What you need before you start
- A Google account you will keep (use a business account, not a personal one).
- Your business name exactly as it appears on your shop sign or trade licence.
- Your address, or the areas you serve if customers don't come to you.
- A phone or WhatsApp number customers can reach.
- Your opening hours and a few good photos.
1. Create the profile
Go to google.com/business and sign in. Type your business name; if Google already has a listing for you, claim it rather than making a second one.
Pick the main category carefully — it decides which searches you appear in. Choose the most specific one that fits (for example "Dental clinic" rather than "Clinic"). You can add more categories later.
2. Shop, or service area?
If customers visit you, add your address and place the pin exactly on your door. If you go to them (cleaning, maintenance, home tutoring), choose service areas instead and hide the address. Google treats both as real businesses.
3. Verify it
Google has to confirm the business is real before the profile shows. Depending on your country and category it offers a short video of your premises, a phone call or text, an email, or a postcard with a code. Choose what's offered and follow it through — an unverified profile does not appear.
4. Fill in what makes people choose you
- Hours, including holidays and Ramadan hours, so nobody arrives to a closed door.
- Your website link — the place they can order or book from.
- Photos of the outside (so they recognise it), the inside, your products and your team at work. Real photos beat polished ones.
- Your services or products with a short description each.
- A description in Arabic and English that says who you serve and where.
5. Reviews: the part that moves you up
Ask happy customers for a review right after a good experience, while they're still with you — a short link or QR code on the counter makes it easy. Never buy reviews or write your own; Google removes them and can suspend the profile.
Reply to every review, the good and the bad. A calm, helpful reply to a complaint often does more for the next customer than five stars.
Keep it alive
Add new photos every month, post offers and news, and update your hours the moment they change. An active, complete profile is the one Google prefers to show.