Google Business Profile checklist for Northampton businesses

For most local businesses in Northampton and the rest of Northamptonshire, your Google Business Profile is the first thing a new customer sees. It often comes before your website, your Facebook page or anything else. It is free, and a well kept profile can bring in calls every week. A neglected one quietly sends those calls to the business down the road.

This is the checklist we work through for our own clients. You can do all of it yourself.

First, the map pack and normal results

When someone searches for something like "electrician Northampton" or "cafe near me", Google usually shows a map with three businesses underneath it. That block is called the map pack (or local pack). Below it are the normal results, the familiar list of websites.

The map pack is built from Google Business Profiles. Google says it ranks them on three things: relevance (how well your profile matches the search), distance (how close you are to the person searching) and prominence (how well known and well reviewed you are). The normal results come mainly from your website. You want to show up in both, and this checklist is about the map pack.

The checklist

1. Claim and verify your profile

Search for your business name on Google. If a profile exists, claim it. If not, create one at business.google.com. Google will ask you to verify, often with a short video showing your premises, signage or equipment. Make sure the profile is owned by an email address you control, not a former employee or a supplier.

2. Use your real business name

Use the name on your signs, van and invoices. Adding extra words, such as "Smith Plumbing Northampton Emergency Boiler Repair", is against Google's guidelines and can get a profile suspended.

3. Choose the right categories

Your primary category is one of the most important settings on the whole profile. Pick the most specific one that fits, such as "Bicycle repair shop" over "Shop". Then add secondary categories for the other things you do. Have a look at which categories the businesses at the top of the map pack use for your main search.

4. Address or service area

This catches a lot of people out.

• If customers come to you, such as a shop, salon or cafe, show your address.
• If you go to customers, such as a mobile mechanic, cleaner or electrician working from home, hide your address and set service areas instead. List the towns you actually cover, for example Northampton, Wellingborough, Kettering, Daventry or Towcester.

Showing a home address you do not want customers visiting is a common mistake. So is leaving the service areas empty.

5. Opening hours, including special hours

Keep your normal hours accurate and add special hours for bank holidays and Christmas.

6. Phone number and website link

Use a number that is answered. Link to the most useful page of your website, usually your homepage or a page for your main service.

7. Add your services

List every service you offer, each with a short plain description. This helps Google match you to more searches and helps customers see what you do at a glance.

8. Add products

The products section works for service businesses too. Use it to show your main services or packages with a photo, a short description and a "from" price if you are happy to share one.

9. Write a clear description

Say what you do, who you do it for and where, in normal sentences. There is no benefit in stuffing it with keywords.

10. Upload real photos, regularly

Add photos of your premises, your team, your vehicles and your work. Real photos beat stock images every time. Add a few new ones each month so the profile looks active.

11. Post every week

Google posts are short updates with a photo: a job you finished, a seasonal offer, a new product, an event. One a week is a good rhythm.

12. Ask for reviews and reply to every one

Ask every happy customer, and make it easy by sending a direct link to your review form. Reply to every review, good or bad. With a bad review, stay calm, keep it short and offer to put things right offline. Never buy reviews or write them yourself. Fake reviews break Google's rules and UK consumer law.

13. Answer common questions up front

If customers often ask the same things, such as parking, prices or how far you travel, answer them in your services, your description and an FAQ section on your website.

14. Keep your details identical everywhere

Your business name, address, phone number and website should match exactly on your Google profile, your website footer, Facebook and any directories you are listed on. Small differences, such as an old phone number on one directory, make it harder for Google to trust which details are correct.

15. Back your profile up with your website

A good profile works best alongside a website that clearly says what you do and where. For businesses covering several towns, separate area pages help a lot. We wrote about doing exactly that for a bike repair business in how we built Volt & Spoke to be found locally.

16. Track your rankings across a map grid

Searching for yourself from your own desk tells you very little. Google uses the searcher's location, so you might be top of the map pack in your own street and invisible two miles away in Duston or Moulton.

A map grid scan checks your position from lots of points spread across your area, so you can see where you show up and where you do not. We run these weekly for our local SEO clients and use them to decide what to work on next.

17. Check your performance figures monthly

Your profile shows how many people found you, called you, asked for directions or clicked through to your website. Look once a month and watch the trend over time.

Want us to look after it for you?

If you would rather spend your time running your business, our local SEO and social media management starts at £70 a month with no contract. We manage your Google Business Profile, run weekly Google Maps rank scans across a grid of your area, and post to your website, Google and Facebook. Prices are on our pricing page.

If your website needs work too, have a look at our web design in Northampton page, or our pages for Kettering and Corby.

Frequently asked questions