By Terence Walsh | TWDA Design | Northumberland web design
Reading time: ~7 minutes | Category: Business Tips
Before most people ever see your website, they see your Google Business Profile. It’s the box that pops up when someone searches for your pub’s name, or the pin they tap on Google Maps when they’re looking for somewhere to eat in Hexham on a wet Tuesday. It shows your opening hours, your photos, your reviews, your phone number and a button to get directions, and for a lot of customers that’s all they need to decide.
It’s free, it takes an afternoon to get right, and it’s one of the most neglected things I come across. So here’s how to set one up properly, or tidy up the one you’ve already got.
“I can’t count the number of times I’ve searched for a pub on a Sunday, driven out there and found it shut, because Google still had last summer’s opening hours. The owner doesn’t know, because nobody rings to complain. They just go somewhere else. Ten minutes on your profile stops that happening.”
— Terence Walsh, TWDA Creative Services
Quite often you do, even if you never made one. Google creates profiles from public information, and previous owners, managers or an old web designer may have claimed one years ago.
Search for your business name and town on Google Maps. If a profile comes up with a “Claim this business” or “Own this business?” link, nobody has claimed it yet, so click it and follow the steps. If it’s already been claimed by someone you can’t track down, Google will let you request access, and the current owner gets a chance to respond first.
If nothing comes up at all, go to business.google.com/add and start from scratch.
One tip from experience: use a Google account that belongs to the business, not your personal Gmail, and add a second person as a manager. When a manager leaves and takes the only login with them, getting it back is a slow and frustrating job.
Google needs to know you really run the place before your profile goes fully live. It picks the verification method for you, and you can’t choose. It will be one of these:
If you’re sent a postcard, don’t change your business name, address or category while you wait. Doing that cancels the code and you’re back to square one. After you’ve done your part, Google says it can take up to five working days to confirm.
For video verification, plan it before you press record. Walk from the road so your sign is visible, show the inside, and show something only the owner would have. Wobbly, one-take videos filmed in the car park are the ones that get rejected.
Once you’re in, go through each section. These are the ones that make the biggest difference for hospitality businesses.
Your name, exactly as it appears on your sign
Just your name: “The Rose & Crown”, not “The Rose & Crown | Best Sunday Lunch Hexham”. Stuffing extra words into the name breaks Google’s rules and can get your profile suspended.
Categories
Your primary category tells Google what you are, so choose the closest match: Pub, Hotel, Bed & breakfast, Holiday home, Restaurant. Then add secondary categories for anything else you do properly. A pub that does rooms and serves food might be Pub, with Restaurant and Inn as extras. Don’t add categories for things you only do occasionally.
Opening hours, and special hours
Get your normal hours right, then use special hours for bank holidays, Christmas, New Year and any closures. It’s the single most useful thing on the profile, and the first thing people check. If your kitchen hours are different from your bar hours, you can add those as extra hours too.
Your website link
Link to the most useful page, not always the homepage. If most people want to book a table or a room, link to the page where they can do that.
Phone number
Use a number somebody actually answers. If calls to the landline go unanswered on a busy Saturday, put the mobile that lives behind the bar.
Attributes
These are the little ticks: dog-friendly, wheelchair accessible entrance, outdoor seating, free Wi-Fi, parking. They sound minor, but people filter searches by them, especially dog owners and anyone with access needs. Tick everything that genuinely applies.
Description
You get up to 750 characters. Write it for a person, not a search engine: what you are, where you are, and what makes you worth the trip. Mention the things people search for, like “real ales”, “dog-friendly rooms” or “five minutes from Hadrian’s Wall”, naturally.
Menu, services and booking links
Restaurants and pubs can add a menu link or menu items. Accommodation can add booking links. If you use a booking system like ResDiary or a booking engine for rooms, make sure the link goes straight to it.
People look at the photos before they read anything. Add:
Then keep adding a few new ones every month. Customers upload photos too, and if you don’t, theirs (taken at 11pm on a phone) become the face of your business.
You can post updates to your profile: an events night, a new menu, a Christmas party offer, a last-minute room. They’re a quick way to show Google and customers that someone is paying attention. Once a week is plenty. Once a month is better than never.
“We post a short update on our own Google profile every Monday morning, usually with a cup of tea in hand. It takes five minutes. If a web agency can find something to say every week, a pub with a quiz night and a specials board definitely can.”
— Terence Walsh
Reviews have a big effect on whether people pick you, and on where you appear in the map results. Google says local results are based on relevance, distance and prominence, and reviews feed into prominence. Getting more of them, and replying to them, gets its own post in two weeks’ time.
Setting up a new profile from scratch, including verification, can take a week or two, mostly spent waiting for Google. Sorting out an existing one is usually an afternoon. After that, it’s ten minutes a week.
If you’d rather someone else looked after it, it’s part of what we do with local SEO and websites for pubs, hotels and holiday lets.
Google’s own guidance: Add or claim your Business Profile · Verify your business · Tips to improve your local ranking
Get in touch and tell us what you’re running. We’ll look at your profile and tell you what’s worth fixing first.
