report, so it is not worth the risk.

Categories are where the actual leverage is. One primary that names your core job, then secondaries for everything else you genuinely do. Under services, list each job you take with a written description — that text is yours to write and most profiles leave it blank.

• Primary category: the job you want to be called for.
• Secondary categories: everything else you genuinely do, no aspirational entries.
• Services: every job you take, each with two or three plain sentences.
• Business name: exactly what it is. No city, no keywords.

The description

You get a short description and it should read like a person explaining the business, not a slogan. Say what you do, who you do it for, the area you cover, and one thing that is specifically true about how you work.

Write a Google Business Profile description for my business. Facts: {what I do}, {who I serve}, {area covered}, {how long operating}, {one thing genuinely different about how I work}. Rules: 700 characters maximum, plain first-person or third-person to match {preference}, no superlatives, no claims about being the best or number one, no statistics. If a fact is missing, ask me for it rather than inventing it.

Photos, and what makes them useful

Photos of work you have actually done beat stock every time, and they are the part of a profile a customer scrolls before they call. Real premises, real vehicles, real finished jobs, and a clear photo of you if you are the business.

Set a rhythm rather than doing a single upload. A handful of new photos each month keeps the profile looking like somewhere that is still open.

Hours, attributes and the details nobody fills in

Wrong hours cost you calls and generate the bad reviews that are hardest to answer. Set regular hours, then set the holiday hours in advance — Google prompts you and most businesses skip it.

Attributes are the checkboxes: appointment required, on-site services, accessibility, payment methods, whether the business is owner-operated. They show on the listing and some are filterable, so they are worth ten minutes.

• Holiday hours set ahead of the date, not after someone turns up.
• Service area set to the places you actually travel to.
• Attributes filled in fully, including accessibility and payment.
• Booking or contact link pointing somewhere that works on a phone.

Posts and Q&A — the two live surfaces

Posts expire, which is the point: a profile with a post from this month reads as active. A short update about a job type, an offer, or a seasonal reminder is enough. This is not where long-form writing belongs.

The Q&A section is public and anyone can answer, including people who are wrong. Seed it yourself with the questions you get on the phone every week and answer them properly. Then check it, because unanswered questions sit there in public.

The review loop

The profile is where reviews land, so the last part of the pass is making sure there is a routine feeding it: a short review link saved somewhere you can send it in one tap, a fixed moment in the job when it goes out, and a habit of replying to every review, good or bad.