For any business a customer can walk into, this free listing is worth more than most of what you could pay for. It decides whether you appear in the map block above the ordinary search results — and that block gets a very large share of the taps on a local search.
It takes an afternoon, and most businesses do about a third of it.
Verification first
Nothing works until the profile is verified. Google will offer a method depending on the business — a postcard to the address, a phone call, email, or a short video showing the premises, signage and some proof you work there.
Video verification has become the common one. Record it in a single take, show the street and the signboard, go inside, show equipment or stock, and finish with something proving you run it. Do not stop recording between those; a cut usually means doing it again.
The primary category is the strongest single field
It affects which searches you can appear for more than anything else on the profile. Choose the one that matches what you actually want customers for, not the broadest one available.
A practical way to pick: search what your customers search, look at the businesses in the map block, and see which category they use. Add secondary categories for genuine other services, but keep the primary one precise.
Name, address, phone — identical everywhere
These three have to match exactly across the profile, your website, your Facebook page and any directory. Not nearly — exactly. "Rd" in one place and "Road" in another is enough inconsistency to weaken the listing.
And use your actual business name. Adding keywords to it — "Rahim Electronics | Best Electronics Shop in Dhaka" — is against Google's rules and gets profiles suspended. Competitors report it.
The fields most businesses skip
- Services and products. Each one you list is another thing you can match a search for. This is free, long-tail reach that your website may never rank for.
- Business description. Write it for a person deciding between you and the next listing, not for keywords.
- Hours, including holidays. Google demotes profiles it suspects are inaccurate, and "open now" filters are used constantly. Set Eid and public holidays in advance.
- Photographs, added regularly. The exterior especially — people use it to recognise the place when they arrive. A profile with photos from three years ago reads as closed.
- Messaging, if you will actually answer it. Turning it on and leaving messages unanswered is worse than leaving it off.
Reviews, which are half the battle
Reviews affect both where you appear and whether anyone taps through once you do.
- Ask in person, right after you have solved someone's problem, with the link ready on your phone. This works far better than any message sent later.
- Steady beats sudden. Twenty reviews in a week looks bought. Two a week for six months looks like a business.
- Reply to every one, including the bad ones — briefly, without arguing. Prospective customers read the reply more carefully than the complaint.
- Never buy them. Removal is the least bad outcome; suspension is the common one.
What quietly suppresses a profile
- Keywords stuffed into the business name.
- An address you do not actually operate from, or a virtual office.
- Hours that do not match reality, so people arrive to a closed shop and say so.
- Duplicate listings for the same business — find and merge them.
- A category that does not match what the business visibly is.
After it is live
Post updates occasionally, keep photos current, and check the Insights for which searches found you — that list is free keyword research, and often surprising.
Pair it with the website work in local SEO for Dhaka businesses: the profile wins the map block, the website wins everything underneath it. If you want both handled properly, that is what our SEO service covers.