Google Business Profile for contractors: what yours needs, set up for you

• Pick the most specific one Google offers: “Roofing contractor”, not “Contractor”. You can’t make up your own.
• Add a few extra categories only for work you really do. Google says not to pick one for every service, and not to use categories as keywords.
• Changing a category can make Google ask you to verify the business again, so it’s worth getting right once.

• Start from the services Google suggests for your trade (a plumber sees options like “Install faucet” or “Repair toilet”), then add your own for anything missing.
• Keep prices and phone numbers out of a custom service’s name: Google rejects those automatically. A price goes in the service’s own price field.
• List only work you take on. Every service you list is a promise to the customer reading it.

• Hide your address. Google’s own example is a plumber who runs the business from home: clear the address from the profile.
• List the towns or ZIP codes you serve, up to 20. Google no longer lets you set a radius.
• Keep the whole area within about 2 hours’ drive of where you’re based.
• One profile covers the whole area, not one per town. A second profile is only for a separate location with its own staff and its own service area.
• A rented mailbox or a virtual office isn’t eligible for a profile.

• Extra words, like your town or “Best Roofing”, are against the rules. Google’s words: including them “isn’t permitted, and could result in the suspension of your Business Profile.”

• Your crew at work, your truck, the finished job: real pictures you took.
• No stock photos, screenshots, collages or text across the picture. Google says low-quality photos may be removed.

• Ask every customer, not just the ones you think are happy. Google bans asking only for positive reviews.
• Never offer anything for a review: no discount, no free service.
• Don’t tell them what to write. Ask: “Would you leave an honest review about the job?”
• Reply to every review, good or bad.

When it asks for a video, its help page lists three things to show:

• Where you are: outside signs, a street sign or the businesses nearby.
• Your business: branded equipment, the tools you use on jobs, printed materials with your name on them.
• That you run it: access to areas only staff can get into.

• The Construction Industry Licensing Board’s rule counts “any electronic media including Internet sites” as advertising, so your number belongs on your website.
• Putting it in your profile’s description as well keeps it the same everywhere a customer looks you up.

Sources: Florida Statutes 489.119(5)(b); Florida Administrative Code 61G4-12.011