How to add your business to Google Maps, step by step

Before you create anything, search for the business's name on Google Maps. A profile may exist already, created by someone who suggested the place or by a former employee.

If the profile exists and nobody manages it, you claim it and verify it. If someone else manages it, request access through the ownership request page: the current owner is notified by email and has 3 days to respond. Do not create a second profile, because duplicates do not show on Search or Maps.

Sign in at business.google.com with a Google account, ideally the business's own email. Creating the profile asks for the name, the category, the location, the phone number and the website. The profile is free, and Google states that there is no way to pay for a better local ranking.

The name must be the one customers see on the sign, the website and the invoices. Google's guidelines do not allow taglines, hours, phone numbers, web addresses or locations added to the name: the name on your sign, yes; the name on your sign plus 'dentist Prishtina 24/7', no.

The primary category tells Google what you are, and it decides which searches you show up for. Google recommends the most specific category: 'Nail salon' rather than 'Salon'. You cannot create new categories; you choose from the list.

Add a few secondary categories, only ones that complete the sentence 'this business IS a...', not 'this business HAS a...'. A dentist who also does whitening does not need a separate category for whitening: that goes under services.

If customers come to you, at premises staffed during your hours, enter the address. If you go to your customers, as a plumber, an electrician or a cleaning service, set a service area and hide the address, especially if you work from home. PO boxes are not accepted as an address, and neither are virtual offices without signage or staff.

A service area is set as cities or regions, up to 20, and Google asks that it not extend beyond about two hours' drive from your base. On streets without house numbers, place the map pin exactly on the entrance, because that is what customers follow.

The profile goes public only after it is verified. The verification method is chosen by Google, based on your business type, public information and region, and it cannot be changed: it can be a phone call or text, email, a live video call, a postcard by mail, or a video recording. The review takes up to 5 business days.

For many businesses the method is a video recording: one unedited, unbroken video of at least 30 seconds, captured live on a phone through the profile, not recorded earlier. It has to show where you are (street signs, the building number, neighbouring businesses), that the business exists (the sign with your name on a permanent fixture, matching the name on the profile) and that you manage it (the till, the kitchen, the storeroom or the point-of-sale system; for a service-area business, your work tools or a business invoice). Do not show bank account numbers, tax or ID numbers, or other people's faces.

If your building has no number, show the street sign and the neighbouring businesses instead. A video gets rejected when one of the requirements is missing, and the reasons follow straight from them:

• The name on the sign does not match the name on the profile, or there is no sign.
• The video is cut, edited or shorter than 30 seconds.
• The street is not shown: only the inside of the premises, with nothing to say where it is.
• Nothing proves you manage the place: no till, key or door that only staff can open.

Set your regular customer-facing hours, and special hours for holidays and days you close early, so your regular hours do not change. A seasonal business can be marked as temporarily closed out of season.

The phone number should be the business's own, with +383 in Kosovo or +355 in Albania, so the diaspora can call you in one tap. Link the profile to your website and show the same name, address and phone number on the site as on the profile. If you do not have a site yet, see web design in Kosovo.

Add a logo, a cover photo and real photos of the place, the work and the products. Google's requirements: JPG or PNG, between 10 KB and 5 MB, ideally 720 × 720 pixels, in focus, well lit and without heavy filters or alterations. Videos up to 30 seconds and 75 MB, at 720p or higher.

Photos appear once the profile is verified, and can take 24 to 48 hours. Photograph the entrance too, so customers recognise the place when they arrive.

Service businesses can list their services on the profile: pick from the ones Google suggests for your category or add your own, with a description. Service names must not carry prices, phone numbers or personal details, or they are rejected automatically.

Write the business description for the customer, not for Google: what you do, for whom and where, in the words customers use when they search.

Google states that more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. Ask every customer for a review, with a link or a QR code, and reply to every review, negative ones included. The link, the QR code and the right moment are in getting more Google reviews.

The Google Maps content policy clearly prohibits these:

• Rewards: no discount, gift, payment or free service in exchange for a review, or for changing or removing a negative one.
• Filtering: you may not ask only happy customers for reviews, or discourage negative ones.
• Conflicts of interest: employees, former employees and relatives do not review the business.

If you find two profiles for the same business, suggest merging them on Google Maps: the reviews are combined, while replies to them may be lost. If you created the duplicate yourself by mistake, you can remove it without touching the verified profile, but its content and managers go with it.

If someone else verified the profile, a former employee, an old collaborator or someone you do not know, request ownership through the official page. The current owner has 3 days to respond: if there is no response, you may get the option to verify it yourself, and if they refuse, you can appeal.

To avoid this, open the profile with the business's Google account, not with the personal account of someone who may leave, and add every helper as a manager, not as an owner.

Google explains that local results depend mainly on three things: how well the profile matches the search, the distance from the person searching, and how well known the business is. You cannot change the distance; you build the match with your category, services and description, and prominence grows with reviews among other things.

The same holds for AI answers. In March 2026 Google launched Ask Maps in the US and India: questions about places asked in full sentences, answered from place data and reviews. An AI assistant can only rely on what is published about your business, and a complete profile that matches your website is the clearest source you can give it.

We build the website your profile points to, with the name, address, hours and services in structured data that Google reads, as on the Ariana Studio site, where that data is built from the same settings the owner edits. The profile stays in your own account.