Google Business Profile for a Bhutanese shop

When someone in Thimphu types “pharmacy near me” or “restaurant Paro” into their phone, the results are not websites. They are a map with pins on it, and under each pin a name, a rating, opening hours and a phone number. That box is a Google Business Profile, it is free, and for most small organisations in Bhutan it is found more often than the website is.

It is also the single most neglected piece of a business's online presence, because nobody created it on purpose. Google generates a profile for any business it learns about — from a map contributor, from a directory, from someone's photograph — and then leaves it there, unclaimed, with whatever hours and phone number it guessed. Yours probably already exists. The question is who controls it.

First: find out whether it exists

Search Google Maps for your business by name, and then by what you do plus your town. If a pin comes up with your name on it, the profile exists. Look at what it says — the hours, the phone number, the category, the photographs. If any of it is wrong, that is what your customers have been reading.

On the profile there is a line reading “Own this business?” or “Claim this business”. That is the way in. If no pin exists, you create one instead, from the same place: business.google.com.

Claiming it

You need a Google account. Use one that belongs to the organisation — a role address or a Workspace account on your own domain — and not a personal Gmail belonging to whoever is doing this today. Profiles get stranded in the accounts of people who have left, and getting one back is slow. This is the same rule as for your domain: the organisation owns it, a person operates it.

Google then wants to verify that you are really at the address. Which methods it offers depends on the country and on how confident it already is about the business, and they change; expect one of these:

• Video verification. You record a short clip on your phone showing the outside of the premises, the signage, and something that proves you control it — unlocking the door, the till, a stock room. This is now the common method and it is faster than it sounds.
• A phone call or text to the number on the profile, where Google offers it.
• A postcard with a code, sent to the address, where that is what is offered. Slow everywhere, and Bhutanese addresses are not the kind postcards find easily. If this is the only option, expect weeks, and check the address is written in a way a postal worker can act on.

The fields that matter, in order

1. Category

The primary category decides which searches you appear in. “Restaurant” is not “Bhutanese restaurant”, and “Hotel” is not “Guest house” or “Farm stay”. Pick the most specific category that is true, then add secondary ones. A guesthouse that picks “Hotel” competes with the large hotels for the word and loses; the same place under “Guest house” is found by people looking for exactly that.

2. Hours

Fill in every day, including the ones you are closed. Then — and this is the part everyone skips — set special hours for the holidays. Google will ask you to confirm your hours before each public holiday; the request arrives as an email and is easy to ignore. Answer it. A profile that says “Open” on Losar while the door is locked is the most common way to acquire a one-star review from someone who has never been inside.

Seasonal timings — winter hours, monsoon closures — go in the same place. See the five things on every website that go out of date; hours are first on that list for a reason.

3. Phone number and website

The number should be one that is answered. If you would rather be reached by WhatsApp, say so in the description, because the profile's phone button dials. The website field should point at your own site — not a Facebook page, unless that genuinely is your only web presence.

4. Photographs

Google's own guidance asks for photographs, and a listing with them is chosen over one without. You need, at minimum: the outside of the building as someone arriving would see it, the inside, and what you sell. Phone photographs are fine; the guide on photographs for your website covers how to take usable ones. Upload them yourself, because if you do not, customers will, and you do not get to choose theirs.

5. Description

Plain sentences saying what you do, for whom, and where. This is where the landmark directions belong, and the “message us on WhatsApp” instruction, and anything a visitor would want to know that the structured fields cannot hold. Write it for a stranger.

Reviews

You will get them whether or not you engage. Three things are worth doing:

• Ask. A satisfied customer who is asked, at the moment they are satisfied, usually will. A short link to your review form on the receipt or at the counter does most of the work.
• Reply to every one, including the good ones, in a sentence or two. Prospective customers read the replies to judge what dealing with you is like.
• Never argue in a reply. A calm, factual response to an unfair review does more for you than the review does against you. A defensive one confirms it.

What it cannot do

A profile is a listing, not a website. It holds your facts and your photographs and your reviews, and it is excellent at being found. It is not a place for your menu with prices, your room descriptions, your booking form, your story, or anything longer than a paragraph. The profile gets someone to the door; the website is what they read when they want to know more than where the door is. Both, pointing at each other, is the right answer for almost everyone.

Keeping it alive

A claimed profile that is never touched drifts exactly the way a website does — worse, because the public can suggest edits to it, and an owner who never looks never sees them. Once a month, open the profile, confirm the hours, look at what has been suggested, and answer any questions customers have posted. Ten minutes. Put it on the same monthly list as the website.