Your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is the listing page guests see when they look up your restaurant on Google or Google Maps. A complete profile with the right category, accurate opening hours, photos, a menu link and recent reviews decides whether someone clicks through to your place or moves on to the next one.

How do I make sure guests find my restaurant on Google? And where do I start when I want to update my profile? Most restaurant owners fill in their profile at launch and never look at it again. Meanwhile your menu changes, opening hours shift, and a holiday notice from last summer still shows on your profile. Guests searching on their phone for “sushi near me” or asking ChatGPT which restaurant in the street is open right now see your profile as their first impression of your place. If it is not accurate, they pick the restaurant that does look up to date.

Below are the twelve things that make a profile complete and current. Work through them in order, then look up your own restaurant the way a guest would and check that everything shows the way you intended.

Why your Business Profile is your restaurant’s most important listing

Google is where a guest starts. Not always with the name of your restaurant, but with what they want to eat: “poke near me”, “italian open now”, “restaurant with terrace”. Google then shows a map view with three results, and that selection depends almost entirely on the Business Profile of the restaurant itself. Your website counts and social media helps, but the profile is what a guest sees on their phone the moment they decide where to eat tonight.

That reach is growing, and it is growing faster than most restaurant owners realise. AI search engines like ChatGPT and Claude pull their restaurant information partly from the same business data. The profile you maintain on Google also becomes the profile an AI assistant reads out when someone asks where they can eat tonight. In conversations with restaurant owners we hear more and more often that they are surprised by how many guests come in that way, without them having done anything for it.

Keeping your profile up to date pays off, and you can see it in the numbers. BISOUS saw a 189% increase in map views and 31% more menu clicks after bringing their profile up to standard. Schmidt Zeevis recorded 25% more impressions, 29% more direction requests and 11% more call actions from the search results. Neither of them needed an expensive marketing agency for that. Both keep their profile up to date, consistently and on the points that count.

The checklist: your profile in 12 steps

1. Claim and verify your profile

Go to business.google.com and check whether you are the one managing your restaurant’s profile. If it is registered under a previous owner or an external agency, request management access. Google decides which verification methods you get: a video of your restaurant, a phone call, a text, an email or a postcard with a code. If video is on offer, choose it, because Google recommends it itself. Without verification you cannot edit your details and Google treats your profile as unconfirmed, and guests trust an unconfirmed profile less.

2. Choose the right category

Your primary category determines which searches your profile appears in. “Restaurant” is broad; “Indonesian restaurant”, “Pizzeria” or “Cafe” tells Google exactly what your place is. Add one or two subcategories if your place does more, such as “Takeaway restaurant” or “Catering service”. The wrong category places your profile among the wrong competitors, and that costs you views from exactly the people searching for your type of kitchen.

3. Name, address and phone number: identical everywhere

Your business name, address and phone number must match exactly on your profile, your website and every other listing. Google cross-references these details and interprets a discrepancy as uncertainty. Google wants the name on your front door, your website and your menus, so “Ristorante Da Mario” on the profile and “Da Mario” on your website already counts as a mismatch. Check the street name too: “First Street” versus “1st Street” counts as a difference.

4. Opening hours: complete, including holidays

Fill in your regular hours for every day of the week, including the days you are closed. Add adjusted hours for public holidays, holiday periods and seasonal closures. Google shows a notice when a place may be closed, and that notice puts guests off before they have even looked at your menu. If your hours change by season, set a reminder to update them. A guest who turns up on a cold Sunday evening to find a closed door leaves a review you could do without.

5. Write a description of your restaurant

Your description can be up to 750 characters. Start with what your place is and what you are known for, mention the type of cuisine and your neighbourhood or street. Avoid promotional language like “the best restaurant in the city”: Google can reject a description that sounds like an advert, and readers skip over it anyway. Describe your restaurant the way a regular guest would describe it to a friend: the food, the atmosphere and what makes you different from the place round the corner.

6. Photos: the restaurant, the menu and the team

Upload at least ten photos and keep them current. The outside of your restaurant, the interior, two or three dishes from your current menu and at least one photo of your team. Guests decide on visuals, and a profile without its own photos inspires less trust than a profile with an outdated menu. Take the photos in daylight and skip stock images: Google asks for photos that show your place as it is, and guests recognise stock anyway.

7. Menu with current prices

Add your menu via the “Menu” tab in your profile. List the names of your dishes, a short description and the current price. When you change your menu, update the profile straight away. A guest who sees a price online and gets a different amount at the table writes that up in their review. It takes ten minutes and prevents a complaint that stays visible for months.

8. Set up attributes and features

Google offers dozens of attributes for restaurants: terrace, takeaway, delivery, wifi, wheelchair accessible, pets welcome, live music. Guests filter their searches on these features. If “terrace” is not switched on while you have one, you do not appear when someone searches “restaurant with terrace”. Take five minutes and tick everything that applies to your place.

9. Add an ordering or reservation link

Google lets you set a direct action button: a link to your own ordering page or reservation system. That button sits in the most prominent spot on your profile, so a guest can order or book straight away instead of searching further. If it links to your own ordering page, the guest and the margin stay with you instead of going to a delivery platform.

10. Check the edits others suggest

Guests can suggest changes to your profile, and Google also updates details itself when other sources report something different. When an edit needs your review, you get an email or a notification and have four days to accept or reject it. If you let it sit, Google can publish the edit anyway, as long as other information online seems to back it up. Changes made by Google show in blue when you edit your profile, so you spot them at a glance.

11. Reply to reviews

Respond to every review, the positive ones and the negative ones. A short thank-you for five stars is enough: two sentences and the guest’s name. With a negative review, your response shows everyone else reading how you handle criticism, and guests who are still deciding pay attention to that. If you reply to nothing, a visitor assumes nobody at your place is paying attention.

12. Post updates

Google Posts are short updates on your profile: a new seasonal menu, an event, a special offer. Google archives them after six months, but only a recent post shows that your restaurant is active. One post a week is enough to make your profile look current.

What most restaurants forget

The twelve steps above are the basics. Stop at step six or seven and the profile is there, the photos are uploaded and the hours are correct. The steps after that are the ones that turn a profile that exists into one that brings guests through your door.

Attributes are the most underestimated element. You have a terrace that is full every summer evening, a children’s menu and a private room for larger groups, but if those are not set as attributes on your profile, Google does not match you to those searches. Guests who filter on “suitable for children” or “restaurant with terrace” only see you once you switch those features on. It takes five minutes to set, and Google usually reviews the change within about ten, so the effect can start the same day.

Then the menu on the profile. Adding it is quick; keeping it current is where it goes wrong. When a menu changes, the printed menu and the website get updated, and the profile gets forgotten. A guest sees a dish that is no longer on your menu, orders it, and hears at the table that it has been removed. A small thing like that turns into a negative review you could have prevented. The same goes for seasonal menus and temporary specials: if they appear on the profile, they also need to come off when the season is over.

Finally, posts. Hardly anyone publishes a Google Post regularly. That is a shame, because it is the easiest way to make your profile look active for both guests and the algorithm that decides who appears at the top. A photo of the weekly menu, a note about a new lunch dish, or an announcement that your terrace is open again. None of it needs to be long.

How to check whether it is working

Your profile is filled in, but that does not yet tell you what a guest actually sees. You can verify that in three ways, and we recommend doing all three.

Open an incognito window in your browser and search for the name of your restaurant. Check whether the profile appears on the right with the correct hours, the right photos and your phone number. Then search for a generic term that fits your restaurant, something like “sushi” or “italian” plus the name of your city, and check whether you appear in the three map results. Do the same on Google Maps on your phone, because the order differs by device and by location. What you see on your laptop is not necessarily what a guest on the street sees.

Search for your restaurant with an AI assistant as well. ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Overviews use the same business data to recommend restaurants. If you do not come up there, something is missing from your profile or your website that an AI needs in order to recommend you. The cause is often the description, the category choice or the absence of recent reviews.

The quickest way to see how your profile scores is the free AI scan at ai.poweredbysous.com. That scan checks your visibility on Google, Maps and AI search engines in a single overview and shows per element what you can improve. Type in your restaurant name and scan your visibility for free.

Frequently asked questions

Is Google Business Profile the same as Google My Business?

Yes. Google changed the name in 2021. The service and the features are the same; only the name and the management interface have been updated.

Does a Google Business Profile cost money?

No. Creating and managing your profile is free. Google earns from the adverts around it, not from the profile itself.

How often should I update my profile?

Check your details and opening hours at least once a month, and update them immediately when you change your menu or on a public holiday. On top of that, post a short update every week to keep your profile active.

Can I manage more than one location?

Yes, each location gets its own profile with its own hours, photos and reviews. Local search visibility with multiple locations explains per location what differs and where things go wrong.

Does SOUS Spotlight help with my Google Business Profile?

SOUS Spotlight keeps your details consistent across 30-plus platforms, including Google. It replies to reviews in your tone and sends you a report on your visibility every two weeks. The free AI scan at ai.poweredbysous.com shows you where you stand right now.