Google Business Profile setup for contractors, step by step.

When someone in Papillion searches "furnace repair near me", the map with three businesses at the top of the results is Google Business Profile. It's free. It is also the single thing most trade businesses have half-finished: an unclaimed listing, a category that says "Contractor" when it should say "HVAC contractor", no photos, no hours. This is the whole setup, in order, for a shop that works out of a truck.

• A Google account for the business, not your personal one
• The business name exactly as it appears on the truck and the invoice
• The phone number you actually answer
• Your service area: the towns you will drive to
• Ten photos: the truck, you at work, a finished job, the shop if there is one

Use the name customers know. Not "Best Omaha HVAC Heating Cooling Repair": Google's guidelines treat extra words in the name as keyword stuffing and can suspend the listing for it. The name on the door is the name on the listing.

Search your business name on Google Maps first. If a listing already exists, claim it. Creating a second one gives you two half-listings that split your reviews, and merging them later is slow. If nothing exists, create one at google.com/business (opens in a new tab).

If you drive to customers and don't want people showing up at your house, tell Google you serve customers at their location and hide the address. You still list the towns you cover, and Google shows you in those areas without publishing where the truck sleeps.

1. 01

   Hide the address

   In the profile's location settings, choose that you deliver services to customers at their location and clear the address from public view. The address stays on file with Google for verification.

2. 02

   List the towns

   Add Bellevue, Omaha, Papillion, La Vista, Gretna, or whatever your real radius is. Google caps the list at twenty areas; a realistic list beats a wide one, because a customer forty miles out who calls you anyway is a customer you'll lose money driving to.

The primary category decides which searches you can appear in. "HVAC contractor" shows up for furnace and air-conditioning searches; "Contractor" shows up for almost nothing specific. Pick the primary category that matches the trade you want calls for, then add secondaries for the rest: a plumber might set "Plumber" as primary and "Water heater installation and repair" as a secondary. The category names come from Google's own list, so type your trade and pick from what it offers rather than inventing one.

Under services, list what you actually do as separate items: furnace repair, AC installation, duct cleaning. Each one is something Google can match to a search. Set real hours, including whether you answer at nine at night for emergencies, because "open now" is a filter people use. The description takes 750 characters: say what you do, where, and since when. No slogans, no list of towns pasted in; that's the keyword-stuffing Google's guidelines call out.

Upload the truck, you at work, finished jobs, and the logo. Skip stock photos. Someone tapping your listing wants to see who is going to show up at their house, and a photo of a lettered truck answers that in a second. Add a few more every month; a listing that hasn't changed in a year looks like a business that closed.

Google verifies that the business exists before it publishes anything. For a service-area business that usually means a live video call or a recorded video walking through the truck, the tools, and the signage; sometimes it's a postcard to the address on file. It runs on Google's schedule, not yours: a few days is normal, longer happens, and nothing you fill in goes public until it's done. So start it first, and build the logo and the website while you wait.

Put the same phone number on the listing, the website, and the truck; a listing with a different number than the door reads as a different business. Add the website link even if it's a one-page site, and the quote or booking link if you have one. Google shows both as buttons, and a customer who taps "Website" and lands on a page with the same logo and the same number is a customer who trusts the listing.

• Keywords stuffed into the name field
• A home address published on a listing for a business that doesn't take walk-ins
• Reviews bought, traded, or written by the shop
• Two listings for one business
• A category that describes the industry instead of the trade

All of them are fixable in an afternoon, and every one of them is more common than a missing photo.

• Ask every customer for a review, using the link Google gives you in the profile
• Post once or twice a month: a finished job, a tip, a seasonal reminder
• Reply to every review, including the bad one, in one calm paragraph
• Keep the hours current; a listing that says open on a holiday you're closed earns a one-star

THIS IS THE $75 LINE ON THE PRICE SHEET. IGNITION INCLUDES IT.