Google Business Profile: claim it, verify it and keep it right.

Claim and verify the listing.

Adding or claiming a Business Profile costs nothing. If your business is not on Google yet, add it at business.google.com/add. If it is there and nobody has verified it, open it on Google Maps and choose Claim this business, then Manage now. If someone else has already verified it, you can request ownership from them.¹

You need a Google account. Google then chooses how you verify, and the method cannot be changed: a call or a text to the business phone, an email, a video or a postcard, depending on the type of business, its public information, the region and the hours. A postcard’s code usually arrives within 14 days and expires after 30; while you wait, do not change the name, address or category, or the code stops working. Google then reviews what you sent, in up to 5 business days.²

Until the profile is verified, you cannot edit its information, reply to reviews or show your photos on it.^{2, 3, 4}

Claiming and verifying is yours to do: Apronta cannot do it for you. What it does with the listing starts here: paste your Google Maps link at apronta.co and your page is written from it, with the name, address, phone and hours the listing has.

The website and the booking link.

The Website field takes the full address, starting with http:// or https://, and Google has to be able to read the site. Google’s guidelines ask for a website that represents your business, and not an address that redirects or refers people to landing pages other than the business’s own, including pages made on social networks.^{5, 6}

Some categories can also add links to book an appointment, make a reservation or place an order, up to 10 of each kind. On Google Search open Booking, or on Google Maps open Edit profile, then choose Add link, paste the address and save. With more than one, you can set the one Google shows first as the business’s preferred link.^{5, 7}

In Apronta, the dashboard’s Google settings have both ready to copy, on every plan: your page’s address for the Website field, and the link of the page where people book or order for the booking links. The address ends in a tag, so visits from the listing count as Google in your numbers. If you keep a website of your own, the dashboard tells you to leave it in the Website field and use the Apronta link for booking only.

The hours, holidays included.

Set the main hours under Edit profile, then Hours, with Open with main hours chosen, ticking each day you open. A day with a break is two sets of hours on the same day.⁸

For holidays, special events and other unusual days, use Special hours: they change those dates without touching your week. Google advises confirming your hours for official holidays even when they are your usual ones. Special hours only show while the profile is set to open with main hours, and cover a closure of up to 6 days in a row; for 7 days or more, or an unknown time, Google asks you to mark the business temporarily closed.⁹

Google’s guidelines name businesses that should not give hours, among them those that work only by appointment. If that is you, leave the hours off the listing.⁶

If you do give hours, the same settings page in Apronta shows your week as Apronta has it, day by day, to set on the listing: Google’s hours screen takes no pasted text. Days you close in Apronta close your booking page, but are not sent to Google: set them as special hours on the listing too. When you change your hours in Apronta, the hours page reminds you to change them on Google.

Photos.

Google’s standard for photos: JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB, 720 by 720 pixels recommended and at least 250 by 250, in focus and well lit, without heavy edits or filters. A photo of the outside helps people recognise the place when they arrive. A logo and a cover photo can be set too, though Google may show another photo first.⁴

Google reviews each photo before it shows, which can take 24 to 48 hours.⁴

Apronta does not send photos to Google. Its guide in the dashboard asks you to put your own on the listing too: the place, the work, the team. The ones on your Apronta page will do, except the examples.

Replying to reviews.

On a verified profile, open Read reviews, choose Reply beside a review, write and send. Google checks each reply against its content policies, usually within 10 minutes and sometimes up to 30 days. The reply shows as the business’s, not under your own name, the reviewer is told about it, and you can edit or delete it later.³

Google’s advice for replies: short and polite, about what the review says rather than the same thank-you to everyone, not promotional, and never with a reviewer’s private details. To ask for reviews, the profile gives a link and a QR code to share; whoever leaves one needs a Google account. Offering anything in exchange for a review is prohibited.^{10, 11}

On every plan, Apronta can ask for a review once, a few hours after a visit, through the Reviews add-on: paste your profile’s review link into it and the request takes customers straight there. Replying from Apronta is coming on Marca, once Google approves the connection. Until then, you reply on Google.

What is coming in Apronta.

Apronta’s connection to the Business Profile is built and waits for Google’s approval. Once Google approves it, you connect your profile in Apronta and choose what changes on it, row by row: your page’s address, your hours and the booking button. Nothing on the profile changes without your yes, and until then everything above is done by hand, on Google.