Setting up a Google Business Profile and showing on Maps

To get found on Google Maps, a Swiss small business above all needs a well-maintained Google Business Profile, which used to be called Google My Business. That profile is what produces the little map box with the three businesses that shows up at the top of the search. If you are in there, you get called. If you are not, you stay invisible, even if your own website is good.

When someone in Brugg searches for a carpenter or someone in the Rhine Valley looks for a bike workshop, they rarely type that into your website. They search on Google, and at the top the map appears with the address, opening hours and stars. The profile is free, and for a local small business it is often the listing that delivers the most for the least effort.

I will explain here, plainly, what you should enter, what it realistically delivers and what is overblown. No hype, no tricks.

What the profile actually is

The Google Business Profile is the listing that appears when someone searches for your company name or makes a local search like “fiduciary Windisch”. It shows your name, the address, the phone number, opening hours, photos, reviews and a button for directions. At the same time it is what Google Maps shows when someone browses the map in your area.

Important: the profile is not your website and does not replace it. It is more like a business card right inside the search. A well maintained website and a well maintained profile work together. The profile brings the first contact, the website convinces afterwards. If either one is missing, the whole thing limps along.

First things first: consistent core details

The most common mistake I see at Swiss small businesses is contradictory information. In technical jargon this is called NAP, that is name, address, phone number. These three have to be written exactly the same everywhere: on the website, in the legal notice, in the Google profile and in every directory where you appear.

It sounds trivial, but it is decisive. If the website says “Müller Schreinerei GmbH”, the profile says “Schreinerei Müller” and the old business directory still has the phone number from two years ago, then Google gets unsure which details are correct. That uncertainty costs visibility. Sort it out once and a lot is gained. Watch the small things: GmbH or not, street spelled out or abbreviated, landline or mobile. Agree on one spelling and carry it through everywhere.

What you should actually fill in

A complete profile clearly counts for more than a half empty one. These fields are the most important:

• The right main category. Choose the category that most precisely describes what you do, not as many as possible. A precise main category like “carpenter” is stronger than a grab bag. Fitting additional categories may complement it, but sparingly.
• Real opening hours, kept current. Enter the actual hours and adjust them for public holidays. Nothing annoys a customer more than a locked door despite “open” in the profile. That is exactly what then ends up in a bad review.
• A short, plain description. Write in normal sentences what you do, for whom and where. “We repair heating systems in the St. Gallen area and respond within one working day” is better than any empty phrase about broad solution competence.
• Good photos. A few real pictures of the workshop, the shop, the team or finished work do more than staged stock photos. They give the profile life and often answer the silent question “Does this look reputable?” before the first call.
• The right link. Link to the appropriate page of your website, not to an outdated address.

Google usually verifies the location by postcard or video. That takes a few days, but it is mandatory, otherwise the profile is not fully active.

Reviews: collect honestly, do not force

Reviews are a delicate but important topic. They influence whether someone calls you, and they also feed into local visibility. My advice is simple: after a job is done, ask satisfied customers in a friendly way whether they would leave a short review. Give them the direct link, that lowers the hurdle.

What you should not do: buy reviews, have employees review themselves, or offer incentives in exchange for a good rating. That violates the rules, eventually gets caught and damages trust more than it ever brought. Reviews you actually earned, with the occasional critical one among them, come across as more credible than a flawless wall of five stars.

And do answer reviews, calmly and factually, especially the critical ones. A composed reply to a complaint says more about a business than ten words of praise.

What it delivers and what is overblown

Realistically, the profile is the best first step for any business with local customers: trades, shops, practices, fiduciaries, hospitality. It is free, quick to set up and often delivers calls and directions requests directly.

What is overblown is the idea that you have to post updates daily or play with new features every week for it to work. For most small businesses, a profile that is set up completely once, and kept current now and then, is enough. Expensive “local SEO packages” that mainly consist of automatically listing you in dozens of questionable directories rarely deliver what they cost. A few correct and matching listings matter more than many sloppy ones.

If your order books are full through referrals, this is not an emergency. But it costs little and closes a gap through which customers would otherwise quietly slip away.

How it works together with your website

Profile and website reinforce each other. Google checks whether the details in the profile and on your website match. A website with a clear legal notice, a contact page and a local reference supports the profile, and the profile brings people to the website. Keep both consistent and you get found more reliably in local search.

That makes the profile the first step, not the last. What is left to do on the website itself, so that it actually brings enquiries, is under search engine optimization. What customers in a trade really type into the search box I measured on the example of a joinery: What people google when they look for a carpenter.

The person this profile is really for is standing in front of your closed door on a Tuesday morning with a phone in their hand, wondering whether you moved or shut down. Your website will not reach them; they never opened it. The profile will. And it has a field almost nobody fills in: special opening hours, for the holiday closure, the shifted time, the week you are away. Two minutes a year, and you are spared the call that starts with “I drove all the way over”.