How to Show Up on Google Maps: The Way In, the Proof, the Category, and the Order

The bakery opened in March. In May, the owner asks his nephew to put the shop on Google Maps.

The nephew picks up his phone and types the bakery’s name with the city. The bakery is already there. Its name is misspelled, it has a photo a customer took, and it has no owner.

The scene is made up. The mechanism that produces it is written down in the Google Maps help.

The question “how do I show up on Google Maps” suggests signing up from scratch. The path has four stages: the way in, the proof that the business is yours, the category, and the order on the map. This piece follows all four, in the sequence they happen.

The way in: the map accepts places with no owner

Think of the map as a directory that anyone can fill in. A customer adds the bakery that was missing. The owner shows up later and asks for the keys to that listing. This is called claiming the profile.

Google Maps lets anyone add a missing place. It can be a landmark, a coffee shop, or another local business. The place shows publicly once it’s added. ² That is why your business can be on the map without you having done anything.

The same page keeps the two things apart. Adding a place puts a pin on the map. Managing hours, address, and photos takes a Business Profile, claimed and verified. ²

So the first step is a search on Maps, with the name and the city. ¹ It returns one of three situations: the listing doesn’t exist, it exists with no owner, or it already has a verified owner. What to do in each one is in questions 1 and 6 of the piece on a business that isn’t showing up on Google. Question 6 also explains why a second profile vanishes from the map.

This piece keeps the parts that diagnosis doesn’t need. If you are creating a profile from scratch, you start at business.google.com/add. ¹ Before that, you need a Google Account. The help suggests linking your company email address to it, to make the profile easier to manage. ⁴ Adding or claiming a business costs nothing. ¹

The help doesn’t describe each sign-up screen. It tells you to follow the on-screen instructions. I don’t describe screens from memory either. What it does require in writing is an address that is correct and meets the guidelines. ¹ Whether the address is shown or hidden depends on how you serve customers. The rules for each model are in the piece on SEO for local businesses.

When the listing already has another owner, you request ownership, and the owner has three days to respond. If they don’t, the help says you may have the option to claim the profile. ³ Keep that “may” in mind, because the same kind of verb comes back further down.

The proof: each method asks for something different

Google’s help on local ranking opens its list of tips with verification. Verifying tells Google that you’re authorized to represent the business. That makes the business more likely to show up in search results. ⁷

Google picks the method, and the rules for the wait are in question 2 of the same diagnosis. What that piece leaves out is each method, one by one. Each asks for its own preparation, and it pays to have it ready before you click. ⁴

Phone or text. You answer the call or open the text, then enter the code on your profile. Here is the detail that trips up a lot of people. An Interactive Voice Response system, the automated phone menu, won’t get the code. ⁴ If your business line goes to a recording with a menu, the code reaches nobody.

Email. You follow the steps in the message. It only works if you can use the email address shown on the verification screen. ⁴

Video recording. This is the option Google recommends when the business is eligible. ⁴ What to film depends on how you serve customers, and the list is in the same piece on local businesses.

Live video call. It happens only during your business hours, with you at the business and a Google support representative on the other end. ⁴ Have three kinds of proof ready. The sign outside, a nearby business, or a street sign. Your products, branded equipment, or the tools you work with. And an employee-only area, like the cash register or the storage room. The help even accepts using your keys to open the place. ⁴

Postcard. It isn’t available for all businesses. Most codes arrive within 14 days, and the code expires after 30. ⁴ If it is taking a while, don’t request another one. A new request invalidates the code already in the mail and makes the process longer. ⁴

There is also a shortcut for whoever already takes care of the website. In some cases, verification is instant, and the help’s example is a site already verified in Search Console. ⁴

The primary category decides which searches you enter

Think of a grocery store. The brown rice sits on the whole-grain shelf, inside the rice and pasta aisle. Anyone looking for the rice aisle walks past it. So does anyone looking for whole grains.

On a Business Profile, that shelf has a name. This is called the primary category. ⁵ And the specific shelf sits inside the general aisles, without you having to declare them.

The example is Google’s own. A business with “Pizza restaurant” as its primary category might show up for people searching for restaurants, Italian restaurants, or pizza. ⁵ The guidelines give another one. Choose “Golf Resort,” and Google implicitly includes “Resort Hotel,” “Hotel,” and “Golf Course.” ⁶ And the help says plainly that the categories you select affect your local ranking. ⁵

Four practical rules follow from this, all of them written by Google.

1. Choose the most specific category that describes the whole business. Instead of “Salon,” choose “Nail salon.” ^{5 6}
2. Don’t repeat the general one. It comes along with the specific one. ⁶
3. If the specific one doesn’t exist, go with a general one. You can’t create your own category. ⁵
4. Don’t use the category of a business that operates inside yours. The independently operated cafe inside a health club has its own profile, with its own category. ^{5 6}

The category also switches on features. A restaurant can add links for online orders, reservations, and menus. A health and beauty business can add a booking button. ⁵

It also talks to the rest of the web. The guidelines say Google can detect category information from your website and from mentions of your business across the web. ⁶ In my reading, the site and the category need to name the same kind of business.

You can change the category later. The help warns, though, that adding or editing a category may mean verifying the business again. ⁵ Choose carefully, and choose once.

The one-line test for getting the type right is in the piece on becoming the go-to business in your town. And the free way to see a competitor’s hidden categories is in the piece on the categories your competitor hides on Maps.

The order on the map, through what you control

With the profile verified and the right category, the business is on the map. Showing up ahead of the others for the person searching is a different calculation.

According to Google’s help, three words decide that calculation. Relevance, distance, and popularity, which the body of the page explains under the heading Prominence. ⁷ Read each one through what is in your hands.

Relevance. Does the profile match what the person searched for? To answer that, Google asks for complete and detailed business info. ⁷ The page lists what counts as complete. The category, the address when customers come to you, the hours, and details such as parking. ⁷

Distance is how far each business is from the person searching. If that person doesn’t share where they are, Google uses what it knows about their location. ⁷ That is why your position changes from one street corner to the next, and a grid scan draws that map.

Prominence. The page defines it as how well-known a business is. It adds that prominence is also based on how many websites link to the business and how many reviews it has. ⁷

Now the verb I asked you to keep in mind. Google writes that more reviews and positive ratings “can help” your local ranking. ⁷ It belongs to the same family as the “may” in the ownership help. ³

Both verbs describe a possibility. When a list of tips turns that “can help” into a rule, open Google’s help page and read the verb again.

The article on the three factors explains why a competitor farther away shows up first. It covers the Google patent that unpacks the word prominence. Followed the whole path and the business is still missing? Go back to the six questions of the diagnosis mentioned at the start.

The path on one sheet

From today on, when someone asks how to show up on Maps, the answer has four stages. The way in, the proof, the category, and the order, in that sequence.

Take a sheet of paper and write four lines.

1. Way in: the listing doesn’t exist, exists with no owner, or has a verified owner.
2. Proof: the method the profile offers and the preparation it asks for.
3. Category: the most specific one that describes the whole business, with the general ones that come along.
4. Order: what the profile is missing for relevance, and who talks about you outside it.

Fill in the third line first, because it is the choice that costs the most to change later. Write what your business is, as specifically as you can. Then type that word in the “Primary category” box on your profile and read the whole list that shows up. ⁵