Struggling to gain visibility for your business in local search results? Your Google Business Profile (GBP) categories could hold the key. Choosing the right categories optimizes your profile and ensures that your business attracts the right audience.
This article will explain everything you need to know about Google Business Profile categories, helping you make informed decisions that enhance your visibility and improve local SEO performance.
A Google Business Profile category is used to describe your business based on its products, services, or primary offering. These categories are crucial for helping Google understand what your business does and presenting it in relevant search results.
For example, if the primary category of your business is “Breakfast restaurant”, you may come up in local search results for “Sandwich shop”, “Bakery”, “Restaurant”, and similar searches.
Google currently offers more than 4,000 categories (in the U.S.) to describe different local businesses.
Choosing accurate categories ensures that your business appears in the appropriate search results. For instance, if you run a vegan restaurant but select the "Restaurant" category without specifying "Vegan Restaurant," you might miss out on a significant portion of your target audience.
Your primary category is the most important choice for your Google Business Profile as it defines your core business. It tells Google and potential customers what your business is primarily about.
Secondary categories, on the other hand, serve to supplement your primary category by providing more details about the additional services and products you offer.
For instance, if your primary category is "Italian Restaurant," you might choose secondary categories like "Pizza Delivery" or "Catering Service" to highlight your range of offerings. By selecting relevant secondary categories, you can ensure a more comprehensive representation of what your business provides, helping to attract a wider audience and meet customer needs more effectively.
Start by researching successful competitors in your niche. Look at the categories they’ve selected and evaluate how they align with your services. You can go even further and look at what businesses similar to yours are doing in different cities or states.
You can find out the primary categories businesses are using by doing a simple search on Google Maps.
The downside of this simple method is that you can’t see if businesses that came up in results are using secondary categories and what those are.
If you’d like to find out more, you can use free tools such as PlePer (Chrome Extension) or GMB Everywhere (also a Chrome Extension).
Select categories that genuinely reflect your business offerings. Google allows businesses to add 10 categories, including the primary category. We suggest taking advantage of this and adding as many categories as you can to describe your business.
Check out Google’s full list of categories here to find the ones that best represent your business.
1. Log in to your Google Business Profile Dashboard.
2. Select the business you want to edit.
3. Click on "Edit Profile".
4. Click on the pencil icon next to the “Business Category”.
5. Start typing the category and choose it from the dropdown.
6. Save your changes.
Pro Tip: Be specific when selecting categories. “Mexican Restaurant” is more effective than simply “Restaurant.”
Don’t select categories that don’t align with your offerings just to appear in additional searches.
While it might seem like a strategy to draw in more potential customers, this approach can backfire and severely impact your business. Misleading users by listing services you don’t actually provide can result in a poor user experience, leading to frustration among potential clients.
Disappointed customers might leave negative reviews, which can deter others from engaging with your business. To maintain trust and ensure long-term success, it’s essential to select categories that genuinely reflect the products or services you offer.
Stick to a consistent category unless your business's core services change. You can always add or remove secondary categories depending on your business offer and the GBP category list updates.
Note that changing the primary category may trigger the re-verification of your Google Business Profile. This process ensures that the updated information remains accurate and trustworthy for users.
Google Business Profile is the #1 factor in local ranking factors. Optimizing categories and services within your profile will boost your visibility in the map pack.
Interaction with Other Local SEO Factors
Here’s what Google says on local ranking factors:
“Local results are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence. A combination of these factors helps us find the best match for your search.”
Adding accurate business information to your profile will help Google understand your business and match your profile to relevant searches.
Google frequently updates its list of categories. You can find the latest categories in their official list here.
The complete and updated list of categories can be accessed here.
It’s recommended to select one primary category and up to nine secondary categories that accurately describe your business.
Review your categories every couple of months to ensure they align with your current business offerings. Sometimes, Google can make changes to your categories, and you want to stay on top of that as well.
Since Google picks up information from all over the internet, inaccurate data can sometimes trigger the automatic changes and cause harm to your business by listing a category that’s not relevant.
Yes, your primary and secondary categories impact how your business appears in searches and can influence your ranking within specific niches.