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97% of consumers look up a local business online before visiting it (BrightLocal, 2023). For a restaurant or bar anywhere, that makes Google Maps the busiest sign you own — and most operators leave it half-empty. This guide fixes that.
Key takeaways
When someone searches “restaurant Canggu”, “rooftop Thong Lo” or “brunch Dubai Marina”, the first thing they see is the local pack — the three venues Google judges most relevant. Roughly 70% of searchers click one of those three. For them, the rest of the results effectively do not exist.
Your Google Business Profile decides whether you are in that three. Not your budget, and not how long you have been open — how complete, current and active the profile is. That is true in every market we work in, from Bali to Dubai. The eight steps below are what move it.
If nobody has claimed the profile yet, that is step one. Go to business.google.com, find your venue and claim it. Google verifies you by postcard, SMS or video call, depending on what it offers you. Until you are verified, your edits are invisible to searchers and the profile barely ranks.
Complete profiles get 7× more profile views than incomplete ones (Google, 2024). Fill in the business name exactly as it appears on your façade, plus address, phone, website, opening hours and a description of up to 750 characters. Add the attributes too: terrace, Wi-Fi, wheelchair access, cards accepted.
Your primary category largely decides which searches you show up for in Maps. Be as specific as you can — 'Thai restaurant' outperforms 'restaurant'. Add secondary categories for the other things you are, like 'Takeout restaurant' or 'Sushi restaurant'. The wrong category quietly caps your visibility.
Profiles with more than 20 photos get 35% more website clicks and 42% more direction requests (Google, 2023). Upload the exterior, the interior, the food, the bar, the team and the atmosphere — in that order of priority. No stock. Use the same photography as your website so the brand reads as one thing everywhere.
More on photography for your website →Nothing annoys a guest more than arriving somewhere Google says is open and finding it shut. Check your regular hours monthly, and add special hours for holidays, closures and events. Google surfaces those exceptions automatically — but only if you enter them.
Reviews are the single biggest factor in local rankings (Moz Local Search Ranking Factors, 2023). Ask for them after a good experience — a QR code on the table, a follow-up message, or simply out loud. Reply to all of them, good and bad. It signals to Google and to guests that someone is paying attention.
Posts are short updates that appear inside your profile next to the search results. Use them for new dishes, seasonal menus, events or offers. Post at least twice a month — standard posts expire after seven days, event posts stay up longer. Businesses that post regularly see up to 35% more profile views.
The link between your profile and your website matters for local SEO. Your site must show exactly the same business name, address and phone number as the profile — one differing character costs you. Add LocalBusiness schema markup to the site while you are at it, for an extra signal.
More on local SEO for restaurants →An optimised profile and a technically sound website reinforce each other. The profile brings guests in through Maps; the website turns them into bookings. Businesses that have both in order are the ones that hold the local results.
It works the other way too: a perfectly tuned profile pointing at a slow, templated site with outdated information wastes everything the profile earned. The click is only half the conversion.
“Your Google profile gets guests to the digital front door. Your website decides whether they come in.”
For Checkly, Sukhumvit Thai Massage and Revasi we treated the profile and the website as one surface — same photography, same NAP data, same brand. That consistency is what moves local rankings, whichever city the venue is in. More on how we approach web design for hospitality.
We will review your Google Business Profile and your website for free, and show you what is missing and what it is costing you. No obligation.
Request a free reviewFrequently asked questions
Yes. Creating and managing a Google Business Profile costs nothing. You only pay if you run Google Ads campaigns through it. The profile itself — photos, posts, reviews, products — is free.
Postcard verification takes five to fourteen days. SMS or phone verification is often instant. Some businesses can verify by video call or through Google Search Console. Which options you get is up to Google.
Not directly — but how you respond helps. Google reads engagement: a business that replies consistently does better than one that ignores its reviews. A negative review answered well is a demonstration of your service, in public.
Yes. The profile pulls guests in through Maps; the website is what converts them. Anyone who clicks through decides whether to book based on what they find. A slow or dated site undoes the work the profile just did.
Monthly at minimum: check hours, add a Post, upload recent photos. Answer reviews weekly. Beyond that, update whenever the menu, location or hours change. Consistency and activity are what make a profile perform.
Same thing, renamed. Google retired the 'Google My Business' name in 2021; the product is now Google Business Profile and is managed directly from Search and Maps rather than a separate app.
