Before anything else, decide which Google account owns this profile. Use a dedicated business account — not your personal Gmail, and definitely not an agency’s or a former employee’s. This account becomes the primary owner of the listing, so it needs to be one your business will control for years. If you already have a Google account for the business, sign into that. If not, create one first, then come back.

Google retired the old standalone dashboard, so you now start from Search or the Google Maps app. Search for your exact business name. If a listing already exists — Google may have auto-generated one — you will see an option to claim it. If nothing comes up, you will be offered the option to add your business to Google. Claim an existing listing rather than creating a duplicate; duplicates are a common cause of trouble later.

Type your business name exactly as it appears in the real world — on your signboard, your bills, your storefront. Do not add your city or your services to it. “Sharma Dental” is correct; “Sharma Dental — Best Dentist in Pune, Braces & Implants” is keyword stuffing, and it is one of the fastest ways to get suspended. Your category and content do the ranking work, not a padded name.

This is the most important decision in the whole setup. Your primary category tells Google which searches you are eligible to appear in, so it deserves real thought. Search the way your customers would, see which category your best-ranking local competitors use, and match the intent. Add secondary categories only for services you genuinely offer — one primary plus a few honest secondaries beats a long list of loosely related ones.

If customers come to you, add your storefront address exactly as it appears on official documents. If you go to customers — home services, freelancers, delivery businesses — set yourself up as a service-area business: you still enter an address for verification, but you hide it from the public and list the cities or pin codes you serve instead. Never invent an address or use a virtual office; a mismatch here triggers suspensions.

Enter the phone number customers actually reach you on — a local mobile number is completely fine and often best for Indian small businesses. Add your website if you have one. Keep these details identical to what appears on your site and other listings, because consistent contact information is one of the trust signals Google weighs when it decides how much to surface you.

This is where the process has changed most. For nearly all new profiles, Google now requires video verification, and it chooses the method for you — you cannot pick postcard or phone if video is what it offers. See the callout below for exactly how to pass it. Older, previously unclaimed listings sometimes still get a phone or email code, but assume video and be ready for it.

A half-finished profile ranks below a complete one, so treat this as mandatory, not optional. Add your full opening hours, including special hours for festivals and holidays. Write a genuine business description. Set your opening date. Turn on the attributes that apply — wheelchair access, parking, payment methods, whether you offer home delivery. Every field you complete is a small relevance and trust signal.

Profiles with genuine photos get noticeably more calls and direction requests than bare ones. Upload a clear logo and a cover image, then real shots of your exterior (so customers recognise the place), your interior, your team and your products or work. Avoid stock photos — Google and customers both reward the real thing. Come back and refresh these every quarter.

Use the products and services sections to list what you sell with short descriptions and prices where it helps. Then publish a post — an offer, an update, an event — to show the profile is active. A profile that keeps posting looks alive to both Google and customers, and posts occupy more space in your listing.