Your Google Business Profile does more work than your website. It is what appears when someone searches your name, it feeds the Map Pack, and it is increasingly what AI assistants read when deciding whether to mention you.
It is also, on most cleaning businesses, about a third complete. Set aside twenty minutes and go through this properly. Open your profile on a laptop, not the phone app — more of the fields are visible.
Name, exactly as it is
Your business name field should contain your business name and nothing else. No city, no services, no "Best". It is against Google's guidelines, any competitor can report it, and the suspension lands on the asset you can least afford to lose.
Check it matches your website, your invoices and your other listings character for character. "Bright & Clean LLC" and "Bright and Clean" are two businesses as far as a machine is concerned.
Categories
Primary category first, most specific true option. For most residential operators that is House Cleaning Service, not the broader Cleaning Service. Then add secondaries for what you genuinely also do — Carpet Cleaning Service, Window Cleaning Service, Commercial Cleaning Service.
Do not add a category for work you would turn down. It brings you calls you cannot serve and reviews from people you disappointed.
Service area, or address, not both carelessly
If customers do not come to you, hide the street address and set a service area. A visible address you do not actually receive customers at is a guideline problem and it skews your distance signal to a place that does not matter.
List the specific cities and neighbourhoods you serve, up to twenty, and be honest about the edges.
Hours, including the ones that surprise people
Set real hours. Add special hours for holidays — a profile that says open on a day you are closed generates exactly one thing, and it is a bad review.
If you answer the phone outside your working hours, say so in the description. "Office hours 8–5, calls answered until 8pm" is a differentiator, and a lot of businesses have it and never mention it.
Services, individually
This section is usually empty and it is one of the strongest relevance signals available. Add each service as its own entry with its own description and, where you can, a price or a range. "Move-Out Cleaning — from $280, includes inside cabinets, oven and fridge" is worth more than a hundred words of general copy.
The description
750 characters, written for a person. Who you are, where you work, what you do, what is different about you. If you are accredited, say so here and link your verification page — it is a checkable claim, which most business descriptions are not.
Photos
Logo, cover, and then real photos: team, vehicles, work in progress, completed rooms. Aim for at least ten and add a couple every month. Geotagging photos does nothing; taking them yourself does.
Q&A
Scroll to the questions section. Is there anything there? Is any of it wrong? Anyone can answer a question about your business, including someone who has no idea.
Post your own common questions and answer them. Six is plenty to start.
Reviews: read the last ten
Not the score — the text, and your replies. Every review should have a reply, including the good ones, and the replies should sound like a person rather than a template. A row of identical "Thank you for your feedback!" responses reads worse than no replies at all.
If there is a bad one you never answered, answer it now. Late is better than never, and the audience for that reply is not the reviewer, it is the next person reading.
Messaging and booking
If messaging is switched on, someone has to actually watch it. Google measures response time and a profile that ignores messages is worse than one with messaging off. Decide honestly which you are.
The last check: search your own name
Open a private window, search your business name, and read the whole panel as a stranger would. Wrong phone number? Old address? A photo from four years ago? Fix what you find, and put a note in your calendar to do this again in three months.