When someone in Toombs County searches for a plumber, a hair salon or a church, the first thing they usually see isn't a website. It's the map and the business listings beside it. Those listings come from Google Business Profile, and it's free.
If you only do one thing for your business online this year, do this. Here's how, in plain steps.
1. Claim or create your listing
- Go to business.google.com and sign in with a Google account you'll keep. Use the business's account, not a personal one that might go away with an employee.
- Search for your business name. If it already shows up, someone (or Google) may have created it. Choose to claim it.
- If it isn't there, add it. Use your real business name exactly as it appears on your sign, with no extra keywords stuffed in.
2. Get verified
Google needs proof you're really the business. Depending on your business, it may offer a postcard by mail, a short video of your location, a phone call or text, or an email. Pick what it offers and finish it. Your listing won't fully show until you do.
3. Fill in everything that helps a customer decide
- Category: choose the one that best describes what you do ("Roofing contractor", "Church", "Bakery"). You can add a few secondary ones.
- Service area or address: if customers come to you, show your address. If you go to them (trades, cleaning, lawn care), set a service area and you can hide your home address.
- Hours: keep them accurate, including holidays. Wrong hours cost trust fast.
- Phone and website: make sure the number is answered and the website loads on a phone.
- Description: two or three sentences in your own words: who you help, what you do, where.
- Photos: real ones. Your storefront, your team, your work. A phone camera in good light is fine.
4. Keep it alive
- Ask happy customers for a review. The easiest way: send them the review link from your profile right after a job goes well.
- Reply to every review, good or bad, kindly and briefly. People read the replies.
- Post an update now and then: a seasonal special, an event, a new service.
- Check it every month for wrong edits. Anyone can suggest changes to a listing.
The short version
Claim it, verify it, fill it in honestly, and keep it current. It's free, it's where local people look first, and it takes an afternoon.
Published 2026-11-05 by We Succeed, Vidalia, Georgia.