Google Business Profile for South African businesses: from set-up to your first enquiry
Who qualifies, how to set up and verify a profile, what to fill in, how to handle reviews, and what turns a profile view into a call or an enquiry. Every rule comes from Google's own help pages.
A Google Business Profile is the free listing that puts your business on Google Maps and in Search, with your hours, phone number, directions, photos and reviews. If customers come to you, or you go to them, it is what Google can show when someone nearby searches for a business like yours. Getting from set-up to a first enquiry takes five steps: check that you qualify, add or claim the profile, verify it, complete it, and keep it working with reviews, updates and a website that answers the next question. The rules below are Google’s own.
What is a Google Business Profile?
A Google Business Profile is a free listing, managed from your Google Account, that controls how your business appears on Google Maps and in Search. It carries your address or service area, hours, phone number, website, photos and reviews. Once you have verified it, you can keep that information accurate and reply to customers.
Google’s getting-started guide for Business Profiles says that a profile lets you manage how your business shows up on Maps and Search at no charge, from your hours and location to photos, reviews and a link to your website. Google’s Business Profile page says it helps you be found by people searching for businesses just like yours, and its Google Ads glossary entry for Business Profile notes that the product was formerly known as Google My Business or Google Places.
Does your business qualify for one?
Only if you meet customers in person. Google allows a Business Profile for a business with a location customers can visit, or one that travels to customers where they are. Online-only businesses don’t qualify, and neither do virtual offices or P.O. box addresses, so an online store with no premises has to rely on its website instead.
Google’s guidelines for representing your business and its eligibility and ownership guidelines set that condition: a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours. Its pages on service-area and hybrid businesses and video verification then define three kinds of business, and your kind decides whether Google shows your address.
| Kind of business | What Google means | Your address | For example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Storefront | Customers come to you during business hours, at premises with permanent signage | Shown | A hardware store in Randburg |
| Service-area | You visit or deliver to customers, and don’t serve them at your address | Hidden; you list up to 20 areas | A plumber working from home in Midrand |
| Hybrid | Customers come to you, and you also visit or deliver to them | Shown, with areas served | A Centurion restaurant that delivers |
As at 2 October 2026, the guidelines add three rules that catch people out:
- Home-based service businesses hide their address, like Google’s example of a plumber working from home.
- Virtual offices don’t qualify; a co-working desk does only with clear signage, staff and customers during business hours.
- One profile per business, with a service area within about two hours’ drive, though a larger area may suit some businesses.
Online-only businesses, such as e-commerce shops with no in-person service, can’t be verified, says Google’s guide to video verification, and its getting-started guide points them to Google Ads instead. For them, being found is the website’s job: see what SEO is and how it works.
How to set up a Google Business Profile
Sign in with a Google Account the business will keep, then search Google Maps for your business’s name and city. If a profile already exists and nobody has verified it, claim it; if there is none, add your business at business.google.com/add. Enter your details as they appear in the real world, then choose a verification method.
Google’s Business Profile page calls it three steps: create, personalise and grow. Its help pages fill in the detail:
- Use an account the business controls.
You need a Google Account, and the getting-started guide suggests linking your company email address to it. Avoid a staff member’s personal account. - Look for an existing profile.
Search Google Maps for your business’s name and city. Google’s page on adding or claiming a profile says an unverified profile can be claimed; one that someone else has verified needs an ownership request. - If there is none, add it.
Go to business.google.com/add and follow the steps on screen. - Enter your details, then verify.
The next two sections cover both.
How to add your business to Google takes you through every screen.
Decide now who owns the profile. Google’s eligibility and ownership guidelines say anyone managing a profile for a business they don’t own, an SEO company included, must work with the owner to verify it, must whenever possible encourage the owner to own it and add them as a manager, and must hand over ownership immediately when asked. Managing your Google Business Profile explains who should hold which keys.
How can I verify my business on Google?
Open your Business Profile, select Get verified and use one of the methods Google offers: a phone call or text, an email, a live video call, a recorded video or a postcard. Google chooses which methods you see, based on your business type, public information, region and hours, and some businesses may need more than one.
Verification is what gives you control. Google’s page on verifying your business says that it gives you ownership of the profile and is needed before you can edit it or interact with customers. You can’t change the methods offered, and Google recommends video if you’re eligible for it.
| Method | What you need |
|---|---|
| Phone or text | A business number you can answer, or that takes texts: automated answering systems won’t get the code |
| Access to the email address on the verification screen | |
| Live video call | To be at the business during its hours, ready to show the location, equipment and proof you manage it |
| Video recording | An unedited, continuous video of at least 30 seconds, recorded live on a mobile device through the profile |
| Postcard | A correct mailing address, and no edits to your name, address or category until the code arrives |
For a recorded video, Google’s guide to video verification asks you to show where the business is, that it exists and that you manage it. A storefront films its signage; a service business run from home can film nearby street signs and landmarks, its tools or a branded vehicle, and an invoice or utility bill in the business’s name.
The verification page also warns that Google will never ask for your verification code, so don’t share it with anyone, even someone who manages your profile.
How to optimise your profile, field by field
Fill in every field that applies, accurately, and keep it that way. Google’s guide to local ranking says that businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local search results, and that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Local SEO for South African businesses covers what moves you up the map results.
The table draws on Google’s guidelines for representing your business, its page on editing your Business Profile and its photo and video guidelines.
| Field | What Google asks for | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Your real-world name, as on your signage and website | An added suburb, service or slogan, which Google says could get the profile suspended |
| Categories | The most specific category for what your business is, plus as few others as you need | Categories used as keywords, or ones for a business nearby |
| Address or service areas | A precise address, or the areas you serve | P.O. boxes, virtual offices, or an address shown when customers don’t visit |
| Hours | Regular hours, plus special hours for public holidays | Any hours, if you work by appointment only |
| Phone and website | A number under your direct control, local where possible, and a website for this location | Numbers or web addresses that redirect to someone else’s page or line |
| Description | Up to 750 characters: what you offer, what sets you apart, how long you’ve traded | Links, prices and promotions |
| Photos | JPG or PNG, 10 KB to 5 MB, ideally 720 by 720 pixels, including an exterior shot so customers recognise you | Heavy filters or edits: images should represent reality |
Where the street address doesn’t pinpoint you, on a smallholding, say, the guidelines allow cross-streets and nearby landmarks; with no street number, or one Google can’t find, you can pin the location on the map. Google’s photo and video guidelines add that photos and videos show on Google only after the profile is verified.
Some features in overseas guides depend on your country. As at 2 October 2026, Google’s page on editing your profile limits in-store products to retailers in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland, and chat by text or WhatsApp to select regions, and its page on posts limits featured posts to food and drink businesses in five countries, South Africa not among them. If a feature isn’t in your dashboard, this may be why; a South African shop’s stock belongs on its own website or online store.
Reviews: asking for them, and replying
Ask every customer for a review, not only the ones you expect to be happy, and reply to reviews, good and bad. Never offer anything in return or tell customers what to write: Google’s review policy forbids both, along with reviews from staff, former staff and family.
Google’s policy on prohibited and restricted content for Maps bars businesses from offering incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods for reviews, discouraging negative reviews, selectively asking for positive ones, pressuring customers to review on the premises, and asking for specific content. Reviews based on a conflict of interest, such as employment or family, count as rating manipulation and are removed.
Google’s tips for getting more reviews suggest asking with a Google link or QR code, and valuing every review, because a mix of positive and negative feedback often feels more trustworthy.
Once your business is verified, you can reply. Google’s page on managing customer reviews says replies are checked first, usually within 10 minutes but sometimes up to 30 days, then appear publicly as the business, and the reviewer is notified (as at 2 October 2026). For a negative review, the tips page advises protecting the reviewer’s privacy, being honest about what you can and can’t do, apologising where it’s due and replying promptly.
Posts and updates: keeping it current
Check the profile every month, and whenever your hours, phone number, services or address change. Posts show customers what’s new, and answering Google’s suggested edits lets you reject some wrong changes before they go live.
Google’s page on posts offers three kinds, updates, offers and events, and an update can carry a button that sends customers to your website to book, order or find out more. Posts older than six months are archived unless you set a date range (as at 2 October 2026).
Google also edits profiles itself. Its page on Google updates to your Business Profile says, as at 2 October 2026, that it gathers information from sources such as user reports and licensed content. You have four days to accept or reject a suggested edit that needs your review; after that, Google may publish it if other public information, such as your business website, supports it. So keep your website and your profile in agreement: the same name, address, phone number and hours.
Edits can take up to three days to appear, and a new business’s rankings up to a month, says Google’s page on finding your business on Google; a profile that breaks the guidelines is disabled or suspended, and hidden, until the issue is resolved. The page on editing your profile adds that a name change may mean verifying again, and a move means you must (both as at 2 October 2026).
How does a Business Profile bring in enquiries?
A Business Profile brings in enquiries through its buttons: people call you, tap through to your website, ask for directions, or book where your category allows it. Each one leads somewhere you control, so the phone must be answered during your hours, and the website page must answer the customer’s next question and make contacting you easy.
Google’s page on Business Profile performance says that verified profiles get a report of views, the searches that found you, calls, website clicks and direction requests, with bookings where they apply, counting both organic results and Google Ads. A second help page explains connecting your Business Profile to Google Analytics, for what Google calls “a more complete view of the full customer journey, from local discovery to online conversion”.
Google’s guidelines for Business Profiles ask for a phone number that connects to your location, or a website that represents it, so link the profile to the page that answers a nearby customer’s questions: what you do, where, when and how to reach you. Check it on a phone: the local ranking guide’s own example is a search on a phone, and Google uses the mobile version of a site’s content for indexing and ranking (mobile-first indexing). If you take bookings or orders online, local business links, up to 10 per category as at 2 October 2026, can send customers straight there.
Doing it yourself, or getting help
You can do all of this yourself, for nothing but your time. Help makes sense when time is short, when the profile is fine but the website behind it doesn’t turn visits into enquiries, or when you want the whole picture checked. Whoever you hire, keep ownership in your own name and get the price in writing.
Google’s page on working with third parties notes that they often charge a fee to manage a profile that is itself free, and suggests checking its performance monthly to judge the results. Its warning signs: promised placement (third parties can’t promise or directly influence your ranking through any special means), a claim to work for Google with no Google email address to back it, threats (they can’t remove your business or get into your profile without your permission), and pricing that isn’t in an official copy of your agreement.
We are a Johannesburg studio that has built and run sites and systems for South African businesses since 2001. Our prices are published, in South African rand and incl. VAT:
- A new website: our Business package, R15,000, includes setting up your Google Business Profile, Google Analytics 4 and Search Console, but not ongoing SEO. Your Google Business Profile stays on your own Google account, and you add us to it. See our website packages.
- An SEO audit, R6,500: technical, on-page, local and competitor checks. The local check covers whether your profile is verified and who manages it, its categories, rating and contact details, its review count and your map position for each area you target, and gives you a Business Profile checklist. It all ends in a prioritised list of fixes. Making the fixes isn’t included. Start monthly SEO within 30 days and half the fee is credited against the first month. See a sample audit report (a fictional example).
- Monthly SEO, from R7,500 a month, with a six-month minimum: content, on-page work, local SEO, link acquisition and a monthly report that repeats the same searches by area and device. Each month we check your Business Profile and track where you appear in map results for your main searches, area by area; if you want, we also post updates and reply to reviews for you. Google Ads and ad spend aren’t included.
If your profile is live but the calls aren’t coming, start with the audit. Read how our SEO audits and monthly SEO work, or go straight ahead.
Book an SEO audit. We reply to new enquiries on the same business day.
Frequently asked questions
How do I access a Google Business Profile?
Sign in to the Google Account that manages the profile: that account is your login. Then search Google for your business’s name and city, or for “my business”, or search Google Maps the same way; in the Maps app, tap Business. Google’s page on finding your business sets this out. Locked out by a former supplier? See owners, managers and who should hold the keys.
Is Google Business Profile free?
Yes. As at 2 October 2026, Google’s Business Profile page says creating a Business Profile and listing your business on Google is free, and its getting-started guide says you can manage how your business shows on Maps and Search at no charge. What can cost money is help with it, which is covered under ‘Doing it yourself, or getting help’ above.
How do I delete a Google Business Profile?
Only the primary owner can: open the profile’s Business Profile settings and choose Remove Business Profile. Google’s page on removing a Business Profile warns that this permanently deletes your posts, photos and review replies, that customers’ reviews remain, and that the business may still appear on Maps and Search. If you’ve closed, mark the business permanently closed as you remove it, and it will slowly disappear from results.
How long does it take for Google to verify your business account?
Up to five business days after you complete the verification steps, and on rare occasions longer, says Google’s page on verifying your business (as at 2 October 2026). A postcard adds its travel time: Google says most codes arrive within 14 days, and they expire after 30. In some cases Google verifies a profile instantly, for example when you’ve verified your website with Google Search Console.