The Google Business Profile checklist, rewritten for AI

By Akshay · July 24, 2026 · 8 minute read · For single-location owners

Every guide to Google Business Profile optimisation was written for one purpose: rank higher in the map pack. That advice is still fine. It is just no longer the whole reason to do it.

Your profile is now the first structured, verified record an AI assistant reads about your business. It is the closest thing to a machine-readable description of you that exists anywhere. Which changes what deserves your attention.

Why completeness matters more than it used to

A model does not want to recommend a business it cannot describe. If someone asks for a salon that does colour correction and your profile lists no services, you are not a confident answer, you are a guess. It names someone whose profile says so.

This is the whole logic. Every empty field is a question the model cannot answer about you, and every question it cannot answer makes you a slightly riskier recommendation.

The checklist

Categories

• Primary category set to the most specific accurate option, not the broadest
• Every genuinely true secondary category added
• Nothing added that you cannot actually deliver

Services and products

• Every service listed individually, not bundled into three vague headings
• A real description on each, in the words customers use rather than industry terms
• Price ranges where you are comfortable showing them

The basics people get wrong

• Business name exactly as it appears on your signage, with no keywords stuffed in
• Address format identical to every other place it appears online
• Hours correct, including holiday hours, which most profiles quietly get wrong twice a year
• A local phone number rather than a tracking number that appears nowhere else

Attributes

• Accessibility, parking, payment methods, amenities, all ticked honestly
• Identity attributes if they apply and you want them shown

These look trivial. They are also exactly the filters people put in their questions: open late, wheelchair accessible, takes walk-ins.

Photos

• Recent, not from your opening year
• Real, not stock
• Exterior shots that make you findable from the street
• Added on a schedule rather than once

Questions and answers

The most underused section on the entire profile. Anyone can ask a question, and anyone can answer, which means your competitors and your worst customers can define what your profile says about you if you leave it empty.

• Seed it with the questions you actually get asked, and answer them yourself
• Check it monthly for questions someone else has answered on your behalf

Reviews

• Coming in steadily rather than in bursts
• Answered, all of them, including the good ones
• Containing actual detail about what the customer came in for

The order to do it in

If you only have an hour: categories, then services, then the questions section. Those three carry the most weight per minute spent and they are the three most often left half done.

If you have a weekend: everything above, then set a monthly reminder for photos and a quarterly one to reread the whole profile as though you were a customer who had never heard of you.

One warning

Do not stuff keywords into your business name. It is against Google's guidelines, it is one of the most commonly reported violations, and a suspended profile takes you out of both the map pack and every AI answer at the same time. The downside is total and the upside is small.

Common questions