A homeowner outside Watertown taps three profiles on a phone before the water stops running, reads two of them for about eight seconds each, and calls one. If you are searching how to optimize Google My Business, you are usually standing at that moment: the listing exists, it is verified, and the question is how to get more of those taps landing on your number.
Google renamed the product Google Business Profile in 2021, though plenty of owners still say GMB, and we use the current name here. This is Attention work, the first of the six growth levers we walk through with local owners, and it answers whether a customer can find you at all. Attention hands off to Response within seconds, because a profile that earns a tap only pays once somebody picks up.
How to optimize Google My Business after it is already verified
This is audit work on a live listing, so nothing below covers creating an account, requesting ownership, video verification, or reinstating a suspended listing. If you do not yet own a verified profile, start with how to make your Google Business Profile customer-ready and come back once it is yours to edit.
The old Google My Business app was retired in 2022, so you will now edit directly in Google Search or Maps by searching your business name while signed in. Order matters more than completeness. Two or three fields change which searches you can appear for at all; the rest change whether a stranger picks you out of the short list being compared.
Know what Google counts as a call before you change anything
Business Profile Performance reports a Calls number, and it counts clicks on the call button. It does not tell you the call connected, that anybody answered, or that a job got booked. Google also removed merchant-facing call history on July 31, 2024, so the profile will not show you missed calls or caller detail either.
Before editing anything, record the last 90 days of whatever Performance offers you: calls, website clicks, direction requests, views, and search terms. Search terms update monthly and Performance can include Google Ads activity, so note whether ads were running. Then pull the same 90 days from your phone system for connected, answered, missed, and booked calls. Without both sets you cannot tell later whether edits moved call intent or handling moved bookings.
The category decides which searches you can appear for
A profile carries one primary category plus up to nine additional ones. Google says categories affect local ranking but publishes no weights, and its guidance is to use the fewest accurate categories that describe the business. Nine is a ceiling, not a target.
The primary category should describe what the business is, not everything it sells. A shop that mostly runs residential HVAC service and occasionally sets a water heater is an HVAC contractor first, and stacking on plumber and air conditioning repair service pulls the profile into searches you are unlikely to win on relevance. Changing a category can trigger re-verification, so plan that edit for a week you can handle it, and remember the business name field is not an extra category slot, since Google requires your real-world name there.
Category work is relevance work, one of three things Google says drives local results alongside distance and prominence. No edit here shortens the distance between your shop and the searcher, and what local SEO actually covers walks through how the three fit together.
Services, attributes, and the details people compare on
Open Edit services and add the work customers actually call about, grouped under your categories, with a short description and a price where it helps. Google may highlight a service matching somebody's search, and the full list stays viewable in Maps. There is no published maximum and no promise that a complete section lifts rankings; it simply answers what a comparing customer would otherwise have to call and ask.
Products are a separate field for physical-goods retailers. Google directs service businesses to Services, and Pointy is now documented as the Local Inventory app for eligible stores syncing point-of-sale inventory.
Attributes vary by category and country, so a universal checklist does not survive contact with a real profile. Open Edit profile, then More, and complete every attribute that is accurate for you, then confirm hours, special hours, phone, address or service area, and website on a live mobile result.
Completeness matters because the comparison is short. BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,227 U.S. consumers found 72 percent considered three or fewer businesses, weighing proximity at 44 percent, star rating at 38 percent, and review count at 37 percent. Those are self-reported factors, not ranking weights.
Photos are evidence, and geotagging is not the shortcut
Google recommends at least three photos in each group that applies to you: exterior, interior, team, products, and work in progress. For a service business the useful set is evidentiary rather than decorative: the truck in the driveway, the crew, finished work, and whatever arrival detail people call to ask about. Google asks for media that is in focus, well lit, and true to reality, without heavy filters or misleading AI edits.
Geotagging before upload shows up in older checklists, though Google's media guidance does not name EXIF location data as a ranking tactic, and a 2025 ten-week test across 27 lawn-care profiles found no consistent benefit. Treat it as unproven and put the time into current photos.
Posts, chat, and Q&A are where old advice goes stale
Three post types exist for merchants now: Update, Offer, and Event. Product is not among them, whatever a 2019 checklist said. Posts surface under Updates or Overview on a phone and From the owner on desktop, and a post without a date range archives after six months.
Google publishes no required cadence and does not say weekly posting is a ranking signal. A defensible rhythm is to open Posts once a month and publish when you have something real, like a seasonal offer, an event, or a holiday schedule. Keep phone numbers out of the description, since that can get a post rejected.
Native chat is gone. Google removed Business Profile chat, chat FAQs, and quote requests through chat on July 31, 2024, along with Google Business Messages. Some claimed profiles can now add a WhatsApp or SMS contact under Edit profile, then Contact, then Chat, which routes the conversation to that channel rather than a Google inbox. Availability is limited by region, so switch it on only if somebody is watching that channel.
Q&A is mid-transition. The Q&A API was discontinued in November 2025, Google has described a shift toward customers asking questions inside Maps and getting instant answers built from merchant answers and reviews, and Ask Maps began rolling out in the US and India in March 2026. Seeding your own questions is no longer a reliable tactic, so answer whatever Google presents on the live profile.
A review routine that stays inside the rules
Reviews sit in the middle of the comparison, and Google says review count and score factor into local ranking. It does not publish a threshold, a required pace, or a reply formula, so the workable goal is more genuine reviews answered promptly.
Generate the official review link or QR code from your verified profile and ask every customer, not the ones you expect to be happy. Selectively requesting positive reviews, discouraging negative ones, and offering anything of value in exchange all violate Google's policy, and enforcement tightened in April 2026, when Google added removals and temporary review pauses for sudden spikes. The repeatable version of the asking process lives in how to build a Google review system.
Replies are public and the reviewer gets notified, which is the part most owners underuse. Google asks for brief, professional, personalized responses that stay clear of private details and arguments. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 U.S. adults, 89 percent expected an owner response, 47 percent would not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74 percent looked for reviews from the previous three months. Those are stated expectations, not measured bookings, and recency is the piece you can move this quarter.
Test the phone and the paths that replace it
Pick up your own phone, search your business the way a customer would, and tap the call button. Confirm the line rings where it should, reaches the person responsible rather than an answering service nobody checks, and stays under your control. Google prefers a local number connecting directly to the location.
Then tap the website link from that same result and look at what loads, because a customer landing on a slow page with the phone number three scrolls down is working harder than they should. Eligible profiles can also add an appointment or booking link pointing to a location-specific page where the action can actually be completed, and that link may lower your call count rather than raise it, which is fine when booked work is what you are counting.
Then check the handoff every month
Twenty minutes a month covers the maintenance loop, and a fixed routine holds up better than an occasional deep clean.
- Reread the profile on a phone the way a customer would, checking hours, phone, services, and service area against what is true this month.
- Answer new reviews and any questions Google is presenting on the live profile.
- Replace photos that no longer represent the work, and publish a post only when something is genuinely timely.
- Put the month's call-button clicks next to answered, qualified, and booked calls from your phone system.
That last comparison is the one that changes decisions. When call-button clicks climb and booked jobs stay flat, the profile is doing the Attention job you asked of it and the constraint has moved to Response: who picks up, how quickly, and whether the conversation ends with something on the calendar, because no amount of category tuning changes an answer rate.
If you would rather run this audit with somebody and then put paid attention behind a profile already earning taps, that is the job of our Attention Generation Engine. If you just want a second set of eyes, a free consultation is the low-friction way in, and we will walk through your profile and what a pilot would cover. No pressure to commit to a full project, and we keep pilots easy to stop.
