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Glossary · Local SEO & GBP

Google Business Profile

Also called GBP, Google My Business, GMB

Reviewed 31 Oct 2026 By Madiha Fatima 4 min read Check it yourself: yes, free

4 min
Definition

Google Business Profile is the free listing that represents your business on Google Maps and in the map pack at the top of local search results. It holds your name, address, phone number, hours, category, photos, services and reviews. For many local businesses it is seen more often than the website, and most calls and direction requests start there.

It used to be called Google My Business, and many people still say GMB. Anyone can suggest edits to it and Google will apply some of them without asking you, which is why an unclaimed or neglected profile drifts out of date on its own.

Short version: your business on Google Maps, and the listing most customers see first.
Why it matters for your business

The page you did not build
gets the most calls.

When someone searches for a lawyer, a dentist or a plumber in your town, Google shows three profiles with stars before it shows a single website. Most people call from that panel without ever visiting a site. So the profile is not a side task to the website. For a local business it is the front door, and a complete, active, well-reviewed profile will out-earn a beautiful website with a neglected one.

It is also free, which makes the pitches around it easy to judge. Nobody can sell you a better position in Google Maps. What an agency can legitimately do is complete every field, choose the right categories, add photos and posts, build the review habit, keep citations consistent and fix problems like a suspension. If a proposal describes "GBP optimisation" without saying what will change on the profile, ask.

The profile also feeds AI answers. When someone asks a chatbot for a solicitor nearby, the hours, reviews and categories in your profile are a large part of what it draws on, so the same twenty minutes of upkeep now pays off in two places.

Example

A law firm with a profile
nobody had opened in years.

What the partner saw

A three-partner firm with a strong reputation and a profile listed as "Lawyer", with hours copied from the building's reception, four photos from the office move and twenty reviews without a single reply. The name on the profile still included a partner who had retired.

What Google saw

A business that might not be active. The generic category meant it was not shown for "family lawyer" or "conveyancing solicitor" searches. The unanswered reviews and old photos read as neglect. Meanwhile a two-person firm across town with the right primary and secondary categories, a reply on every review and a new photo most weeks took two of the three map pack slots for the firm's own practice areas. Fixing the profile cost an afternoon.

How to check it on your site

Four checks, twenty minutes.

Tick each one as you go. 0 of 4 checked on your site.

  1. Claim it and check who else has access

    Search your business name on Google. If the panel says "Own this business?", nobody has claimed it. If it is claimed, sign in at business.google.com and check Users: former staff and old agencies should not still have access. An agency should be added as a manager on your account, never as the owner.

  2. Read the categories as a customer would

    The primary category decides which searches you can appear for. "Dental clinic" and "Cosmetic dentist" are different. Check that the primary is the thing you most want calls for and add every secondary that genuinely applies. Nothing else on the profile matters if this is wrong.

  3. Fill the gaps the panel shows

    Open your own profile in a private window and go field by field: hours including holidays, services with descriptions, attributes and a plain description of where you are and what you do. Then add at least ten recent photos. Google shows a completeness nudge inside the manager too. Treat every empty field as a slot a competitor has filled.

  4. Reply to every review this week

    Replies are visible to every future customer and are a signal of an active business. Reply to all of them, the good ones briefly and the bad ones calmly. Then look at the review count against the three businesses in the map pack for your main search. The gap tells you how much of the work is reviews.

Related terms

Usually in the same sentence.

Read next

Where this shows up in practice.

Local SEO Fix your profile in twenty minutes

The field-by-field pass through the profile, in the order Google weights them.

 Local SEO Business not showing on Google

When the profile exists but never appears, this is the checklist.

 Service Local SEO

Profile setup and upkeep is the first month of the local SEO service.
Related service

Profile setup, categories, photos, posts and the review routine are the first month of the local SEO service, with you as the owner and us as a manager. Prices are on the price list, not on a call.

See the local SEO service
Reviewed by Madiha Fatima, founder of 99creatix

Every entry in this glossary is written and checked by the person who runs the agency, reviewed at least once a quarter and dated. Last reviewed 31 October 2026.

Spotted an error or a term we are missing? Tell us and it is fixed within the week.

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Fifteen minutes and your business name. We will go through the profile as a customer would, tell you what is missing or wrong and what it would take to fix, before you decide anything.

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