How to get your business on Google.

1See if Google already has you

Open Google Maps and search your business name and your city. Google often makes a listing by itself from public records. If yours is there, open it and choose Claim this business. If it is not, go to the next step.

Claiming the one that exists matters. Two listings for the same place compete with each other, and Google can remove both.

2Sign in and add your business

Go to google.com/business and sign in with a Google account, then choose Add your business. Use an account the business controls. If a staff member sets it up on their own account and later leaves, getting the listing back is slow.

3Use your real name

Type the name exactly as it is on your sign and your paperwork. Do not add your city or what you do to the name. “Smith Law Firm” is right. “Smith Law Firm Best Injury Lawyer Laurens” breaks Google’s rules and can get the listing suspended.

4Pick the right category

The main category tells Google which searches you belong in, so pick the most exact one you can. “Personal injury attorney” is better than “Lawyer”. You can add more categories later for the other work you do.

5Set your address or service area

If customers come to you, enter your street address. If you go to them, as a plumber or a mobile notary does, you can hide the address and list the towns you serve.

The address has to be a real place where you work. A post office box or a rented mailbox is not allowed.

6Add your phone and website

Enter the number you answer, and your website address if you have one.

You can finish the listing with no website, and it will still show on the map. But the website is what Google reads to learn what you do. On 1 October 2026 I looked at page one of Google for an injury lawyer in one South Carolina town. Every result had a page written for that town. A local firm with a listing and no website was not on it.

7Verify

Google will not show a new listing until it knows you really run the business. It chooses how you prove it. The usual ways are a short video of your location and your sign, a code by phone or text, a code by email, a live video call, or a postcard in the mail.

If you get the postcard, it usually arrives within about two weeks. Do not change your name or address while you wait, or the code can stop working.

8Fill in the rest

• Hours, including holidays.
• A description of up to 750 characters. Say what you do and where, in plain words.
• Services, one line each.
• Photos you took yourself: the outside so people can find the door, the inside, and you.

9Ask for reviews

Your listing has a link you can send to customers that opens the review box. Send it to each happy customer the day the work is done, and reply to every review you get. Never pay for reviews or write your own. Lawyers should check their bar’s rules before asking clients.

10Keep it the same everywhere

Your name, address and phone number should be written the same way on the listing, on your website and in every directory. Google matches them up. When they differ, it trusts all of them less.

How long until you show up?

Once you are verified, your details can take from a few days to a few weeks to appear across Google. Where you land depends on three things Google names itself: how well you match the search, how close you are to the person searching, and how well known you are. Reviews, a complete listing and a real website help with the first and the third.

Four mistakes that get listings removed

• Extra words in the business name.
• An address where you do not actually work.
• Two listings for one location.
• Reviews you paid for or wrote yourself.