Almost every business claims its Google listing, fills in the name, address, phone and hours, and never opens it again. That is the equivalent of renting a storefront and putting nothing in the window. Everything below counts as Google Business Profile optimization, it is free, already sitting in your profile, and largely unused by the businesses you are competing with, which is exactly why it is worth an afternoon.
Why bother filling it all in
Google explains local ranking as relevance, distance and prominence, and says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results. It also recommends specifying what kind of business you are, keeping hours current including special hours, and adding attributes such as parking or wifi.
Two of those three ranking factors are largely out of your hands. Completeness is not. It is the lever sitting in front of you.
It is also a storefront a lot of people now reach before they reach yours. CIRA, the body that runs the .ca domain, found in its 2026 survey of Canadian internet users that 86 per cent had made an online purchase in the past twelve months. For a good share of your customers the profile is the first page of your business they will ever see.
The features worth your afternoon
Posts, which most profiles have never published
You can publish updates, offers and events straight to Search and Maps, with photos, video and an action button linking to a booking or an order page. Posts older than six months are archived unless you set a date range, so this is a habit rather than a one off. A short update every couple of weeks keeps the listing looking alive, which matters to the person comparing you with two others.
Services, written the way customers say them
List each service separately, in plain customer language rather than your internal terminology. This is the field that helps Google match your profile to a specific search rather than a generic one, and it is usually either blank or filled with three vague entries.
Photos, and not the ones you think
Google frames photos and video as showing what you offer and telling the story of the business. The ones that actually help are unglamorous: the storefront from the street so people can find it, the parking situation, the reception area, the team, and real work you have done. Stock photography does nothing here.
Attributes
Parking, accessibility, payment methods, languages spoken, whether you are open to walk-ins. Small, quick to set, and they answer the questions that otherwise cost you a phone call or a lost visit.
Products, for retail
Google notes that in-store products can let customers see what you carry through local search results in eligible regions. For a shop this is the difference between someone driving over and someone assuming you do not stock it.
Answers for Google’s new Ask feature
Google is phasing out the public Q and A on profiles and replacing it with an AI Ask feature that answers customers from your profile, your reviews and your website. There is no longer a question list to tend by hand, so put the answers where Google reads them: accurate hours, services and attributes on the profile, and a clear FAQ on your website.
Special hours
Google lets you set special hours for short periods so your regular hours stay untouched, and recommends confirming them for official holidays even when nothing changes, which makes it clear to customers that the hours are accurate. Wrong holiday hours is the fastest way to turn a customer into a bad review.
The habit, not the project
Doing all of the above once takes an afternoon. Keeping it useful takes about fifteen minutes a month: one post, any new photos, a check that services and attributes are still accurate, upcoming special hours, reply to reviews that arrived. Put it in the calendar on the same day each month and it stops being a thing you mean to get to.
The reviews half of this is covered separately in how to get more Google reviews, and the ranking mechanics in showing up in the local map pack.
What not to do
Do not put keywords or your city in the business name field. The name must be your actual name as used on your signage and stationery, and adding to it is against the guidelines and puts the profile at risk.
Do not create additional listings for other neighbourhoods you serve. If you travel to customers, one profile with a service area is the correct configuration.
And keep profile posts within the content rules, which exclude unprofessional language, misspellings and regulated goods such as alcohol, tobacco and gambling. Posts are reviewed and can come back not approved.
Frequently asked questions
Do profile posts help my ranking?
Treat them as a visibility and conversion feature rather than a ranking lever. They keep the listing current for the person reading it and give you a place to put an offer or an announcement in front of people already looking at you.
How often should I post?
Every couple of weeks is plenty for most businesses. Since posts archive after six months without a date range, consistency matters more than volume.
Google’s Ask feature gave a wrong answer about my business. Can I fix it?
Not directly: there is currently no way to edit or report an AI answer. Fix the sources it draws from instead, meaning your profile details and your website, and keep replying to reviews. The answers follow the information Google can find.
How many photos is enough?
There is no number. Aim for coverage of the things a customer wants to see before visiting: the outside, the inside, the parking, the people and the work. Add a few whenever you have something real to show.
Does any of this matter if I have few reviews?
Yes, and it is the part you control immediately. Completeness and photos work on the person comparing listings today, while reviews accumulate over months.
Want your profile filled in properly once? Book a free audit and we will go through every field, tell you what is missing and what is actively hurting you. More on our local SEO page.
Technocure Digital Solutions is a bilingual digital agency specializing in website design, SEO and Google Ads. We have served clients worldwide since 2012 and have been based in Montreal since 2020. More about us.
