Google Business Profile and AI – How to Get Recommended in Local Search

"Is there a tyre shop open in Bornova right now?" Ask Gemini that and the answer comes from Google Maps data. ChatGPT and Perplexity turn to similar sources for local questions: business directories, map data, reviews. The biggest and most current of those sources is Google Business Profile.

So if you're a local business, a major part of your AI visibility lives in your profile, not on your site.

Why the profile, not the site

Local questions want three things: location, whether you're open, and trust. Your site can describe all three, but they're hard for a machine to verify. The profile is structured data outright: coordinates, hours, category, review count, rating. The model doesn't need to infer anything to read it.

Site and profile aren't rivals; the profile answers "do you exist, where, are you open", and the site answers "why you".

The fields to fill in

Most profiles are half-finished. If any of these are missing, complete them; they're in order of importance.

1. Primary category. The single field that decides which question the model will match you to. Choose the narrowest fit from Google's list: not "glass balcony" but "glass balcony installer". You can add secondary categories too, but the primary one is decisive.
2. Service area. If customers don't come to your premises, or you work mobile, list it district by district. "İzmir" on its own won't surface you for a Bornova question.
3. Opening hours and special days. The "open now" filter halves the list for questions asked in the evening. Enter public holidays too.
4. Services list. A name and short description for each service. If you can enter a price range, do; "call for a quote" is no use to the model.
5. Description. 750 characters. The same as the description paragraph on your site: who, what, where, for whom, since when.
6. Photos. The outside of the premises, the inside, the team, finished jobs. Models don't look at images, but Google counts the profile as "active" and that feeds into ranking.
7. Q&A. Add the frequently asked questions to the profile's Q&A section yourself and answer them. Leave the section empty and customers will fill it, and not always correctly.

Reviews

Review count and rating are among the strongest signals in local answers. But watch two things:

• Reply. An unanswered review gives the impression of an abandoned profile. A calm, specific reply to a negative review; a thank-you to a positive one.
• Review content matters. Ten reviews that say "Great" are worth less than three that say "They fitted the glass balcony in two hours at the Bornova shop". When asking a customer for a review, ask them to mention which service they had and where.

Connecting the site and the profile

The website address in the profile should point to your homepage, and the LocalBusiness schema on your homepage should carry the same name, address and phone number as the profile. Even a single-character difference ("St." vs "Street") can make the two sources look separate. Keep the same consistency on Yandex Maps, Apple Maps and industry directories.

Common mistakes

• Keeping the category "generic" ("shop", "service").
• Using a virtual office address; Google notices and can suspend the profile.
• Stuffing keywords into the profile name ("Example Glass Balcony İzmir Bornova Best Price"). It breaks the rules, and it corrupts the business name in the model's eyes.
• Leaving the profile of a closed branch open.

How to check

From your phone, ask a few local questions using the name of the district your business is in; ask Gemini, ChatGPT and Perplexity. Who's ahead of you in the answer, and what do their profiles have that yours doesn't? Most of the time the answer is category or review count, not the design of the website.