Google Business Profile is free and it is how your company appears on Google Maps and in the "local pack" — the map box with a handful of businesses shown above the classic results for searches with local intent. Setting it up properly takes a few hours, verification takes from a few days to a few weeks, and upkeep — reviews, posts, photos — a few minutes per week. Below you will find the complete, step-by-step guide for 2026.
We work with local businesses in Bucharest and across Romania and we often see the same pattern: serious companies with good services, practically invisible on the map because their profile is unclaimed, incomplete or abandoned. The good news is that Google Business Profile requires no budget — only discipline. In this guide we show you exactly what to set up, in what order, what you must never do, and how to connect the profile to your website so they work together, not in parallel.
What Google Business Profile Is and Why It Matters
In short: Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is your company's official, free listing in Google Search and Google Maps. It displays your name, address or service area, opening hours, phone number, website, photos and reviews — and you manage it from your Google account at business.google.com.
Why it matters: for searches with local intent — "plumber sector 3", "dental clinic Cluj", "web agency Bucharest" — Google shows the map with businesses above the classic organic results. If you have no profile, or a neglected one, you simply do not exist in the most visible area of the page, no matter how good your website is. Let us be clear from the start: nobody can guarantee you a position in that local pack, and we do not promise such a thing. But without a properly configured business profile, you are not even in the running.
Displayed Address or Service-Area Business? Choose Correctly from the Start
Direct answer: if customers come to your premises (shop, clinic, restaurant, showroom), you display the address. If you travel to the customer, or you work from an office that does not receive public visits — plumbers, electricians, cleaning companies, agencies, consultants — you choose a service-area business profile: you hide the address and define your coverage area.
| Criterion | Profile with displayed address | Service-area business |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | Businesses with premises open to the public | Businesses working at the customer's location or without visitable premises |
| On the map | Exact pin at the company address | You appear for the area you serve, without an address pin |
| What you fill in | Full address and visiting hours | The towns or areas you cover |
| Examples | Shop, restaurant, salon, clinic | Tradespeople, home services, agencies, consultants |
Getting this choice wrong is one of the most frequent problems we encounter: businesses with no premises open to the public displaying an apartment address, or the other way around. Beyond confusing customers, an address that does not match reality can lead to the profile being suspended at a re-verification. Set up your real situation from the very beginning.
Step-by-Step Setup: From Account to Complete Profile
In short: you need a Google account, your company's exact details and one or two hours of careful work. The order below is the one we recommend:
- First, search for your company on Google and on Maps. The profile may already exist, created automatically or by someone else. If it exists, use the claim option ("Own this business?"); if not, create a new one from business.google.com.
- Write the exact company name. The name in the profile must be your real name, the one used on your signage, website and documents — with no added keywords. "Cheap non-stop plumber sector 2 – Popescu Instal" violates Google's guidelines; "Popescu Instal" is correct.
- Choose the primary category carefully. It is the most important field in the entire profile: it describes your core activity ("Web design agency", "Dental clinic"). Then add secondary categories for related services, without overdoing it with merely tangential ones.
- Set the address or the service area, depending on the profile type chosen above.
- Go through verification. Google decides the method: video recording, phone call or, more rarely nowadays, a postcard with a code sent to the address. Video verification — you film the premises, the equipment, proof that the business really operates there — is requested more and more often. Until verification is complete, the profile does not appear publicly.
- Fill in your opening hours, including special holiday hours. An incorrectly displayed "open" on a Saturday means missed calls and irritated customers.
- Add your phone number and website. Exactly the same contact details as on your website — we come back below to why consistency matters.
- Write the business description. You have a short text available: say what you do, for whom and in what area, naturally, without strings of keywords.
- List the services you offer, with clear names, possibly with indicative prices where it makes sense.
- Upload real photos: the premises, the team, completed work, products. A profile with your own, current photos inspires more trust than an empty one or one with generic images — and customers can add photos too, so it is best that yours set the tone.
Reviews: How to Ask for Them Correctly and How to Respond
Direct answer: ask for reviews only from real customers, right after delivering the service, by sending them the direct review link from your profile. And respond to all reviews — including, especially, the negative ones.
How to ask correctly:
- The right moment. Immediately after delivery or after finishing the job, while the experience is fresh. A request sent three months later usually goes unanswered.
- The direct link. From the profile dashboard you can generate a short link that opens the review form directly. Send it via WhatsApp or e-mail — every extra step halves your chances of getting the review.
- No filtering. Do not "pre-sort" customers so you only ask the visibly satisfied ones. Ask all real customers, equally.
- No incentives. Do not offer discounts, gifts or raffle entries in exchange for reviews.
How to respond: to positive reviews, thank people briefly and personally, without copy-pasted templates. To negative ones, respond calmly and to the point: acknowledge what deserves acknowledging, explain without over-apologizing, and offer to continue the conversation on a private channel. Remember that your reply is read mostly by future customers, not just by the review's author — the tone with which you handle criticism says more about your company than ten five-star reviews.
What you must never do: bought or fake reviews. They violate Google's policies and, at the same time, Romanian and EU legislation on misleading commercial practices. You risk having the profile suspended and losing all the legitimate reviews accumulated over years — plus serious reputation damage if the practice comes to light. We do not publish fabricated reviews for ourselves or for our clients, and we recommend the same line to you: fewer but genuine reviews beat an artificially inflated profile every time.
Posts and Questions & Answers: Keep the Profile Alive
In short: an active profile signals an active business. Publish one post per week and treat the questions-and-answers section as your company's public FAQ.
- Weekly posts. Short, with a photo and a clear call to action: a completed job, an offer, news from your activity. They do not need to be literature — they need to show the business is alive.
- Questions and answers. Anyone can ask questions on your profile and — careful — anyone can answer too, including people outside your company. Monitor the section and respond quickly. You can even publish frequent questions yourself together with the official answers; it is allowed and recommended.
Frequent Mistakes That Hold Your Profile Back
In short: most of the problems we find on Romanian companies' profiles fall into five categories:
- Inconsistent NAP. Name, address and phone written differently on the website, in the profile and in local directories ("Str. Exemplu 10" vs. "Strada Exemplu nr. 10", different phone numbers). Choose one single form and use it identically everywhere — data consistency is the foundation of local presence.
- Wrong primary category. A vague or only partially correct category makes you show up for irrelevant searches and miss the ones that matter.
- Unclaimed profile. If the profile exists but is not yours, you cannot respond to reviews, you cannot correct the details, and edits suggested by others can be accepted without your knowledge.
- Keywords in the business name. Explicitly forbidden by Google's guidelines. Beyond the suspension risk, competitors can report the inflated name at any time, and the correction comes without notice.
- Abandoned profile. Outdated hours, reviews unanswered for months, old photos. A dead profile sends exactly the opposite message from the one you want.
GBP and Your Website Work Together, Not Separately
Direct answer: the profile brings you visibility on the map, and the website turns that visibility into quote requests. One without the other leaves money on the table.
- The link in the profile should point to the most relevant page — the homepage or, even better, the page of the service the customer is looking for, not a generic page.
- Identical contact details. The phone number, address and hours on your website must match the profile letter for letter. Any mismatch erodes trust — both the customers' and Google's.
- Dedicated service pages. If the profile lists "interior renovations" and the website has no page about it, you have broken the chain right before the conversion. Every important service deserves its own page.
We build exactly this pair: custom-coded websites (Next.js + React), fast and with correct technical SEO from day one — see our website development in Bucharest page and the rest of our services. And if you want to know what budget to expect for the website, we published an honest guide on how much a website costs in Bucharest, with our numbers open to everyone in our pricing packages.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Google Business Profile cost?
Nothing. The profile is free: creation, verification, reviews, posts and statistics do not cost a penny. If someone calls to sell you "registering your company in Google" for a fee, you now know you can do everything yourself, for free, at business.google.com. There are agencies that offer profile management as a service — that is legitimate — but the profile itself is not something you pay for.
How long until the profile appears on Google Maps?
After verification is complete. Google chooses the method — video, phone, sometimes a postcard — and the total duration varies from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the method and the case. After verification, new information and edits usually appear quickly, but not instantly.
Can I have a profile without premises open to the public?
Yes. That is exactly what the service-area business profile exists for: you hide the address and declare the areas where you work. It is the correct solution for tradespeople, home services, agencies and consultants who work from home or from an office with no public hours.
How do I get rid of a fake review?
First respond publicly and calmly, stating that you cannot find the person among your customers. Then report the review from your profile, citing the policy violation. Google decides whether to remove it, and the process can take time; there are no guarantees, and we do not recommend companies that "guarantee" removal for a fee. The best defense remains a steady flow of genuine reviews, which dilutes the effect of a fake one.
How many reviews do I need?
There is no magic number, and nobody can guarantee that "from X reviews on, you appear on the map". What matters is that reviews are real, recent and steady — a natural flow over time beats a sudden wave of ten reviews in one day, which looks exactly like what it is. Ask every real customer to leave one, and be patient.
Want your Google profile and your company website to finally work together? Write to us via the contact page — we reply in under 24 hours, tell you honestly what to fix first, and what you can do yourself, for free, before paying anyone.