Google Business Profile for Contractors

A Google Business Profile for contractors works best set up as a service-area business: address hidden, service areas listed, and the right category chosen. This checklist walks through each setting in the order you’ll meet it, and links every rule to Google’s own Help Center. It ends with the common mistakes that break Google’s guidelines and put a profile at risk of suspension.

1. Set up as a service-area business and hide your address

If you go to your customers instead of having them come to you, Google treats you as a service-area business. Google’s guidelines say a service-area business should hide its business address from customers. They use a plumber who runs the business from home as the example: clear the residential address from the profile.

If you do have a staffed office where customers visit, you can show that address and set service areas as well.

Google’s service area help page says the same thing from the other side: if you don’t serve customers at your address, remove it from your profile.

2. Choose your categories

Your primary category tells Google what your business is. Google’s category help page says to select a primary category that best describes your business, and that the categories you pick affect your local ranking. You can’t make up your own category. Pick the most specific one on Google’s list that fits your main line of work.

Additional categories are for other main services you offer. Google’s guidelines say to use as few categories as possible and not to use categories only as keywords. Add a second or third category if it describes a real part of your business. Don’t add one for every job you’ve ever done.

3. Add your service areas

Service areas tell Google where you work. According to Google’s service area rules:

You can add up to 20 service areas, by city, postal code or other area.
Your overall area shouldn’t extend more than about two hours of driving time from where your business is based.
You can’t set the area as a radius around your business.

List the places you actually take jobs. Then use the same list on your website so the two agree. The contractor website checklist covers how to show your service area on the site.

4. Set your hours

Google’s guidelines ask you to provide your regular customer-facing hours. Use the hours someone answers the phone, not the hours you’re on a job site. You may use seasonal hours as your regular hours if they apply.

One exception matters for contractors. The same guidelines say businesses that operate only by appointment shouldn’t list hours. If every job starts with a scheduled visit and nobody answers calls at set times, leaving hours blank follows the rules.

5. Add photos

Photos show customers your work before they call. Google’s photo help page sets these requirements:

JPG or PNG format, between 10 KB and 5 MB
720 by 720 pixels recommended, 250 by 250 minimum
In focus and well lit, with no significant alterations or heavy filters

Add your logo, a cover photo, and photos of real jobs, your crew and your vehicles. Add new job photos as you finish work, so the profile doesn’t look abandoned.

6. Verify your profile

Verification confirms to Google that you run the business. Google’s verification page lists methods such as phone or text, email, a live video call and a postcard. Google decides which methods you’re offered, and you can’t change them. If video verification is available to you, Google recommends it.

Google says verification reviews take up to 5 business days, and sometimes longer. Until you’re verified, any posts you write stay pending and don’t show on Search or Maps, according to the posts help page linked below.

7. Post updates

Posts let you share news, offers and events on your profile. Google’s posts help page covers three types. Updates can have a description, a photo or video, and a button with a link. Offers need a title and dates. Events need a title and start and end dates.

Two details are worth knowing. Posts older than six months are archived unless you set a date range. And a post with a phone number in it may be rejected if Google can’t connect that number to your business. A short post about a finished job, with a photo, is enough.

8. Ask for reviews without breaking the rules

Ask every happy customer for a review. Google gives you a review link and a QR code to share, and its tips page suggests asking customers to visit the link or scan the code.

Two rules trip contractors up. Both come from Google’s prohibited content policy for Maps:

No incentives. You can’t offer payment, discounts, or free goods or services in exchange for a review. “10% off your next job for a review” breaks the policy.
No review gating. You can’t discourage negative reviews or selectively ask only happy customers for reviews. Sending a survey first and only passing the link to people who scored you high is the classic example.

The same policy bans reviews based on a conflict of interest, which includes current or former employment. Don’t ask your crew or family to review you.

9. Reply to reviews

Reply to every review, good and bad. According to Google’s review management page, your reply appears publicly under the review, and the customer is notified when you reply. Google also checks replies against its content policies before posting them, which usually takes a few minutes but can take up to 30 days.

Keep replies short and specific. Thank the customer and mention the job. For a bad review, stay calm, state the facts once, and offer to sort it out by phone. Never post a customer’s personal details.

Mistakes that get a Google Business Profile suspended

Google may suspend or disable profiles that don’t follow its guidelines. These are the rules that are easy to break by accident, all from Google’s guidelines for representing your business:

Stuffing the business name. Your name on Google should be your real-world name, as on your truck, website and invoices. Adding services or towns to it isn’t permitted, and Google says it could result in suspension.
Using a virtual office or PO box. P.O. boxes and remote mailboxes aren’t acceptable addresses. A service-area business can’t list a virtual office unless it’s staffed during business hours.
Showing a home address. If customers don’t come to you, hide it.
Creating duplicate profiles. There should be one profile per business. A service-area business gets one profile for its central office, not one per town.
Using a phone number you don’t control. The number must connect to your business and be under your direct control. Don’t use a number or link that redirects or refers people to a landing page.
Breaking the review rules. Incentives and review gating, covered above.

If your profile does get suspended, fix the problem first, then use Google’s appeal tool. Don’t create a new profile for the same business while you wait.