If someone searches for your business category right now — “plumber near me,” “web designer in Cincinnati,” “best HVAC company in Phoenix” — your Google Business Profile is doing more work than your website.
Nearly 46% of all Google searches have local intent, and Google Business Profiles now appear before organic listings in most of those results. Meanwhile, 40.16% of local business queries now trigger Google’s AI Overviews — meaning an AI is reading your profile and deciding whether to feature you.
That changes the optimization game entirely.
This guide covers every lever you can pull to dominate local search in 2026, including how to stay visible as AI takes over how customers find you.
Why Your Google Business Profile Matters More Than Ever
Here’s the cold truth: 58% of businesses still don’t have a local SEO strategy. That means more than half of your competitors are leaving free visibility on the table — and making predictable local SEO mistakes that you can exploit.
The numbers behind GBP performance are hard to ignore:
- 99% of people have used the internet to find local business information in the past year
- Customers are 2.7x more likely to trust a business with a complete profile on Google Search and Maps
- A verified, active Google Business Profile gets around 200 clicks or interactions per month
- 88% of consumers who search locally visit or call a business within a day
- Businesses with photos see 45% more direction requests and 31% more website clicks than those without
These aren’t vanity metrics. They’re leads. And in 2026, if your profile isn’t fully optimized, you’re not just missing rankings — you’re being skipped by AI-powered answers before a potential customer even sees your name.
Phase 1: Get the Foundation Right
Before anything else, your core profile data needs to be airtight. Google treats accuracy as a trust signal. Inconsistencies get you ranked lower — or not at all.
NAP Consistency
Your Name, Address, and Phone number must be identical everywhere: your GBP, your website, your Yelp listing, your Facebook page, and every directory you’re in. Character-level differences — “St” vs “Street,” “Suite” vs “Ste” — create confusion for Google’s crawlers and AI systems that are trying to verify your business is real.
Action step: Search your business name in Google and audit every result on page one. Fix any inconsistencies you find.
Verify Your Profile
If you haven’t verified your profile through Google’s postcard, phone, or video verification process, do it now. Verified profiles receive dramatically more engagement and are eligible for the local pack results that unverified profiles are excluded from.
Choose Your Categories Carefully
Your primary category is the single biggest factor in what searches you show up for. It should match your core revenue-generating service — not your aspirational services, not a broad category that encompasses everything you do.
For secondary categories, only add them if you actively deliver those services. Category stuffing hurts rankings. Google penalizes profiles that appear to be gaming the system.
The right approach: look at the top three or four competitors ranking in your local pack. See what primary and secondary categories they use. Make sure yours match what customers actually search for.
Phase 2: Build Your Trust Signals
Google’s local algorithm has two main jobs: figure out which businesses are relevant, and figure out which ones are trustworthy. If you’re in a competitive market, relevance is table stakes. Trust is the differentiator.
Reviews: Volume, Velocity, and Recency
Most business owners think reviews are about getting a 5-star average. That’s only part of it. In 2026, Google weights review velocity — how many you’re getting recently — more heavily than total lifetime volume.
What that means practically:
- A steady drip of 2-3 new reviews per month beats a burst of 20 followed by silence
- Reviews from the last 90 days carry more weight than older ones
- Reviews that organically mention services you offer help Google understand what your business does
How to get more reviews without violating Google’s terms: ask every happy customer directly. Build it into your process — a follow-up text after a job, an email after a purchase, a mention at the end of a service call. Make it easy with a direct link to your review form.
What not to do: never buy reviews, never use review gating software that filters which customers you ask, and never incentivize reviews with discounts or freebies. These tactics can get your profile suspended.
Respond to Every Review
Google explicitly says that businesses that respond to reviews rank higher. It’s also a conversion signal — when a potential customer reads your reviews, they’ll see whether you’re engaged and professional.
Keep responses genuine. Template responses (“Thank you for your kind words!”) are obvious and unconvincing. Acknowledge something specific from the review. For negative reviews, respond calmly, acknowledge the issue, and offer to make it right offline.
Phase 3: Optimize Your Profile Content
Most businesses complete the basics and stop. The businesses that rank at the top of the local pack treat their GBP like a living content asset.
Write a Business Description That Works
Your business description has a 750-character limit. Use the first 250 characters wisely — that’s what shows without a “read more” click.
Write for humans first. Clearly explain what your business does, where you serve customers, and what makes you different. Mention your core services naturally. Don’t keyword-stuff — Google’s AI reads this content semantically, not just looking for exact-match phrases.
Update your description at least once a year. Stale, set-it-and-forget-it descriptions signal low engagement to Google.
Add Every Service You Offer
The services section is underused and undervalued. Add every service you provide with a short description for each. These descriptions feed directly into Google’s AI systems — when Gemini is trying to answer “Does this business offer X?” it’s reading your services section.
Generic services with no descriptions are worse than having no services listed. Write real descriptions that explain the service, who it’s for, and what outcomes it delivers.
Post Regular Updates
GBP posts show up in your profile and in some search results. They expire after seven days, so posting weekly keeps fresh content visible. Use posts to:
- Highlight seasonal promotions
- Share recent projects or before/after photos
- Announce new services
- Respond to common customer questions
Don’t overthink it. A short post with a photo and one clear call to action is all you need.
Phase 4: Photos Are a Ranking Signal Now
This is where most small businesses fall flat. According to research from Agency Jet, businesses that include photos see 45% more direction requests and 31% more website clicks than those that don’t.
But it goes deeper than that in 2026. Google’s Vision AI now reads your images to categorize your services. A photo of your team on a job site tells Google something different than a stock photo of a clipboard. Real photos of real work directly improve relevance.
Photo Strategy That Works
- Upload new photos weekly or bi-weekly — frequency signals active management
- Mix of content: exterior shots, interior, team, active work, completed projects
- No stock images — Google can identify them and they carry no trust weight
- Real job photos show potential customers what to expect and build confidence
Add Video
Short videos (30-90 seconds) uploaded directly to GBP get prominent placement in your profile. A quick walkthrough of your shop, a time-lapse of a project, a team introduction — these types of content stand out in a sea of static photos.
Phase 5: Adapt to the AI Era
Here’s the biggest shift in local search that most businesses aren’t prepared for.
Google has replaced the traditional Q&A section with “Ask Maps” — powered by Gemini. Instead of customers asking questions and waiting for your reply, Gemini now answers questions about your business automatically, pulling from your profile, your website, and your reviews.
If a customer asks “Does this business offer emergency service?” or “Is this place good for families with kids?” — Gemini is answering that without you. The quality of that answer depends entirely on how well your profile, website, and reviews communicate the relevant information.
What this means for optimization:
-
Your website content matters more than ever for GBP. Google links your profile to your site and uses it as source material for AI answers. If your site doesn’t mention a service you offer, AI answers may leave it out.
-
Review content shapes AI answers. Encourage customers to mention specific services, situations, and outcomes in their reviews — not just “great service!”
-
Your business description and services section train the AI. Be explicit. If you offer 24/7 emergency service, say so in your description and services section. Don’t assume Google will infer it.
40.16% of local queries now trigger AI Overviews. That number will only grow. Businesses that optimize for AI-readability now will have a significant advantage as this becomes the default behavior. For a deeper look at getting your business cited inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, see our guide to Generative Engine Optimization for small businesses.
Phase 6: Track What’s Actually Working
Google’s GBP dashboard shows you impressions, clicks, direction requests, phone calls, and website visits. But the numbers can be misleading if you don’t know what to look for.
Focus on these four metrics:
- Direction requests — high intent signal, someone wants to physically come to you
- Phone calls — direct conversion action
- Website clicks — traffic you can track through Google Analytics
- Search query type — are you being found for “direct” searches (people looking for you by name) or “discovery” searches (people looking for your category)? Discovery searches are the growth metric.
If your discovery searches are low relative to competitors, that’s a sign your categories and content relevance need work. If your impressions are high but clicks are low, your photos and reviews may not be convincing people to take action.
The GBP-Website Connection
Your Google Business Profile doesn’t operate in isolation. Google uses signals from your website to confirm what your profile claims.
The top three most valuable local SEO services are managing Google Business Profiles (52%), creating content (39%), and website design (34%) — according to a BrightLocal survey of local SEO professionals. Notice that website design is in that top three. That’s because a slow, outdated, or poorly structured website undermines the trust your GBP is trying to build.
If your profile drives someone to your site and they find a slow-loading, mobile-unfriendly, hard-to-navigate experience — they leave. Google tracks those behavioral signals. A high bounce rate from local search hurts your local rankings.
Getting your GBP right is only half the equation. The website it points to needs to convert.
What to Do This Week
Here’s a prioritized action list if you’re starting from scratch:
- Verify and complete your profile — fill every available field
- Fix your category selection — research competitors and choose precisely
- Upload 10-15 real photos immediately, then keep adding weekly
- Write a proper business description — natural language, no fluff
- Add all services with descriptions — feed the AI accurate information
- Set up a review request process — ask every satisfied customer
- Respond to any existing reviews — all of them, positive and negative
- Post an update this week — then make it a weekly habit
- Audit your website — make sure it backs up your profile claims and converts on mobile
The businesses winning local search in 2026 aren’t doing anything exotic. They’re just doing the fundamentals consistently — and making sure their website doesn’t undercut the credibility their GBP builds.
If your website isn’t keeping up with the traffic your Google Business Profile sends your way, that’s a problem with a clear fix. Let’s talk about what a high-converting local website looks like for your business.
Richard Kastl
Founder & Lead EngineerRichard Kastl has spent 14 years engineering websites that generate revenue. He combines expertise in web development, SEO, digital marketing, and conversion optimization to build sites that make the phone ring. His work has helped generate over $30M in pipeline for clients ranging from industrial manufacturers to SaaS companies.
