Key points at a glance
- If you work at your customers' premises, hide your address and set a service area of up to 20 towns or postcodes.
- The primary category is the single most important factor: as specific as possible, for example "Electrician" rather than "Construction company".
- The business name must be your real name. Don't add place names or search terms.
- Ask every customer for a review, with nothing in return. A QR code on the invoice makes it easy.
- Google often asks for video verification: have your company vehicle, tools and paperwork ready.
This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change: check the details with your economic chamber or chamber of crafts, your trade guild or your tax adviser.
Why the profile matters so much for tradespeople
For searches with a local angle, Google shows a map with a handful of businesses at the top, and only below that the normal search results. Many customers call straight from this map without ever opening a website. The profile is free, and it shows what counts at a glance: reviews, availability, photos and the call button. It doesn't replace your website, but it is often the first point of contact.
No business premises: service area instead of address
Most trades businesses don't receive customers. The plumber drives to the customer, the painter to the site, the office may be in your own home. Google calls this a "service-area business". The rules are clear: if you don't receive customers at your address, hide the address and enter a service area instead.
- You can enter up to 20 areas: cities, municipalities, postcodes or districts. A radius around your location is no longer available.
- According to Google, the area should generally not extend beyond about two hours' drive from your location.
- Hybrid is allowed: a car workshop or a joinery with a showroom shows its address and opening hours plus a service area for installations. But then someone really has to be on site during opening hours.
- PO boxes and virtual offices are not allowed as an address. One profile per location, not per town you drive to.
Setting up the profile, step by step
Create or claim the profile
First check whether your business already exists on Google; customers or Google itself often create listings. If so, claim that one instead of creating a second. Duplicate profiles do harm.
Name exactly as used day to day
"Elektro Pichler GmbH" or "Malerei Novak", just as on your van, letterhead and invoices. Not "Electrician Linz Emergency 24h Pichler". Search terms in the name break the guidelines and can get you suspended.
Choose categories
The primary category as specific as possible, plus a few additional categories for genuine further specialisms, such as "Heating contractor" in addition to "Plumber".
Service area or address
Hide the address if no customers come to you, then enter towns or postcodes.
Phone, website, opening hours
A number where someone actually picks up. As the website, the matching page of your site, usually the homepage.
Verify
Google chooses the method itself; often it is a video. Only after confirmation is the profile fully visible and editable.
Categories and services
The primary category determines which searches you appear in on the map at all. A Spengler (sheet metal roofer) who picks "Roofing contractor" as the primary category because it gets more searches will be found less often for gutters and metal roofs. Choose what you mainly do and add a few genuine secondary categories. Google explicitly advises against adding a category for every single service.
In the "Services" section you then describe in more detail what you offer: "heat pump installation", "bathroom renovation", "drain cleaning". Keep this list honest and consistent with your website. Use the business description for one or two sentences on your focus, area and special features such as being a master craftsman business or offering an emergency service.
Opening hours and emergency service
Enter the times when you can be reached by phone or the workshop is open. If you offer a genuine round-the-clock emergency service, you may enter "Open 24 hours". If you only go out occasionally in the evenings and at weekends, don't: customers who can't reach anyone at 11 pm leave a one-star review. Use your normal hours instead and describe the emergency service and its terms in the description and on your website.
Enter public holidays and company holidays as special hours. Google often asks before holidays whether anything changes. Answer, otherwise Google may show the wrong times.
Photos that bring in calls
Profiles with real photos look active and trustworthy. Upload a logo, a cover photo and then pictures regularly: the team, the branded van, the workshop, finished projects. Five new photos a month are better than 50 at once and then nothing for two years. Avoid stock photos, text in images and pictures that don't show your business.
Collecting reviews
For customers, reviews are the main reason to call a business, and they strengthen your position on the map. The good news: satisfied customers are happy to leave a review if you ask and make it easy. The best moment is right after handover of the job or the vehicle, when they are most pleased with the finished work.
- Ask in person at handover: "If you were happy with our work, a Google review would really help us."
- QR code on the invoice, job sheet or a card you leave behind. You can create the right code with the review QR code generator.
- Link by text message or WhatsApp the day after the job, with a short thank you.
How to get it right
- Ask every customer for a review
- Use the direct review link or QR code
- Reply to every review briefly and personally
- Stay factual with criticism and offer a conversation
Better not
- Asking only happy customers and filtering out the rest
- Offering discounts or gifts for reviews
- Having family or employees write reviews
- Buying reviews or having agencies "get" them for you
Google's guidelines explicitly prohibit incentives for reviews and selectively asking only for positive ones. That includes asking someone to delete a negative review in return for a discount. Under competition law this can also cause trouble in Austria and Germany, see advertising and reviews for Austria and Germany.
QR code for your Google reviews
Create a free QR code that leads straight to the review form of your profile, for invoices, your van or business cards.
Replying to reviews
Reply to reviews, including the good ones. A short, personal sentence is enough: "Thank you, Ms M., the new kitchen was a lovely project for us too." With criticism: take a breath first, then reply. Stay factual, don't mention the customer's personal details, apologise where something went wrong and offer to talk. Your reply is read above all by future customers, not just the person who wrote the review. More on this in the guide Project photos and reviews.
Reporting fake competitors and spam
In some trades, especially locksmiths, drain cleaning and emergency plumbers, the map shows listings that don't really exist: invented addresses, names like "Emergency Plumber Vienna 24h" and a call-centre number behind them. You can report such listings:
- Open the listing in Google Maps and choose "Suggest an edit", for example the correct name or "doesn't exist at this location".
- For persistent cases, use the complaint form for Business Profiles in Google Help and attach evidence, such as a photo of the supposed address.
- Report fake reviews on your own profile directly on the review via "Report review". For insulting reviews or false statements of fact, there is also the route of a legal removal request.
Video verification
Google wants to be sure your business really exists. For trades businesses without premises, this is often a video, either recorded or as a live video call. Prepare it before you press "Start", because a rejected video costs time.
What should be visible in the verification video
- The surroundings: street sign, house number or distinctive buildings near your location
- Your branded company vehicle, tools, machinery or the storeroom
- Something only the business has: you unlocking the workshop or the van, workwear with your logo
- Documents without confidential content, such as an invoice form or your trade licence (Gewerbeberechtigung)
- Everything in one continuous video, without cuts, in daylight
Upkeep: ten minutes a month
A profile is not a one-off project. Plan ten minutes a month: reply to new reviews, upload a few photos, check opening hours, review edits suggested by third parties. Google sometimes accepts changes that others suggest, and a wrong phone number can cost you jobs for weeks. How profile and website work together is explained in the guide Local SEO for tradespeople.
