A complete Google Business Profile outranks an abandoned one at equal prominence. And most competitors’ profiles are abandoned. Field by field, in order of impact:
The fields that do the ranking work
- Primary category. The single highest-impact choice; pick the most specific one that fits (“Emergency electrician” beats “Electrician” if you are one). Secondary categories for everything else you genuinely do.
- Business name. Your real name, exactly. Stuffing keywords into it (“Smith Plumbing | Best Water Heater Repair”) violates policy and competitors report it successfully.
- Services. List each individually with descriptions; these map your profile to specific searches.
- Service area or address. Storefronts show the address; service-area businesses hide it and define the area honestly. Don’t claim fifty towns; radius realism wins.
The fields that do the converting work
- Photos. Real jobs, real people, monthly. Profiles with steady fresh photos get measurably more calls and direction requests; stock photography converts nobody.
- Hours. Wrong hours are the fastest trust-killer in local. Set holidays in advance.
- Answer the questions before they’re asked. Google retired the public Q&A section (late 2025) and replaced it with AI-generated answers (“Ask Maps”, 2026) that synthesize from your profile, reviews, and website. You can’t post answers anymore; your lever is making sure the sources the AI reads, services, description, site FAQ, actually contain the five answers every caller needs.
- Posts. Modest but real signal; a monthly photo-plus-update is plenty.
Upkeep, quarterly
Google rewrites profiles from third-party data and “suggested edits”. Check quarterly that your categories, hours, and phone haven’t drifted without you. Profile access follows the ownership rule: owner is your business account; helpers are managers.