Google Business Profile for online stores: local SEO and reviews

Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is your company's listing in Google Search and Google Maps. An online store that never meets customers in person is not eligible. If you have a shop, a showroom or a staffed pickup point, you create the profile at business.google.com, verify it, and Google reviews the details in up to 5 business days.

Written by the CloudCart team, the ecommerce platform for stores selling across the EU. Google's rules and EU law are linked in the text; CloudCart facts come from the platform documentation and the Physical store page.

What Google Business Profile is and how it helps an online store

Google Business Profile is the panel Google shows on the right of the search results and in Google Maps when someone searches for your company by name or types "shoe shop Graz" or "bike shop near me". It holds your address, hours, phone, website link, photos, products, posts and reviews.

Local SEO is the work on your visibility for searches with local intent: "near me", a city or district, or a search inside Google Maps.

According to Google's explanation of local ranking, local results depend mainly on three things: relevance (how well the profile matches the search), distance (how far the business is from the searcher) and prominence (how well known the business is, including reviews and links to the site). Google states that you cannot request or pay for a better local ranking. A complete and accurate profile, a verified business, current opening hours and replies to reviews are the parts you control.

Can an online store without a physical shop have a Google Business Profile?

No. An online store that never meets customers in person cannot have a Google Business Profile. Under Google's eligibility guidelines, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours, and brands and other online-only businesses are explicitly listed as ineligible.

The most common cases for ecommerce sellers, based on Google's guidelines for representing your business.

Your situation	Eligible for a profile?	How to set it up
Online-only store, every order ships by courier	No	No profile; visibility through organic search and Google Shopping
Shop or showroom with opening hours	Yes	Exact address, opening hours, phone, website link
Warehouse or office where customers collect orders from your staff during set hours	Yes, as long as customers meet your staff there during the stated hours	The address of that location and the hours when orders can be collected
You go to the customer (installation, delivery by your own team, on-site service)	Yes, as a service-area business	A service area; the address is hidden from customers
Virtual office, P.O. box or remote mailbox	No	No profile

Google also has a separate brand profile for businesses that sell online. It shows in Search for the brand name, with products, promotions and photos. For now, only selected ecommerce retailers that Google invites can claim one, and a business with both a physical shop and an online store can hold both types.

If your store is online only, its place in Google is organic search and Google Shopping. The SEO checklist for online stores and the Google Merchant Center guide show how to get there.

How to create a Google Business Profile step by step

1. Sign in with a Google account. Use a company account, and after verification add a second owner or manager.
2. Add or claim your business. At business.google.com choose to add a business. If your shop already appears in Google Maps, claim it. If someone else has verified it, request ownership from the same screen.
3. Enter the name exactly as it appears on your sign. No keywords, city, slogan, phone number or legal suffix such as GmbH or Ltd in the name. "Maria Shoes" is a valid name; "Maria Shoes, women's shoes Vienna, fast delivery" breaks the rules.
4. Choose a primary category. The most precise option in Google's list, for example "Shoe store". Keep additional categories to a minimum and use them to say what the business is.
5. Enter the address or service area. The exact address and the map pin must match the shop entrance. If you travel to customers, set a service area and hide the address.
6. Add a phone number and website. A number that a person answers, and a link to your store or to the page of that location inside it.
7. Verify the business. Google picks the method (video, phone, email or postcard). The next section covers each one.
8. Complete the profile. Opening hours, a description of up to 750 characters, photos of the entrance, shop window and products, attributes and products.

Important: one location, one profile. If you run three shops, you create three profiles, each with its own address, phone number and opening hours. A shop in Vienna and a showroom in Munich are two profiles, each written in the language its customers search in.

Google Business Profile verification: methods and timelines

Verification proves to Google that you manage the business at that address. You can reply to reviews only once verified. Google chooses the method by business type and country; the timelines are from Google's verification help page.

Method	How it works	What to watch
Video recording	You record a short video of the location and of proof that you manage it	Follow the instructions in the profile
Live video call	A Google support agent guides you through a call in which you show the location	Only possible during the location's opening hours, and you must be on site
Phone or SMS	You receive a code by call or text message	An automated phone menu (IVR) cannot receive the code
Email	You follow the instructions in an email	Use the email address shown on the verification screen
Postcard	A 5-digit code is mailed to the business address	Most codes arrive within 14 days and expire after 30 days

After you complete a method, Google reviews the details in up to 5 business days, rarely longer. While you wait for a postcard, do not change the name, address or category and do not request a new code, because the old code stops working and the process takes longer. Never share the code; Google does not ask for it.

Some profiles are verified instantly, for example when the business website is already verified in Google Search Console. How to add your store to Search Console is in the Google Search Console guide.

Name, categories, description and attributes: the rules that keep the profile live

Most suspensions come from a broken rule on the name or the address. Google's guidelines say the name is the real-world name used on signage, stationery and by customers. Taglines, store codes, hours, phone numbers, website addresses, product or service descriptions and location details are not allowed in it, and adding them can lead to suspension.

• Categories. As few and as specific as possible. A category says what the business is, for example "Toy store", not what it sells.
• Description. Up to 750 characters. Start with what you sell and to whom, then add that customers can order online and collect in store.
• Opening hours. The real hours you serve customers, plus special hours for public holidays, which differ from country to country.
• Attributes. Set from the profile editor, with "Yes" or "No" for each one. Which attributes you see depends on your category and country.
• Photos. The entrance from the street (so people recognise you), the shop window, the shelves and your best sellers. Photos come from the real location.

How to connect Google Business Profile to your online store

The "Website" link takes a customer from Google Maps into your store. It works best when it opens the page of that location, with address, hours and map, and from there leads to the products. How a shop and an online store share stock and pickup is covered in taking a physical store online.

Your name, address and phone number (NAP) must be identical everywhere: in the profile, in the site footer, on the contact page, in your terms and conditions and on marketplaces and price comparison sites. A different phone number or an old address on the site makes your business data contradictory for Google. The same consistency helps AI assistants decide which stores to cite, as explained in the GEO guide for online stores.

Add UTM parameters to the profile link, for example ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=business_profile. GA4 then shows visits from the profile separately. Setting up GA4 and UTM tracking in a store is shown in the GA4 and Google Tag Manager guide. In CloudCart the sitemap, meta data and page redirects are managed in the admin; more on the SEO and GEO in CloudCart page.

If you run a separate store per country, each in its own language and currency, link each profile to the store of its country: your Vienna shop to the German-language store. The setup is described in the guide to multilanguage, multicurrency and multistore.

In-store pickup: how an online order brings the customer to your shop

In-store pickup (click and collect) is the delivery option where the customer orders online and collects the order from your shop.

In CloudCart it is turned on with the Local Pickup app:

1. Install the app. In the admin: Apps → Local Pickup. There is no limit on the number of locations.
2. Add each location. Name, address, email, phone and opening hours per day. The address also stores the GPS coordinates used for the map.
3. Set the URL and SEO of the location page. Each location gets its own page at /stores/<handle>, with meta tags that Google indexes separately. This is the page you put in the "Website" field of the Google profile.
4. Check the checkout. The app adds a "Local Pickup" shipping method next to your couriers and a "Pay on place" payment method. The customer picks the location from a list or from the map.
5. Link stock per location. Pickup from a location can only be chosen if the product is in stock there. If it is not, the customer picks another location or a courier.

If you run a POS or warehouse software, it connects as an app from the admin and the stock on the site follows the shelf; the available connections are on the Integrations page. The full path for a merchant with a shop is on the online store for physical shops page.

Products and posts in Google Business Profile

Products show people nearby what is on your shelves, and posts tell them what is new. Products appear in Google Search, posts in both Search and Google Maps.

Products

You add products from the profile with "Edit products", one form per product, where the feature is available for your country and category.

If the profile is linked to Google Merchant Center, products are managed there. For a CloudCart store this is the easier route: the Google Shopping app sends the catalog straight to Merchant Center and, with automatic updates switched on, pushes changes whenever you save a product. How many products you can send depends on your plan, listed on the pricing page. The channels are described on the sales channels page.

Posts

Posts come in three types: updates (text, photo or video and a button to your site), offers (with a title and a period, optionally a discount code and terms) and events (with a title, start and end).

Google reviews: how to get them and how to reply

Reviews in Google Business Profile rate the business and the location as a whole, and Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. A customer must be signed in to a Google account to leave a review.

1. Get the review link and QR code from the profile.
2. Make it easy at handover. A customer collecting an order is the most natural moment. A QR code on a card in the bag or the parcel works better than a spoken request.
3. Send a request after delivery. An email a few days after the order arrives, with the Google review link, sent only to customers who agreed to receive emails and never to anyone who unsubscribed. In CloudCart, email campaigns run from Marketing Suite.
4. Reply to every review. Replies are possible once the business is verified: open the reviews in your profile and choose reply.
5. Report violations. From the reviews screen choose "Report review". Google removes only reviews that break its policies and does not step into disputes between you and a customer.

What is prohibited with reviews

Under Google's policy on fake engagement, you may not offer money, discounts or goods in exchange for a review, ask only happy customers for reviews, discourage negative reviews, pressure customers to review on your premises or set review quotas for staff. Reviews from current or former employees and from business partners are a conflict of interest and are not allowed.

EU consumer law says the same. Since 28 May 2022, the Omnibus Directive (EU) 2019/2161 has added to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive a ban on submitting fake consumer reviews, commissioning someone else to submit them, and misrepresenting real reviews to promote products. A store that shows product reviews must also tell customers whether and how it checks that they come from people who actually bought or used the product. These rules apply in every EU country.

Reviews of the products in your store are a separate topic, covered in the guide to customer reviews.

What to measure: the profile performance report

The performance report shows how many people saw your profile and what they did next:

Metric	What it counts	How to read it
Views	How many people saw the profile in Search and Maps	A person is counted once a day, so the number is lower than in other reports
Searches	Which words people used to find the profile	Updated at the start of each month, with a delay of up to 5 days
Directions	How many people asked for a route to the location	The most direct sign of a visit
Calls	Taps on the call button	Only if the profile has a phone number
Website clicks	Taps on the "Website" link	Compare them with UTM visits in GA4 and with pickup orders

Local SEO for a store with a shop: a one-hour checklist

Local SEO happens in two places: the profile and the website. Check these 10 points whenever the address, phone or hours change.

1. The profile is verified and the name matches the sign exactly.
2. The primary category is the most precise one, with as few additional categories as possible.
3. The opening hours are real, including public holidays.
4. The "Website" link opens the location page in your store, with UTM parameters.
5. Name, address and phone number are identical in the profile, on the site and on marketplaces.
6. The location page has its own title and meta description with the city and district.
7. The checkout offers Local Pickup for every location that has a profile.
8. The profile has current photos, including the entrance from the street.
9. There is a post from the last 30 days.
10. Every review from the last month has a reply.

The rest of your store's SEO (categories, product pages, speed, structured data) is in the 30-point SEO checklist.

Frequently asked questions

Have a question about in-store pickup or location pages in your store? Write to us at support@cloudcart.com.