Google Business Profile optimization: what the data says

Your Google Business Profile — formerly Google My Business — is the free listing that appears on Google Maps and in Search when someone looks for your business or for a service near them: name, address, opening hours, phone number, photos, reviews. In searches with local intent, like «plumber near me» or «restaurant in Catania», it is often the first thing the customer sees, before any website. And it is increasingly a source for AI too: when someone asks ChatGPT or Google «who do you recommend in Catania for…», many of the businesses named come from these profiles.

What really matters: the study’s data

In October 2026 I published a study on what gets a local business recommended by AI: 352 questions put to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google across 23 business categories in Catania (Sicily, Italy) and its surrounding towns, compared with 1,353 Google profiles and 810 websites. The statistical model measures each factor holding the others equal. For anyone looking after a profile, this is the order of importance:

No single factor makes the difference; together they do. For a typical business, the estimated probability of being cited by at least two engines goes from 5% (30 reviews, rating under 4.8, no website, beyond tenth place on Maps) to 16% by adding its own website, to 29% with a rating of at least 4.8 and 200 reviews, up to 60% with a top-three position on Maps and a presence in four searches of its category.

An honest caveat: these are associations, not proof of cause, and they hold for Catania and its province. The strongest factors match those found in US studies, but read the exact numbers as an order of magnitude.

How to create your profile

• Sign in with a Google account that belongs to the business (preferably not a personal one) and open the Business Profile page.
• Search for your business: if a profile already exists, created by someone else or by Google, claim it instead of creating a new one, so you avoid duplicates. A claimed profile has about 1.8 times the odds of being cited.
• Choose the primary category: it is the choice that weighs most on when you appear. Pick the most specific one («Dental clinic», not «Doctor»).
• Set a location or a service area: if customers come to you, the address; if you go to them, hide the address and list the areas you serve.
• Add the phone number and website, the same ones you use everywhere. The website is the field that weighs most in the data: a profile with no website was cited by at least two engines in 10% of cases, one with its own website in 30%.
• Verify the profile: Google offers one or more methods — phone, email, a short video of the business or a postcard — depending on the type of business. Until it is verified, the profile is not fully active.

How to optimize your Google Business Profile

Google explains that local ranking depends on three factors: relevance (how well the profile matches what is searched), distance and prominence (how well known the business is, including through reviews and online mentions). You can’t change distance; the rest you can.

• Categories: a precise primary one and a few secondary ones for the services you really offer, not the ones you wish you did. Every true category makes you appear in more searches, and after the website that is the strongest profile factor in the data: businesses that appear in four or more searches of their category are cited 48% of the time, those in a single one 15%.
• Description: up to 750 characters to say what you do, for whom and where. The first lines are the ones people read.
• Opening hours always right, including holidays and special closures: a customer who finds you closed doesn’t come back, and Google knows it.
• Services or products listed one by one, with a short description, and the same ones you write on your website. The more needs in your category you cover, the more searches you appear in.
• Real, recent photos: exterior (so people recognise you), interior, team, finished work. They serve customers; in the data they don’t move AI citations, so they are not the priority.
• Attributes: accessibility, accepted payments, available services. They answer questions that would otherwise reach your phone.
• Updates: offers, news, events. They don’t work miracles, but they show a business that is alive.

Reviews

Reviews are the most visible prominence signal and the one that decides the phone call. The study also shows how many you need to be recommended by AI. Share of profiles cited by at least two engines, by number of reviews:

Holding the rest equal, every doubling of the number of reviews is worth about 19% more, up to around 200; after that the advantage stops. On rating, what counts is clearing 4.8, but a 5.0 does no better than a 4.8: 5.0 profiles are often profiles with few reviews. ChatGPT is the most sensitive engine: in its web searches it often adds «reviews» and reports rating and review count next to the names, and with a rating of at least 4.8 the odds of being cited triple. Customers reason the same way: in the US, 47% won’t choose a business with fewer than 20 reviews (BrightLocal, 2026). A simple, steady method works:

• Ask every satisfied customer, with the short review link you find in the profile. The best moment is right after the job.
• Reply to all of them, positive and negative. To negative ones calmly and on the merits: future customers read the reply too.
• Don’t buy reviews and don’t offer discounts in exchange: it is against Google’s policies and, in many countries, consumer-protection law, and filtered or removed reviews do more harm than missing ones.

Mistakes that lose rankings (or the profile)

• Keywords in the name: «Rossi Plumber Emergency Service Catania» instead of the real name breaks the guidelines and can get the profile suspended.
• Addresses that aren’t allowed: virtual offices, PO boxes, the address of a coworking space where you don’t really work.
• Duplicate profiles for the same location: reviews get split and Google gets confused.
• Details that differ from your website: name, address and phone number must match everywhere, website and directories included.
• An abandoned profile: old hours, years-old photos, reviews with no reply.
• No website, or a website that doesn’t talk about your services: according to the data, this is the mistake that costs the most.
• Chasing an «optimized» name: in the study, profiles whose name states a real specialty are chosen more for that specialty, but a long name has no effect on its own. Don’t add words to the name: the guidelines forbid it.

Your profile and AI answers

Each engine uses different sources, which is why a single lever isn’t enough. From the 180 questions about Catania:

• Google AI Mode uses profiles as a source in two answers out of three. AI Overviews on a local search, when they appear, are also lists built from profiles: yours is the unavoidable starting point.
• ChatGPT behaves like a Maps reader: rating, reviews and top positions all count.
• Gemini looks mostly at the website: having your own site multiplies the odds of being cited by five, while rating doesn’t matter.
• Perplexity works from portals and directories, which it cites in 98% of answers: in Italy MioDottore for health, TripAdvisor and TheFork for restaurants, Houzz for architects and so on. If your industry has a portal, being on it counts: for healthcare professionals a MioDottore profile linked to the Google profile worked as well as a website.

So the profile works mostly for Google and ChatGPT, the website for Gemini, the directories for Perplexity. For the wider picture of getting cited, see the page on generative engine optimisation.

Profile and website work together

The profile brings the first contact; the website confirms it. Whoever clicks «Website» from the profile should land on a page consistent with what they just saw — same services, same area, same contact details — and a quick way to call or write. The study’s data says what that page should have:

• A website of your own, not just a social page. With only a Facebook or Instagram page linked, the difference can’t be told apart from chance.
• The city name in the homepage title. More than double the odds of being cited, everything else equal.
• Your services written on the homepage: a business that mentions a service has almost four times the odds of being proposed when someone asks for exactly that service, and a dedicated page for each service adds another +85%.
• Real text on the homepage, readable without running code: every doubling of the text is worth about 28% more.

What moves nothing in the data, everything else equal: social links on the site, a blog, WhatsApp, online booking, an llms.txt file, number of pages. LocalBusiness structured data points the right way but stays borderline on significance. The full work on profile, website and local citations is described on the local SEO page.