Most small-business owners set up their Google Business Profile years before they ever ran an ad. It's the free listing that shows your name, hours, phone number and reviews when someone looks you up on Google or Maps.
What many owners don't know is that the listing and their Google Ads account are separate until someone links them. This chapter covers what changes when they're linked, what to fix in the listing first, and what a store that sells only online does instead, since Google won't give that kind of store a listing.
All 12 Small Advertisers We Checked Have a Google Business Listing, Even the Ones That Sell Nationwide.
Every one of the 12 small businesses behind this guide has a Google Business listing. That's no surprise for the six that serve one town: the handyman, the house cleaner, the mobile detailer, the hair salon, the yoga studio and the music school. But the other six sell well beyond their town, and they have listings too: the three online stores, the CPA firm that works statewide, the consultant and the online reading tutor.
The listings vary a lot. Review counts run from 18 at the low end to 356 at the high end, and half of the 12 have more than 70. Four of the 12 hide their street address, which is what Google asks of a business that doesn't serve customers at its own address.
The profile costs nothing. Google's own getting-started page says you can manage how your business shows up on Maps and Search "at no charge." It's the one piece of Google marketing every business in our sample had already done.
Plenty of owners treat the listing as a one-time chore: claim it, add a photo, forget it. A listing that stays current, with today's hours, recent photos of the work and replies to reviews, is worth the upkeep whether or not you ever link an ad to it, because it's often the first thing a stranger sees after they search your name.
The listing does its own work without any ads. People find it when they search your name or browse Maps, and they read your reviews there. The question for this chapter is what happens when you connect that listing to the ads you pay for.
An Unlinked Google Business Profile Keeps Your Search Ads Off the Map, Even When Your Free Listing Shows Up There.
Google groups its ads that show a business's location under the name Local Ads. According to its help page, they can put your star rating, address, phone number, photos and opening hours right in the ad, and much of that comes straight from the profile you link.
Then comes the condition. To be eligible for Local Ads, an advertiser has to have location assets linked at the account or campaign level, and location assets come from the Business Profile you link. Without that link, your free listing can still appear on Maps on its own, but your Search ads don't get the map treatment.
With the link in place, Google lists several places your ad can appear on Maps: as a square pin on the map itself, standing out from the usual round pins, and in the results when someone searches inside Google Maps. Back on the regular results page, the linked ad can add a line with your street or how far away you are. Someone who taps that line lands on a page about your business with its hours, phone number, photos and a button for directions.
David Smania, BrandRocket's founder, puts Maps at the bottom of the funnel, right beside the searches that are ready to buy. In one of his guide videos he describes the goal as showing up on Google Maps whenever someone searches there, "especially on mobile devices," when that person is close to your location. A phone search for a service nearby is about as ready to buy as a search gets.
Linking itself is free. Clicks on the new spots it opens up, like a tap for directions or a call, are billed like any other ad click, so they come out of the same budget.
Linking takes a few minutes. When you set up a new Google Ads account, Google offers any Business Profile it detects for your business. For an account that already exists, go to Assets, add a Location asset, choose your locations, and pick the profile that matches your business. Use the same Google login that manages the profile, or ask whoever does.
A Service-Area Business Can Hide Its Address on Its Google Business Profile and Still Run Local Ads.
Four of the 12 businesses in our sample hide their street address: the handyman, the house cleaner, the online tutor and one of the online stores. For the first two, that's exactly what Google asks. Its help page tells a business that doesn't serve customers at its address to remove the address and set a service area instead.
Hiding the address doesn't rule out local advertising. Google's Local Ads page says the format is for businesses "with a physical location or service area." A handyman working from home can link a profile with a service area, and a salon with a storefront can link one with its address showing.
What a service-area business does need is a careful service area and careful ad locations. Chapter 9 covered setting your ads to reach people in the area, and the Local Businesses guide goes further into service areas, radius targeting and businesses with more than one location.
Five of 12 Small Businesses Post Review Counts on Their Websites That Don't Match Their Google Listing.
The listing feeds the ad, so whatever is wrong in the listing shows up in the ad too. We compared each listing with its business's website, and the two disagreed more often than we expected.
The most common problem was review numbers. Five of the 12 businesses show review figures on their sites that don't match what their Google listing shows. Some are simply stale: a site that says 96 Google reviews when the listing now has 125. Others round up past the truth, like a site claiming more five-star reviews than the listing actually holds. One online store shows a sitewide rating far above the score on its Google listing, which tells a careful shopper something doesn't add up.
Review counts weren't the only gap. Across the 12, we also found:
- a listing showing a different phone number from the website (two businesses, one of them a broken seven-digit number on the listing)
- listing hours that disagree with the website (two businesses: one listing says open 24 hours while the site's own code lists daytime hours, and one listing shows weekday afternoons while the site promises mornings, evenings and weekends)
- listings with no hours at all (two businesses)
- a listing filed under a category that doesn't describe the business
- listing names padded with search words the business doesn't otherwise use (two businesses)
None of these is unusual, and every one is a few minutes' fix. But each matters more once ads pull from the listing. An ad that shows the wrong hours sends a customer to a locked door. A phone number that doesn't connect costs you the call you just paid for.
Before you link, open your listing and your website side by side and check five things: business name, phone number, hours, address or service area, and the review figures you quote. Make them match, and keep the review numbers on your site either current or general. "Rated 4.9 on Google" ages better than "96 Google reviews."
Online-Only Stores Can't Get a Google Business Profile. Their Ad Star Ratings Come From Google Customer Reviews.
Not every small business can have a listing. Google's rule is that only businesses that make face-to-face contact with customers are eligible. A store that sells only online, with no shop customers can visit and no visits to customers, isn't eligible. Google points those businesses to Google Ads instead.
A store like that still has a way to show stars beside its Search ads: store ratings. Google builds them from Google Customer Reviews, a free program run through Merchant Center that collects reviews after an order arrives, from approved third-party review sites, and from Google's own shopping research. Google says it shows a rating once it has collected enough unique reviews from the past 24 months, and that you don't need to run Shopping ads or have a Merchant Center account for a rating to appear on Search. On average, Google says, store ratings lift clickthrough rate on text ads by 2%.
So an online store's version of this chapter is different. Instead of linking a profile, make sure every order gets a review request, through Google Customer Reviews or a review service Google works with, and let the store rating build over time. The Ecommerce guide's chapter on seller ratings covers how a store collects enough reviews to show stars, and the rest of the Ecommerce guide covers Merchant Center and Shopping ads.
If your store also has a real place customers visit, such as a shop, a studio or a pickup counter with set hours, that changes things. Then a listing is allowed, and everything above applies. That's the likely story behind the three online stores in our sample that do have listings; whether each one meets Google's face-to-face rule is between the store and Google.
Next: AI Max Lets Google Pick Your Searches and Write Your Headlines.
Your listing is linked, and your ads can show on the map. Chapter 13 takes on AI Max, the newest setting Google offers for Search campaigns, and why a small account switches it on last.
Every chapter so far, from tracking and budget to keywords, bidding, ad copy, launch settings and YouTube, is on the guide's home page.
When we take over an account through Google Ads management, checking the Business Profile against the website is part of the first week, before the profile gets linked. Doing it yourself? Open your Google listing tonight next to your website and compare the phone number, the hours and the review count. If any of the three don't match, fix the listing first.
