What is Google Business Profile?
Definition + Examples
Definition
Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is the free Google product that lets a business manage its presence across Google Search, Google Maps, and Google Shopping. It includes the business name, hours, phone, website, photos, posts, services, products, Q&A, and — most importantly — reviews. For local businesses, the Google Business Profile is the single most important digital asset they own, because it's what Google uses to populate the local 'map pack' and the knowledge panel for branded searches.
Why it matters for small businesses
Roughly half of all Google searches have local intent. For 'X near me' queries, Google almost exclusively shows results from Google Business Profiles in the map pack — the three results above the standard organic listings. A well-optimized profile with regular updates, photos, and reviews can drive more traffic to a local business than every other channel combined. A neglected profile loses business invisibly every day.
Examples
Local plumber's quarterly photo refresh
A local plumber commits to uploading five new photos a month — completed jobs, team shots, before/afters. After six months, Google Business Profile views are up 280%, calls are up 140%, and the business consistently appears in the top three local results.
Restaurant review velocity
A restaurant goes from 80 reviews at 4.1 stars to 340 reviews at 4.6 stars over a year by texting every dine-in guest a review link. Map pack rankings for 'best [cuisine] near me' move from page two to position one.
Service-area business hours fix
An HVAC company discovers their listed hours don't match reality. After correcting them and posting weekly updates, lead volume from Google increases 56% in the next 90 days.
How to use google business profile in your marketing
- 01Claim and verify your profile. If you haven't, you're invisible to half your potential customers.
- 02Fill out every field. Hours, services, attributes, products, photos — Google rewards completeness with visibility.
- 03Ask every happy customer for a review. Reviews are the single biggest ranking signal for local search.
- 04Post weekly. Use the Posts feature for offers, events, and updates — fresh activity signals relevance.
- 05Respond to every review, positive or negative. Response rate is itself a ranking signal.
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Start freeRelated terms
Local SEO is the practice of optimizing a business's online presence to rank for geographically-relevant searches — searches with explicit local intent ('plumber in Austin', 'best tacos near me') and searches Google interprets as local.
Review marketing is the deliberate practice of generating, managing, and promoting customer reviews across the platforms that matter for your business — Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, industry-specific sites (Avvo for lawyers, Zocdoc for healthcare, G2 for B2B SaaS).
Social proof is the psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others are correct in a given situation, especially when they're uncertain.
Earned media is any publicity a brand receives that it didn't pay for and doesn't directly control.