Setting up a Google Business Profile in India

Your Google Business Profile is what appears in Maps and in the panel on the right of a search for your name. It is the single highest-return free thing a local business can do, and for a restaurant it is usually the source of more customers than a website.

Before you start

Have these ready, because the flow times out and restarting is worse than waiting:

• A Google account you will still control in five years. Not a staff member's personal Gmail — this happens constantly and recovering a listing from a departed employee is painful.
• The exact business name as it appears on your signboard. Not the name plus your keywords.
• A phone number that is answered during business hours.
• Proof of the address: a utility bill, rent agreement, GST certificate or shop licence in the business name.
• Ten photos at minimum — outside, inside, food, menu, staff.

Setting it up

• Go to business.google.com and enter your business name. If it already exists, you will be offered the option to claim it rather than create a duplicate — always claim.
• Pick the most specific primary category. Cafe rather than Restaurant if that is what you are; Biryani restaurant if it exists. The primary category has real weight in what you show up for.
• Add the address, and drag the map pin to the actual door. In Indian cities the geocoded pin is often on the wrong side of the building or out on the main road.
• Add hours, including separate hours for any day that differs, and set special hours for festivals. Wrong hours are the fastest way to earn a one-star.
• Add your menu or services, your phone, and your website. If you have no website, link your ordering page.

Verification, and where it goes wrong

Google verifies by postcard, phone, email, or video, and it decides which one you get. Video verification is now common in India and is the one most people fail on the first attempt.

For a video call or recording, Google wants to see three things in one unbroken shot: the exterior with your signboard and something that establishes the street, the interior with equipment that proves the business operates, and evidence that you control it — opening the till, unlocking a back room, or handling stock. Do not cut between them. A recording assembled from clips is rejected.

• The most common failures are a signboard that does not match the listed name exactly, a pin that does not match what the camera shows, and a recording that never shows the outside at all.
• For a postcard, expect two to three weeks and be aware that Indian delivery to a shop unit inside a complex is unreliable. Request a second one if it does not arrive; you get a limited number of attempts.
• If you work from home or have no customer-facing premises, list it as a service area business with the address hidden. Listing a home address you then cannot show on camera is a common route to suspension.

The first month

Once verified, three things matter and nothing else does much.

• Photos, added regularly. Listings with recent photos get noticeably more engagement, and a profile whose newest photo is two years old reads as closed.
• Reviews, asked for consistently. This is the lever with the most weight — start here and get your review link onto a code on the counter.
• The Q and A section, which almost nobody uses. You are allowed to post your own questions and answer them. Do the five you get asked on the phone every day: parking, veg options, card payment, delivery, seating.

Ignore Posts for now. They expire after a week and the return does not justify the effort until the basics are running.