How to get your business onto Google Maps

Setting the profile up properly from day one

You create it at business.google.com with a Google account. What matters most as you fill it in:

• The name, exactly as it appears on your sign. Not “Pérez Dental Clinic — Cheap Dentist Las Palmas” or anything like it. Google doesn't allow keywords, locations or slogans in the name, and it can suspend the profile if you add them.
• The primary category. It's the most important choice on the whole profile: it tells Google which searches you're relevant for. Pick the most specific one that exists, not the broadest.
• Address or service area. If customers come to you, show the address. If you go to them and work from home, Google asks you to hide the address and list the areas you serve instead.
• Phone, website and opening hours. And keep the hours current — including local holidays, which in the Canaries aren't the same as on the mainland.

Getting it verified

Until Google has verified that the business is yours, the profile doesn't show up. Google picks the method depending on your case, and these days the most common one is a video: one continuous recording, no cuts, at least 30 seconds long, showing the outside with your sign, the inside or your work tools, and something that proves you run it, like unlocking the door or opening the till. Some businesses are offered a live video call during opening hours instead, or a code by phone or email.

If your business has no shopfront, plan what you'll show: the van with your logo, your tools, an invoice in your name. And it helps a lot if your website shows the same name, address and phone number as the profile.

What decides who appears on the map

Google spells it out: relevance, distance and prominence.

• Relevance: whether your profile matches what people are searching for. That comes down to your category, the services you describe and how complete the profile is.
• Distance: how close you are to the person searching. You can't change this, which is why it's normal not to appear in Maspalomas if you're based in Arucas.
• Prominence: how well known you are. Reviews count, as does what other websites say about you, and your own website.

In practice: the part you control is a complete profile, a steady flow of reviews, and a website that backs up what the profile says.

Reviews: how to get them without cutting corners

• Ask right after a job well done, when the customer actually feels like leaving one. From your profile you can copy a link that asks for a review and send it on WhatsApp.
• Reply to all of them, bad ones included. A calm reply to a complaint convinces readers more than ten stars with no response. Google recommends replying, and it shows.
• Don't buy reviews or trade them for discounts. Google removes them, can penalise the profile, and people here notice straight away when a business picks up fifty five-star reviews in one week.

Two reviews a month for a year beats forty in a day.

Your profile and your website help each other

The profile brings in the call; the website is where the customer makes up their mind before calling, and it's part of what Google looks at to judge prominence. Both have to say the same thing: the same name, the same address and the same phone number, written the same way. If the website gives one street and the profile another, Google has doubts — and so does the customer.

Put your website link on the profile, and on the website put your address and phone number where people can see them, with a button to call or message you on WhatsApp from a phone.

If you have a profile but don't show up

Send me the link to your profile and your website. I'll tell you what I see: whether the category is right, what's missing, whether the website contradicts the profile. It's a ten-minute look, no strings attached.

Jean Ayala — web development in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.