I run paid search for a living. Google Ads is my world, and I’ve managed multi-millions in monthly spend for brands like Sprint and Boost Mobile before I went independent to work with service businesses. So you might find it strange that one of the first things I tell almost every pest control operator, mover, or chiropractor who gets on a call with me is this: before we spend a dollar on ads, go fix your Google Business Profile.
Why would the ads guy send you to a free tool first? Because it’s the single best deal in local marketing, and most service businesses are leaving it half-empty. Let me explain what GMB actually is, clear up the naming mess that confuses everyone, and walk you through how to set it up the right way, in plain language, the way I’d explain it to a client on a strategy call.
What does GMB stand for?
GMB stands for Google My Business. It was Google’s free tool for controlling how your business shows up on Google Search and Google Maps.
Here’s the catch, and it trips up almost everyone I talk to: Google My Business doesn’t exist under that name anymore. In November 2021, Google renamed the product to Google Business Profile, and the transition wrapped up through 2022. The old standalone Google My Business app was retired in 2022, so there’s no app to download.
So when someone says “GMB” in 2026, they mean Google Business Profile. Same tool, same reviews, same data. Only the name and the place you manage it changed. Most people, including plenty of marketers, still say “GMB” out of pure habit, and you’ll keep seeing the old name floating around the internet for years. I’ll use both names in this guide so you know you’re in the right place no matter which one you typed into Google.
Don’t let the name change throw you. If you find an old tutorial from 2020 that says “log into the Google My Business app,” that advice is stale. The tool moved. I’ll show you where it went.
What a Google Business Profile actually is, in plain terms
Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that controls how your business appears when someone searches for you, or for what you sell, with local intent. “Local intent” is just a fancy way of saying somebody wants something near them right now: “pest control near me,” “chiropractor open Saturday,” “movers in Phoenix.”
When someone runs a search like that, your profile is what powers your appearance in:
- The Map Pack. That block of three business listings with a little map that sits at the top of the results, usually above everything else. This is prime real estate, and it’s free.
- Google Maps. When someone opens Maps and searches for a service nearby, your profile is what shows up (or doesn’t).
- The knowledge panel. The box that appears when someone searches your business by name, showing your hours, phone, photos, and reviews.
- AI answers. This is the newest and, honestly, the most important shift. When someone asks Google’s AI or a tool like ChatGPT a local question, those answers increasingly pull from Business Profile data.
Think of your Business Profile as the local-search equivalent of getting your website indexed by Google. Google itself treats your profile as a core way to establish your business details across Search, the knowledge panel, and Maps. Until it’s set up and verified, your business is basically invisible on the surfaces where local buyers actually look. And these are buyers with their wallet already out. Someone searching “emergency plumber near me” isn’t doing research. They have a flooded kitchen and they’re going to call one of the top three results. You want to be one of those three.
What information lives in your profile
Your profile is a structured record. Google reads every field to decide whether, where, and how prominently to show you. Here’s what it holds:
- Business name, address, and phone number (the industry calls this “NAP”)
- Hours, including special hours for holidays
- Categories, both a primary and secondary ones
- A business description
- Attributes, like “wheelchair accessible,” “women-owned,” or “free estimates”
- Photos and videos
- Products and services you offer
- Posts, which are short updates, offers, and event announcements
- Reviews and your replies to them
- Questions and answers from the public
The more complete and accurate all of this is, the better Google can match you to the right searches and the more reasons it has to trust you enough to show you high.
Why I tell service businesses to fix this before touching ads
I make my money running paid campaigns, so believe me when I say this is not a pitch to spend less with me. It’s just the honest math. For a local service business, a Google Business Profile is the highest-leverage free asset you own. Here’s why it matters so much for the kind of businesses I work with.
It captures buyers at the exact moment of intent. The person searching “termite treatment near me” is ready to book. The Map Pack is often the first thing they see and tap, and it’s free to appear there. If your ads and your profile both show up, you own even more of that screen. This is the same high-intent moment I chase with Google Search Ads, where your paid listing catches the buyer at the top while your profile earns the free spot right below it.
It builds trust before anyone clicks. Reviews, photos, and current hours tell a potential customer you’re a real, active, legitimate business. A profile with three reviews from 2019 and no photos tells them the opposite, and they’ll scroll to your competitor. I’ve watched businesses double their call volume without spending a cent on ads, just by getting the profile complete and steadily collecting reviews. That gap between what’s possible and what most owners actually have set up is exactly the problem I built my practice around.
It feeds the AI answers, and that’s changing fast. This is the part most owners haven’t caught up to yet. AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries at the top of Google, now appear on the majority of local searches, and they read straight from Business Profiles. Same with tools like ChatGPT when people ask for local recommendations. A complete, accurate profile matters more in 2026 than it did two years ago, not less, because it’s now feeding both the traditional results and the AI summaries. This is exactly what I mean when I talk about AI visibility, or AEO, on my SEO page. Your Business Profile is the foundation of it for a local business.
It makes your ads work harder. Here’s the paid-and-organic connection I care about. When someone clicks your Local Service Ad or your Search ad and then checks you out, where do they land? Often on your Google Business Profile. If it’s stacked with good reviews and recent photos, your ad budget converts better. A weak profile quietly wastes the money you’re spending on ads. Paid for today, organic for tomorrow, and the profile ties them together.
How to set up a Google Business Profile the right way
Setup is straightforward. Verification takes a little patience. Here’s the sequence I walk clients through.
1. Sign in with the right Google account. Use a business account you’ll keep control of for years, not a personal Gmail you share with a former employee. I’ve seen businesses lose access to their own profile because it was tied to somebody who left the company. Get this right on day one.
2. Search for your business first. Google often auto-generates listings, so an unclaimed or duplicate version of your business may already exist. Search for your name before you create anything. If a listing exists, you’ll claim it rather than make a new one. Google walks through the exact steps for this in its official add or claim your Business Profile guide, and yes, it’s free to claim.
3. Claim or create, then enter your core info. Name, primary category, address or service area, phone, website. If you go to customers rather than customers coming to you (like most movers and pest control companies), set it up as a service-area business and define the areas you cover.
4. Verify. Google has to confirm you actually control the business. Video verification is now the default, where you record a short clip showing your location, your vehicles, your equipment, or your signage. Postcard and phone verification still show up in some cases. Google lays out every available method in its verify your business documentation. This step can take a few days, so start it early. Nothing you do to the profile goes fully live until you’re verified.
5. Fill out every single field. This is where most businesses quit too early. Don’t stop at the minimum Google lets you get away with. Add your hours, a real description, your full list of services, and photos right away. An empty profile ranks like an empty profile.
How to optimize your profile so it actually ranks
Setting up gets you in the game. Optimizing is how you climb into that top-three Map Pack. These are the moves that consistently move the needle, in rough order of impact.
Nail your primary category. This is one of the strongest ranking factors in all of local search. Pick the category that most precisely describes your core business, not a vague one. A “pest control service” should not be listed as “home services.” Then add secondary categories for everything else you do.
Keep your NAP identical everywhere. Your name, address, and phone number need to match exactly across your website, your profile, and every directory that lists you. “Suite 200” in one place and “Ste 200” in another is the kind of small inconsistency that quietly drags you down. This is what people mean by citation consistency, and it matters more for local than most owners expect.
Collect reviews, constantly, and reply to every one. Volume, recency, and your responses all feed your ranking and your conversion rate. Build a simple habit of asking every happy customer for a review, and reply to each one, good or bad, in a calm and professional tone. How you respond to a negative review tells future customers more than the review itself.
Post regularly. Posts about offers, events, and updates keep your profile active and hand Google fresh signals. For a service business, seasonal offers work great, think a mosquito-season promo for pest control or a moving-season discount.
Add photos on a schedule. Profiles with fresh, real photos get more engagement, and engagement feeds rankings. Real photos of your team, trucks, and completed jobs beat stock images every time. Set a reminder to add a few every month.
Fill out products and services in detail. Every service you list gives Google another structured hook to match you to searches, and these show up directly on your profile where customers can see them.
What’s new in GMB for 2026
Google never leaves this product alone, and a few recent changes are worth knowing about:
- An AI “Suggest description” writer is live, helping you draft your business description. Useful as a starting point, but edit it so it sounds like you.
- A Gemini integration announced in June 2026 lets you ask about your performance and draft review responses conversationally. It’s rolling out gradually.
- The old public Q&A is being replaced by an AI-driven “Ask” experience that answers questions using your profile data. One more reason your profile needs to be complete and accurate: the AI is answering for you now.
- AI Overviews now dominate local search results, which raises the stakes on everything above.
The pattern across all of it: Google is increasingly reading your profile with AI and presenting it in AI-generated formats. The businesses that keep their profiles complete, accurate, and active are the ones that win those placements. The ones that set it and forget it get left out of the answer entirely.
Multi-location businesses: the one exception
If you run several locations, you still get a web dashboard, now called Business Profile Manager, for making bulk edits across all your profiles at once. Single-location businesses manage everything right in Search and Maps, but larger operations keep the centralized tool. If you’re a multi-location service business, this is where you’ll live.
Straight answers to the questions I get asked most
Is Google My Business the same as Google Business Profile? Yes. Two names, one free tool. Google renamed it in late 2021 and everything carried over untouched.
Do I need to download an app? No. The standalone app was retired in 2022. You manage everything inside Google Search and Maps now.
Is it free? Completely. Creating, verifying, and managing your profile costs nothing. That’s what makes it the best deal in local marketing.
Where do I edit my profile now? Search your business name in Google while signed in to the owner account, and the editing controls appear right above the results.
Should I do this instead of Google Ads? Not instead of, alongside. Your profile is the free long-game asset that keeps working. Ads are how you turn on leads today, especially before your profile has built up momentum. For most service businesses, the answer is both, working together, which is exactly the approach I take with clients.
Where this fits in the bigger picture
Here’s how I think about it for the service businesses I work with. Your Google Business Profile is the foundation of local SEO, the free, compounding side of showing up. Google Ads and Local Service Ads are the paid side that turn on leads immediately. You want both, because together they let you own more of the results page, and you stop renting every single visit forever. If you’re curious about the full mix of campaign types I use to turn on that paid side, I break it all down on what I run.
If you take one thing from this guide: go claim and complete your profile this week. It’s free, it’s the highest-leverage local asset you own, and in an era where AI is reading it to answer questions for you, a complete profile matters more than ever. Set it up fully, verify it, keep it accurate, collect reviews relentlessly, and stay active. That combination is what turns a listing into a steady stream of booked jobs.
And if you want a second set of eyes on how your profile, your organic presence, and your ads all fit together, that’s exactly the kind of thing I sort out on a free strategy call. Take a look at the ways we can work together, and I’ll give you the honest read, even if the answer is that you don’t need me yet.