Google Maps for your shop: the listing nobody fills in properly

Try this. Grab your phone, open Google Maps and search for "gift shop" or "clothing alterations" in your town. What comes up there, with its stars, its photos and its "Directions" button, is the shop window more people see of your shop. More than the real one. And most small shops leave it half done: no opening hours, three blurry photos and a name that isn't even theirs any more. Today I'll show you how to fill it in properly, step by step, with Google's rules in front of us.

In short: your Google Maps listing (Google Business Profile) is free and it's the first thing people nearby see when they look you up. To show up, verify it, use your real name, the exact address, a very specific primary category, your real hours, good photos, and reply to every review.

What Google looks at to show you (or not)

I'm not making this up, Google's own help pages explain it: to rank local results it looks at three things. Relevance (whether your listing matches what the person is looking for), distance (how close you are to them) and prominence (how well known your shop is, which shows in reviews and in links pointing to your website). And it warns of something worth knowing: you can't pay to rank higher in those results.

You can't change the distance. The other two, you can. And almost everything that moves them is inside the listing.

1. The name: the one on your sign, not a word more

The temptation is to write "Lola's Haberdashery, cheap alterations town centre". Don't. Google's rules ask for your real name, the one on your sign, your website and your paperwork, with no slogans, no phone numbers and no filler words. Stuffing keywords into the name is one of the quickest ways to get your listing suspended.

And a warning I give you with affection because I've been through it: changing a listing's name isn't always instant. With BARRONVISUAL, Google kept showing an old name for months even though the dashboard already had the right one. It was finally fixed by writing to their support team. If it happens to you, don't drive yourself mad changing it ten times: check everything else is consistent and ask for help.

2. The address: exact, down to the floor

Google asks for a correct and precise address and, if you show it, a permanent sign with your shop's name at that address. If you work from home or visit your customers, the right move is to hide the address and set the area you serve.

Another lesson I learned the hard way, by waiting: the BARRONVISUAL listing was missing the floor number. It sounds trivial, but when the address doesn't match what's on the street, Google gets suspicious. Write your address exactly the same on your listing, your website and your social media. The same, letter by letter.

3. The category: one primary, and very specific

This is where nearly everyone goes wrong, by overdoing it. Google allows one primary category and several additional ones, but its own rules ask you to use as few as possible and the most specific ones. If you run a haberdashery, your primary category is "Haberdashery", not "Store". Additional ones only if you really do them (clothing alterations, for example).

• +Choose the primary category thinking about what your customer would type into the search bar.
• +Add two or three additional ones at most, and only for real services.
• +Don't use categories to sneak in individual products: that's what the products and services sections are for.

4. Opening hours: the real ones, bank holidays included

Nothing is more annoying than going to a shop Google says is open and finding the shutter down. Put your real hours and, above all, update bank holidays, time off and special days (Christmas, sales, local festivals). Google has a special hours section for exactly that. If you close for a season, you can mark the listing as temporarily closed instead of leaving hours you don't keep.

5. The description: clear, no offers

You have up to 750 characters, but what people see without tapping "more" is the beginning, so that's where the important bit goes: what you sell, what makes you different and where you are. Google's rules forbid links, promotional prices or offers like "50% off" in the description. Offers belong in the listing's posts.

6. Photos: your second shop window

Google's help recommends adding photos and videos, and in a shop it makes the biggest difference. At the very least, I would upload these:

• +The shopfront in daylight, so people recognise you when they arrive.
• +The interior, in natural light and tidy.
• +Your star product, up close.
• +You or your team at work: people buy from people.
• +Your shop window every time you change it.

No stock photos and no renders: they have to be of your actual shop. And refresh them every season, because a listing with photos from five years ago says a lot, and not in a good way.

7. Reviews: ask for them and reply to all of them

Google recommends replying to reviews, and I'd add: to all of them, the bad ones too, politely and without arguing. A calm reply to a complaint convinces readers more than ten five-star reviews in a row. To get reviews, ask at the right moment (when someone leaves happy) and make it easy with a QR code on the counter linking to your listing. What you can't do is buy them or make them up.

The order I'd do it in

If you only had one afternoon today, this would be my order: verify the listing, fix the name and address, choose the right primary category, add your hours and bank holidays, upload ten good photos and reply to pending reviews. All free. Then, once a month, ten minutes to keep it alive. And if you also want your website and your listing to help each other, I explain how in the post on SEO for small shops.