How to Add Your Business to Google and Google Maps

If your business isn’t on Google Maps, you’re missing the place many customers look first. Adding it is free and you can do it yourself. These steps come from Google’s own help pages, read on November 1, 2026. Button names can change.

Before you start

• You need a Google Account. Use one the business controls, not an employee’s personal one.
• Your business has to qualify. Google lists who is eligible. Online-only businesses with no in-person contact generally don’t.
• Your address has to be real and meet Google’s guidelines. If you go to your customers instead, you can show a service area rather than an address.

If your business isn’t on Google yet

1. Go to business.google.com/add.
2. Click Add your business to Google.
3. Follow the steps to add your name, category, address or service area, phone and website.
4. Choose a verification option and follow the steps.

If a listing already exists

Someone, or Google itself, may have created one. To claim it:

1. Open Google Maps on your computer.
2. Search for your business’s name and city, and select it.
3. Select Claim this business, then Manage now.
4. Choose a verification option.

If someone else already verified the profile and you’re authorized to manage the business, you can request ownership from the current owner.

How verification works

Google decides which methods you get, based on your business type, public information, region and hours, and you can’t change them. They can include phone or text, email, a video recording, a live video call or mail. Some businesses need more than one. Google recommends video when you’re eligible.

Reviews take up to five business days, and you’ll get an email when you’re verified.

What to fill in first

A verified profile with nothing in it won’t earn calls. In this order:

1. Categories: your primary category matters most. Pick what you are, not what you wish you ranked for.
2. Services: list each one, with a short description.
3. Hours and service area: right from day one, including holidays.
4. Phone and website: the numbers you actually answer.
5. Photos: your work, your team and your place.
6. Description: what you do and where, in plain words.

Common mistakes

• Using a P.O. box or a virtual office as your address.
• Stuffing cities or keywords into your business name.
• Creating a second profile for the same location.
• Letting an agency own your profile. Make sure you stay the owner and they stay a manager you can remove.

After it’s live

The profile is only the start. Reviews, photos and a website that matches it are what move you up the map. We wrote how we tune up a profile here, and local SEO is the monthly work that follows.