How to create and optimise your Google My Business entry - crystal-clear step-by-step instructions + 13 tips

updated on February 28, 2025

Create & optimise Google My Business entry

Author: Margit Bogataj

Owner & Managing Director of ithelps Digital. Since 2013, he has been deeply engaged in SEO and online marketing.

What is Google My Business (GMB) and why does a listing for your business in Google's free business profile help your local SEO?

In today's article, I'll explain the definition and importance of a Google My Business listing. You'll find out how you can use it to improve your company's visibility and online presence as well as its ranking in Google's local search results.

Best of all, my step-by-step guide will lead you safely through the creation of your GMB profile. By the end of the article, you'll know how to optimise your existing listing and generate more leads thanks to the 13 tips.

Plus: Sebastian shows you 8 GMB hacks for more visibility in Google in his video.

Let's get started.

For all those who want to watch the video with the 8 Google My Business hacks right away ...to the GMB video

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business (formerly Google Places) is a Google service for businesses, companies, service providers and retailers to present the company, its products and services to prospective customers and customers in the best possible way.

It could be seen as a business directory in which local companies can create a business listing.

For a company to be able to use the service, it usually needs a physical location. However, a location-independent company such as an emergency locksmith or plumber can be listed as an SAB (Service Area Business).

What does a Google business listing cost?

A company entry on Google does not cost a cent. The platform allows business owners to use its platform services free of charge and offers the opportunity to create a free Google My Business account. With this account, the business appears in various Google results lists.

The results lists include the Google Local Pack (or Google 3-Pack), the Google Knowledge Panel, Google Street View and Google Maps.

Google Knowledge Panel: When a Google user performs a search for a business, the Google Knowledge Panel appears at the top right of the search results.

All the information entered for the company, such as the address, opening hours, telephone number or brief description, appears in this field.

Google Local Pack/3-Pack/Local Snack Pack: The three company entry results below the Google map and above the organic search results are called the Google Local Pack. This pack depends on the user's location.

Google lists what it considers to be the most relevant results for a search query.

Google Maps: The Google map can help users with several things. For example, when searching for directions or finding businesses in the neighbourhood.

Users can use Google Maps to go directly to a company's website or calculate a suitable route to the company's location.

Incidentally, the three results from the Google Local Pack are the most frequently clicked on for local search queries.

Expert tip: In order for potential customers to find your company or your "business listing" and contact you, you need a well-filled GMB profile. This includes the primary company data such as the NAP data (name, address and telephone number), the type of company, a brief description of the company, photos and opening hours.

Now let's take a look at the benefits of using Google My Business for your company.

What are the benefits of a Google My Business account?

Business owners can ill afford to ignore the benefits of the free service. Appearing in local Google search results can significantly increase a company's visibility.

These are the main benefits:

A business appears on local listings.
Customers have the opportunity to write reviews that can be read by potential new customers.
Entry in the most important internet business directory.
Statistical data on views, search queries, actions from Google Ads and organic search results.
Interested parties and customers can easily contact a company.

As you can see, Google My Business is a very effective tool for presenting your company on the Internet and interacting with your customers.

Why should every company use Google My Business?

A successful company should always try to expand and optimise its visibility on the Word Wide Web. A Google listing is one way to do this. Above all, Google is constantly improving its company presentation and search options for consumers.

Google is the best-known and largest search engine for searches, especially local searches.

According to Statcounter Global Stats, Google was used worldwide in 2020:

86.96 per cent of desktop searches,
90.37 per cent of tablet search queries and
95.27 per cent of mobile search queries.

According to a Statcounter Global Stats survey, search engines in Germany had the following market shares in 2020:

The GMB Insights study from 2019 by Bright Local came to the following conclusions:

49 per cent of registered businesses receive at least 1000 searches per month.
96 per cent of local GMD profiles are viewed at least 25 times per month in search results
56 per cent of visitors to your GMB listing visit the website from your Google My Business listing on average.

Now you know all the reasons why you should use Google My Business for your business.

Google My Business and its importance for local SEO

By creating a My Business account, a company gains quick and easy access to one of the most promising options for presenting itself on the Internet.

People who perform a local search query and view the various businesses in the search results can then click on the listing or call.

Consumers use search engines to look for businesses, services, products or reviews in their local area.
Local searches are particularly common when travelling.
Many users search for company addresses, directions and opening hours.
Consumers who use a smartphone to search for a company, product or service are usually about to make a purchase decision. This means that search queries lead to further actions.

If you want to learn more about Local SEO, read our blog article Local SEO - 10 extremely effective tips for local businesses.

Now you know how important a listing is for your business. I'll now show you how to create this listing.

Step-by-step instructions for creating a GMB entry

In order for you or your business to be listed in local Google search results, you first need a Google My Business account. You can find out how to create your GMB profile in my step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Sign up for Google My Business

Go to the official Google My Business website. If your company already has an active Google account, then sign in. Otherwise, first create a new account and log in.

Step 2: Search for or add your company

Enter the name and address of your company in the field provided to search for it. Your business may already appear in the drop-down menu. If a company entry already exists, you can add it to your profile.

If you can't find your business, click on the "Add business to Google" button.

Step 3: Set up your business name

Next, you will be asked to enter the name of your business. A descriptive name that already contains important information (keywords) will help potential customers find your business.

Once you have entered this, click on the "Next" button.

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Step 4: Select a suitable business category

You now have the opportunity to select primary and secondary categories that best describe your company, business, product or service.

Tip: Take a look at your competitors' entries. Which categories have they chosen for their company?

Some of the functions are category-specific: service companies, for example, have a booking button. Companies in the food and beverage sector can add links.

Step 5: Enter the address and location

Now you can link your business to a location.

If your business has a physical location that customers can visit, select "Yes" and click on the "Next" button.
Now add your current address and click "Next" again.
Mark the exact location of your company on the Google map.

If your company does not have a physical location because you offer your customers deliveries or a service, you can enter your service area here.

Step 6: Add your contact details

Before you enter your contact details, you should think about which contact options you would like to offer your customers. You can add your business phone number and company website to your listing.

Step 7: Finalise and manage your Google My Business listing

Once you have entered all the important information about your company in your GMB account, you can finalise and manage your new Google My Business entry.

Step 8: Check the information and request confirmation

The good news is that you're almost done creating your account.

Google will now ask you to verify yourself as the owner of the business. Google wants to prevent possible abuse with this procedure.

Now let's take a look at the verification options you can use.

How can a business be verified for Google My Business?

Before your new Google My Business entry appears in Google's search results, you need to verify it.

Google offers you various options for verifying your business listing. The options displayed depend on the business in question:

Verification by postcard
Verification by telephone
Verification by email
Instant verification with the Google Search Console
Verification with bulk

You can find more information on the individual options below.

Postcard verification

Postcard verification is the most commonly used verification option. If you're not currently at this verification step, sign in to Google My Business now. Then select your business to initiate the verification process.
Check your business address again and add your name as the contact person. The postcard will be sent to this person.
Now click on the "Mail" button.
You should receive the postcard within the next four to five days. During this time, Google recommends that you do not edit your company name, address or company categories. You should also not request a new code. All of these things could delay the current verification process.
Once you have received the postcard, you can log in and click on the "Verify now" button in your GMB menu. Enter the verification code shown on the postcard in the field provided and then click on the "Send" button.

Phone verification

Google offers some companies to verify their location by phone. If you are authorised to do so, you will see a notification as soon as you have started the verification process.

Check your listed phone number before you have the verification code sent to you by SMS.

Email verification

Some business owners can verify their Google My Business listing via email. You can see if you can use this option when you start the verification process.

Before you use this option, make sure that you have entered an email address in your profile.

Immediate verification

If you've already verified your business with Google's Search Console analytics tool, you may be able to verify your GMB listing immediately.

You can recognise whether this option is available to you for all business categories by the notification.

Bulk verification

As soon as your company operates multiple locations (10 or more locations), you may be able to use bulk verification for verification.

Known exceptions are service companies and agencies that manage the locations of multiple companies.

Log in to your Google My Business account and select one of your locations.
Click on the "Get verified" button. This is located next to the company name.
Click on the "Chain" button.
Fill in the verification form with all the required information and send the form to Google.

Google should have checked and processed your verification within a week.

Next, I'll show you how to edit your Google My Business listing.

Edit a Google My Business profile

You'll need to edit your Google My Business account from time to time to change information about your business or add photos. With the help of my instructions, this shouldn't be a problem for you:

Firstly, sign in to your Google account.
Open the company location you want to edit.
Click on the "Info" button in this menu. This button is located on the left-hand menu page.
Now click on the pencil icon to make your edit. If you want to remove information about your company, click on the "X" button.
When you have finished editing, click on the "Apply" button.

Please note: Google sometimes takes around 60 days to process your edit. Therefore, enter all relevant company data right at the beginning.

Add further locations

If you would like to add a new location to your newly created or existing Google My Business profile, follow the steps below:

Log in to your account and call up the GMD dashboard.
There you will find the "Manage locations" item in the left-hand menu.
Click on the blue "Add location" button and enter the company name.
Now click on the "Create a new company with this name" button.
Fill in all the essential information here and then request verification.

You can also switch to Google Maps and mark the desired location with a pin (Google Maps Pin). In the left-hand menu you will find the option "Add a missing location". Fill in the necessary details here and then click on "Claim this business".

Claim a Google My Business profile

It may happen that you have to claim your Google My Business profile. Sometimes another person has already claimed the company. If this is an employee who works in your company, ask them to add you as another user.

If you don't know the owner, you can use one of these three options:

Register or sign in to Google My Business. Select your business and follow Google's instructions to confirm you as the owner of the business.
Search for your business listing in Google Maps and click on the "Manage this listing" button.
Call up the Google My Business entry in Google Research and click on the "Owner of this business" button.

Helpful: The Google My Business app

The Google My Business app is available for Android and iOS users. However, not all functions are available to app users.

Image source

The GMB app can be used to:

revise a company's business hours, company location, your contact information and brief description,
Post pictures and the current company status,
display search results.

Now I'll show you how to optimise your GMB listing and improve your ranking in local search results.

13 tips for optimising your Google My Business listing

Once created and verified, a GMB listing should be continuously updated and optimised.

Many GMB users are not aware that Google provides them with some useful functions for this purpose, which they can use to optimise the various areas of the listing.

In the following tips, I will explain why you should optimise some areas of your Google My Business account.

Tip 1: Use a focus keyword and the company name when optimising your business name

Users now search for information in their preferred search engine using specific search queries. Search queries usually contain a combination of a keyword and a neighbourhood or city name.

Your company name should therefore be structured in such a way that it can also be found in search queries.

The name of the service offered, such as search engine optimisation, hairdresser or locksmith, is recommended as a focus keyword.

Tip 2: Select one or more categories

The primary category of a GMB profile is displayed by Google in the entry and is therefore visible to Google users. Secondary categories are not seen by consumers. They are only used to refine search results.

The following should be taken into account when selecting suitable categories:

Choose as many categories as necessary and as few as possible.
Use precise categories. If the desired category does not exist, a more general one should be selected.

An example: A museum runs a small café on its premises. Instead of adding it to the museum's entry with the secondary category "Café", it should be given its own GMB entry. The entry can then be linked to the primary category "Café".

Tip 3: Enter the address, catchment area and opening hours

To ensure that a business can actually be found and subsequently contacted by potential customers and interested parties, all essential information should be entered in a GMB account.

This includes

Name
Address
Locations
Opening hours
Telephone number
Our website
Brief description of the company
Category(ies)
Characteristics

The basic data of a GMB profile appears in Google search results. A detailed and up-to-date entry makes it easier for potential customers to find more detailed information about the business.

Tip 4: Add labels with relevant keywords to your listing

Adding labels (tags) helps a company to organise multiple locations. Geographical regions or a business type can be used as labels.

Label examples: "All-round service", "specific opening hours" or "city centre"

Up to ten labels can be assigned to a location. A single label can consist of a maximum of 50 characters (including spaces) and should not contain any special characters.

Tip 5: Use the AdWords location extension for an active AdWords campaign and enter your telephone number

Companies have the option of using the AdWords location extension to display a different telephone number than the one used in the Google My Business entry. This can be very helpful if you have active Google Ads call tracking.

As these are local search results, it should also be a local telephone number. Chargeable telephone numbers cannot be used in Germany.

If no telephone number is entered in the field, the telephone number from the GMB profile will appear.

The aim of these location extensions is to encourage potential customers to visit a business.

Example of a search network: The owner of a butcher's shop would like to have more walk-in customers in his shop. He adds the location extension to his AdWords campaign.

If a user searches for one of the stored keywords (e.g. "good advice", "best beef", "fresh meat from wild boar and deer") in the vicinity of the butcher's shop, the AdWords advert contains the information from the extension.

After a search query, users see the following information:

on the smartphone: the distance to the butcher's shop and the city
on the desktop: the address of the butcher's shop
a button to make a call
a link to go to the details page of the location

Location extensions in display network campaigns can bridge the gap between offline sales and online adverts.

Let's move on to the next optimisation tips.

Tip 6: Fill the phone number and website positions with up-to-date information

A Google My Business listing without an up-to-date telephone number or website is difficult for potential customers to contact. There is a high risk that users will turn to competitor companies if they cannot find the information they are looking for.

Tip 7: Use focus keywords in the company description and address users directly

Company owners can add a company description to their Google My Business account.

In the mobile search, it can be viewed via the "Info" tab. In desktop search, the description appears in the lower section of the Google Knowledge Panel.

Google has some guidelines that must be adhered to when creating the description: The description may contain 750 characters, of which 250 characters are displayed in the Knowledge Panel. To read the rest, a user must click on "More".

In addition to the focus keywords and the city name, the visible area of the text should also contain all important company information.

Tip 8: Add photos and videos to your Google My Business entry

1. Photos

Google states that businesses with existing photos receive 35 per cent more website clicks and 42 per cent more Google Maps directions requests.

The cover photo of a Google My Business listing is the most important photo, as it is always in the foreground.
A profile photo is displayed when uploading photos and videos. The same applies when replies are checked.

The recommended resolution of JPG or PNG files: 720 pixels high and 720 pixels wide. The size should be between 10 KB and 5 MB.

2. Videos

Videos and virtual tours can help a GMB profile stand out from companies in the same category.

Videos should comply with the following guidelines:

Duration: maximum 30 seconds
File size: no more than 75 MB
Resolution: 720p and higher

Tip 9: Boost visibility by creating Google Posts

Google Posts are an important part of a local SEO strategy.

You can use them to:

generate more organic clicks on call-to-action buttons, improving page rankings,
increase traffic to website content such as your own blog.

Google Posts is one of the most useful GMB tools. Companies can use them to advertise current offers, vouchers or events. Images, videos or call-to-action buttons can also be used to encourage interaction with potential customers.

The associated analysis function shows how users interact with the Google Posts information. The statistics data can be used to improve subsequent posts.

Tip 10: Strengthen your visibility by logging in and out regularly

Owners of a Google My Business profile should log in and out of their account regularly. On the one hand to keep their profile up to date and on the other hand to see if someone has made a change to the company entry.

Every user (and competitor) not only sees the two options "Suggest change" and "Owner of this company" for an entry, they can also click on them. However, the suggested changes are more likely to be immediate changes.

Tip: Only by logging in regularly can you ensure that no unauthorised persons have made any unwanted changes to your entry.

Now let's move on to the Google reviews.

Tip 11: Ask your satisfied customers for a Google My Business review

Google My Business reviews have a very strong influence on the purchasing decisions of potential customers. Users see reviews as a form of evidence and use them to decide whether a business is worth a visit.

5-star reviews on your Google My Business profile stand out and are well received by Google users. High-quality and positive customer reviews that contain keywords also have an impact on a company's visibility.

However, GMB reviews not only help a company to attract new customers. Google reviews also influence the ranking in local search results.

It's best to ask your customers for a Google review after they've had a positive experience with your company.

As you can see, it pays off for a company to ask its satisfied customers for a Google review.

Tip 12: Respond to your customers' reviews

Companies that respond to reviews show their customers that they value their opinion and care about the quality of their business.

This is especially true for negative reviews. It is much more effective to respond politely to bad feedback than to ignore it.

Tip 13: Create and respond to customised questions and answers

This function enables a company to constantly interact with its customers. A user can ask a question on a company's Google My Business listing and the company can answer it later.

However, a company owner should respond to these questions in a timely manner, as other users can also respond to these questions.

Tip: The most frequently asked questions can be clarified and answered in advance so that they can then be stored in the Google My Business profile.

So, those were the 13 tips for optimising your Google My Business entry.

Here is the video we announced

Google my Business - 8 hacks for more visibility in Google

Finally, let's take a quick look at where you can get support if you have any problems.

Google My Business: Support from the support team or the help community

If you have questions or problems with a Google My Business profile, an account holder can turn to the Google My Business help community. Complaints about fake reviews or the misuse of a listing can be submitted to GMB.

Conclusion - what you have learnt about GMB

In this article, you have learned how to create, edit and optimise your own Google My Business account.

You have learnt

how important a Google My Business profile is for visibility in local search results,
that Google reviews influence the ranking and
that Google My Business is an essential part of local SEO optimisation.

With what you've learnt, you can fill your Google My Business profile with lots of useful information, photos and images.

I've also given you 13 optimisation tips to help you get the most out of GMB.

If you have any questions on the topic or would like professional support with the implementation, just get in touch. Send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. call us on +43 1 353 2 353 or send us your enquiry using our contact form.

Any questions?

If you have any further questions on the topic or would like professional support, feel free to get in touch with us. Send an email to office@ithelps-digital.com, call us at +43 1 353 2 353, or reach out for us on our contact page.