Most optimization checklists are a list of every field on the profile, in the order the form presents them, with no indication of which ones matter. Google is less coy than that. It publishes what decides local ranking, and it is three things: relevance, distance and prominence.
Relevance is how well your profile matches what someone typed. Distance is how far you are from the searcher. Prominence is how well known the business is, which Google says is based partly on how many sites link to you and how many reviews you have.
That framing is useful because it sorts the fields. Some feed relevance, one feeds prominence, one you cannot influence at all, and several feed nothing but the customer reading the page. All of them are worth filling in. Only some are worth agonising over.
Distance: the one you cannot optimise
Distance is the searcher's location against yours. There is no field for it. Service-area businesses can define where they work, but you cannot make yourself nearer to someone, and time spent trying is time not spent on the other two.
Worth saying out loud because a lot of frustration with local ranking is really this: a competitor two blocks closer to the person searching is going to win some of those searches no matter what you do.
Categories: the highest-leverage relevance field
Your primary category is the strongest statement your profile makes about what you are. Pick the option that describes the business exactly rather than the roomier one above it. The narrower label is the one that matches what somebody actually typed.
Here is where the popular advice and Google's advice split. A lot of guides tell you to stuff every additional category slot. Google says the opposite, in as many words: "Do not select a category for every product or service. Instead, use a few categories from the provided list." Its own worked example is a grocery store with a bakery and a deli, which takes "Grocery store" as the primary category and adds "Bakery" and "Deli", not a category for every shelf.
Google draws the line somewhere specific, and it is worth knowing where: a business operated separately inside your location gets its own profile rather than a category on yours. Its example is a health club with an independently run cafe, which should not add "Cafe."
Take the specific primary category. Add secondary ones only where a real second line of business exists.
The description: shorter than the limit
The description appears in the "From the business" section, and Google's instruction is not to exceed 750 characters.
That is a ceiling, not a target. It sits well down the profile, so it is not doing the ranking work that categories do. Write what you actually do, who for, and where, in plain language, and stop. A description padded to the character limit with search phrases reads exactly like what it is.
Completeness: dull, and the thing Google actually asks for
Google states that businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results, and it lists what it means by complete:
- The full address, if customers can visit you.
- Hours, including special hours for holidays and one-off closures.
- What kind of business you are.
- Attributes such as parking or Wi-Fi.
Also your services, which are a separate section from categories and are where the detail belongs that you were tempted to cram into the category list.
Hours are the field most often quietly wrong, and the one with the most direct consequence: a customer who drives to a closed business is a bad review waiting to be written.
Photos and posts
Photos are what people look at. Add real ones of the premises, the team and the work rather than stock images. Google notes it can take up to 24 to 48 hours for new photos and videos to appear on the profile, so do not re-upload when nothing shows immediately.
Posts and the Q&A section are both worth using. You can answer questions on your own profile, which means the common questions do not have to wait for a stranger to answer them wrongly. Neither of these is documented by Google as a ranking factor, so use them because they help the person reading, not because a checklist promised a rankings bump.
Reviews: the prominence lever
Of everything on the profile, reviews are the one input Google explicitly names as part of prominence, alongside links from other sites. It also says that more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and that replying shows customers you value their feedback.
Which makes reviews the field that is least about the profile and most about your routine. Nobody optimises their way to more of them. You get them by asking every customer, every time, with a link short enough to tap.
The free Google review link generator builds that one-tap link from your listing, and how to get more Google reviews covers the asking itself. If you need the listing's identifier first, here is how to find your Place ID.
The short version
Get the primary category exactly right. Fill in hours, address, services and attributes and keep them true. Write a plain description. Put up real photos. Then stop tinkering with the profile and go ask your customers for reviews, because that is the only lever on this list you can pull again tomorrow.
Want the asking handled for you? ReviewKit sends your review link to every customer after the job is done. No contract, cancel in one click. Start free.