How to set up Google Business Profile for your practice

Four things to decide before you create the profile

• Which Google account owns it. Use an account the practice controls, ideally on your practice email, not a receptionist's personal Gmail. Add other people as managers later, so access doesn't leave with a member of staff.
• Whether a profile already exists. Search your practice name and town on Google Maps. If one exists, claim it or request ownership rather than making a second.
• Your real name. The one on your sign, letterhead and website. Nothing added.
• Whether patients come to you. This decides whether you show an address or a service area. It has its own section below.

One group can't have a profile at all. Google's guidelines say a Business Profile is for a business that has a location customers can visit or that travels to customers. A therapist or nutritionist who only works online doesn't meet either test. Your website and directory listings are the places to put that effort instead.

Setting up a Google Business Profile, step by step

1. On a computer, sign in to the Google account you chose and go to business.google.com. Select the option to add or create a business.
2. Type your practice name. If it appears in the suggestions, select it. If Google says someone else has already verified it, request ownership from there.
3. Search for your primary category and pick one from the list. You can add more later.
4. Say whether you have a location customers can visit. If patients come to you, select Yes and enter the address or place the pin. If you only visit patients, select No and enter your service areas.
5. Add a phone number and your website. Use the number patients should ring, not a central call centre.
6. Finish, then choose a verification option. You can verify straight away or come back to it.
7. Once verified, complete the rest: hours, services, description, booking link and photos.

Read Google's guidelines for representing your business before you start. Most suspensions come from breaking one without realising.

Choosing categories for a health practice

Your primary category shapes which searches you appear in, and Google says the categories you select affect your local ranking. Its rule is to pick categories that complete the sentence "this business is a", not "this business has a", and to use as few as describe the core of what you do.

• Be specific. Type the most precise word for what you are and pick from what appears. A physio clinic might be offered Physiotherapist or Physical therapy clinic. An aesthetics clinic might choose between options such as Skin care clinic and Medical spa. Google adds and renames categories, so the list you see is the only authority.
• Services aren't categories. An osteopath who also offers massage shouldn't add a massage category. List massage as a service instead.
• Another business inside yours gets its own profile. If an independent Pilates studio rents space in your physio clinic, it needs its own profile. You don't add Pilates studio to yours.
• Changing category can trigger re-verification. Get it right first time where you can.

Can you hide your address on Google Business Profile?

Only if patients never come to you. That is Google's rule, and it is stricter than many practitioners assume.

Google's service area help says that if you don't serve customers at your business address, you should remove the address and show a service area instead. If you do serve them there, the address stays.

If you rent a clinic room

Set your hours to the days you are there. Google expects a business that shows its address to have permanent signage with its name at that address, and to be contactable there during its stated hours. Ask the clinic whether your name can go on the door or the building's sign. If you can't have any signage and only use the room occasionally, a profile of your own may not be the right tool for that location, and your website and directory listings will do more of the work.

Google Business Profile for home-based practitioners

A therapist or osteopath who sees clients at home is in the same position as any practice patients visit. A profile that claims a service area while patients arrive at your front door is the kind that gets suspended. Some practitioners decide the visibility isn't worth showing their home address and rent a room instead, which is a reasonable choice.

To hide an address that patients genuinely never visit, edit your profile, open the location settings and switch off the option to show your business address to customers.

Practitioner profiles versus the practice profile

Google lets public-facing practitioners, such as doctors, dentists and other clinicians with their own patients, have a profile in their own name. The rules:

• The practitioner must be public-facing and contactable at the verified location during the stated hours. Reception and support staff shouldn't have profiles.
• One profile per practitioner, not one for each specialism.
• Several practitioners at one location: the practice has its own profile, and each practitioner profile uses only the practitioner's name. Titles such as Dr are allowed.
• A solo practitioner at a branded practice: Google suggests one shared profile, named in the format "Brand: Practitioner name".

Which is better for a small clinic?

For most clinics with a handful of practitioners, one strong practice profile works best: reviews collect in one place and there is one set of photos and posts to keep up. Individual profiles make most sense for clinicians with their own following, such as a consultant who sees private patients at more than one hospital.

If you do create practitioner profiles, agree in writing who owns each one. When someone leaves, a profile that still shows your address and phone number can send patients to a practitioner who no longer works there, and sorting it out is much easier if the practice holds owner access.

Services, booking links, photos, posts and reviews

• Services. Google lets health businesses list their services. Add each one in the words patients use, such as sports massage or anxiety counselling, with a short plain description.
• Description. Say what you treat, who you see and where. Google doesn't allow links or promotional prices in the description.
• Booking. Health businesses can show a booking button. If your booking system is a Reserve with Google partner, you can connect it from the Bookings section. If not, add your own booking page as a link.
• Photos. Real ones: the entrance from the street, so first-time patients recognise it, plus reception, a treatment room and the team. Don't use photos where patients could be identified without their written consent.
• Posts. Short updates with a button, such as a new practitioner joining or Saturday appointments starting. Posts are advertising, so aesthetics clinics can't promote prescription-only medicines such as botulinum toxin in them.
• Questions and answers. Google has removed the Q&A section from Business Profiles. In some countries it is being replaced by an AI feature in Google Maps that answers questions from your profile, reviews and website. That makes a clear FAQ on your own website more useful, not less.
• Reviews. The profile is where reviews live, and they matter for whether you appear. Our guides on getting more Google reviews within the rules and finding your Google review link cover the ask and the replies.

For how the profile works with your website and directory listings to win the map results, see our page on local SEO for physio clinics. Most of it applies to any practice.

Verification problems and what gets profiles suspended

Verification

Google chooses which verification methods you are offered, and you can't change them. According to its verification help, the options can include a phone call or text, email, a live video call, a video recording or a postcard.

• Video: be at the practice and ready to show the sign or street outside, the entrance, a treatment room and proof you manage it, such as opening the door with your keys or showing branded materials.
• Postcard: most codes arrive within 14 days and expire after 30. While you wait, don't edit your name, address or category, and don't request a new code, or the one in the post stops working.
• After you submit: Google's review takes up to five working days.

What gets profiles suspended

• Keywords or towns in the name. "Jane Smith Physio | Sports Massage Leeds" breaks the naming rules. Google says adding unnecessary information to your business name could get the profile suspended.
• Virtual offices, PO boxes and empty coworking desks. A coworking address is only allowed with signage, staff and customers received there during opening hours.
• Duplicate profiles for the same practice at the same address.
• A hidden address where patients do visit, or a service area for a business that doesn't travel to anyone.
• Review incentives, such as a discount or prize draw in return for a review. Google treats this as fake engagement.

If you are suspended, fix the cause first, then use Google's appeals tool. It accepts evidence such as business registration, a business licence or utility bills, and the name and address on them should match the profile. You can only appeal a decision once, and Google says not to create a new profile for the same business while you wait.