How to Advertise on Google My Business

Turning your Google Business Profile into a powerful customer magnet isn't just about making sure your address is correct, it's about actively promoting it so you get seen by more local customers. Getting your company to the top of Google Search and Maps requires a smart combination of foundational work and, when you're ready, a little paid advertising firepower. This guide breaks down exactly how to optimize your presence for free and how to use Google Ads to take your visibility to the next level.

First Things First: Is Your Google Business Profile Ready for the Spotlight?

Before you spend a single dollar on ads, you have to be honest: is your Google Business Profile (GBP) actually any good? Pouring ad money into an incomplete or unappealing profile is like buying a Super Bowl commercial for a website that's still under construction. It's a complete waste. Ads amplify what you already have. Get the foundation right first, and your ad spend will go ten times further.

Think of your GBP as your digital storefront. When a potential customer pulls it up, it needs to be inviting, informative, and trustworthy. Here's your non-negotiable checklist.

Complete Every Single Section

Google rewards completeness. An empty profile section is a missed opportunity to show up in a relevant search. Go through your profile with a fine-toothed comb and make sure nothing is left blank.

• NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number): This is the absolute bare minimum. Double-check that it is 100% consistent everywhere else it appears online (your website, Yelp, social media profiles, etc.). Consistency is a major trust signal for search engines.
• Categories: Choose a primary category that best describes your business (e.g., "Italian Restaurant," not just "Restaurant"). Then add secondary categories that cover all your services (e.g., "Pizza Delivery," "Catering," "Event Venue"). These categories are direct triggers for search queries.
• Services/Products: Don't just list your category, list your actual services or products. If you're a plumber, add services like "Drain Cleaning," "Water Heater Repair," and "Emergency Plumbing." This helps you rank for specific, high-intent searches. Add photos and descriptions for each one.
• Attributes: These little tags give customers quick, important details. Do you offer "Online appointments"? Is the business "Black-owned"? Is there "Wheelchair accessible seating"? Check all the boxes that apply.

High-Quality Photos and Videos Are a Must

People are visual. Profiles with lots of high-quality photos get more direction requests and clicks to their website. Period. Don't rely on the single, blurry photo of your storefront you uploaded five years ago. Build a robust gallery that tells your story.

• Show Your Space: Post pictures of your interior and exterior from different angles. Make it look clean, professional, and welcoming.
• Show Your Team: A few smiling faces can make your business feel more human and approachable.
• Show Your Work: If you're a contractor, show before-and-after photos. If you're a bakery, show off your beautiful cakes. Demonstrate the quality of your work.
• Add Videos: A short, 30-second video tour or a clip of your team at work can have a huge impact. Vertical video works great here.

Cultivate a Garden of Glowing Reviews

Social proof is everything in local business. 90% of consumers read reviews before visiting a business. They are a massive ranking factor and a source of trust for potential customers.

• Ask for Them: Your happiest customers are usually willing to leave a review, but they forget. Make it easy. Include a review link in your email signature, on receipts, or send a polite follow-up text after a purchase.
• Reply to Everything: Engage with every single review, positive or negative. Thank happy customers for their kind words. For negative reviews, offer a thoughtful, non-defensive apology and a solution. Replying to negative feedback shows other prospective customers that you care and will work to fix problems.

Use Google Posts Like Your Business's Micro-Blog

Many businesses completely ignore the "Posts" tab, and it's a huge miss. Google Posts are free mini-ads that appear directly on your profile in search results. You can use them to announce sales, new products, company news, or upcoming events. Use them weekly to show Google - and your customers - that your business is active and engaged. Treat it like another social media feed, because that's essentially what it is.

Ready to Step on the Gas? Advertising Your Profile with Google Ads

Once your profile is in great shape, it's time to selectively add fuel to the fire. The main tool for this is Google Ads' Local Campaigns. These campaigns are specifically designed to drive physical foot traffic, phone calls, and direction requests by showing your business location prominently across Google's network.

First, Connect Your Accounts

You can't run Local Campaigns without creating a link between your Google Ads account and your Google Business Profile. This step is simple but mandatory.

1. Log in to your Google Ads account.
2. In the left-hand navigation menu, click on Ads & extensions, then select Extensions.
3. Click the blue plus (+) button and choose Location extension.
4. Google Ads should automatically find your Google Business Profile if they're under the same email address. Select it from the list and hit Continue.

That's it. Your accounts are now linked and ready to go.

Setting Up a Local Campaign: A Step-by-Step Walkthrough

Armed with a fully optimized profile and a linked account, here's how to create your first Local Campaign.

1. Choose Your Goal: In your Google Ads dashboard, click to create a "New campaign." When prompted for your campaign objective, choose "Local store visits and promotions." That's the entire purpose of this campaign type.
2. Select Your Business Location: On the next screen, you'll be prompted to use the Google Business Profile locations you just linked. Select the locations you want to promote. If you have multiple storefronts, you can group them.
3. Define Your Location & Language: You can set a radius around your business locations (e.g., a "10-mile radius") or target specific cities or zip codes. Don't go too broad, you want to focus on people who are actually likely to visit. Also, select the languages your customers speak.
4. Set Your Budget and Bidding: Decide on a daily budget you're comfortable with. You can start small, like $10-$20 a day, and see what kind of activity it drives. For bidding, Google's automated bidding is required for Local Campaigns. Their system will automatically optimize your bids to maximize the value from store visits, calls, and direction clicks. Trust the machine on this one, it has billions of data points to work with.
5. Craft Your Ad: This is the creative part. You'll need to provide headlines, descriptions, call-to-action text, and final URLs (like your website's homepage or a special offer page.) Most importantly, you need to provide assets like images and your company logo. Google will then automatically mix and match these assets to create ads that are optimized for placement across its network. Keep your copy focused on what makes you unique locally: "Family-Owned Since 1985," "Fresh Coffee Roasted Daily," or "Free Consultations This Week Only."

Understanding Where Your Ads Appear

Once your local campaign is running, where will people see it? Google automatically places these ads across its most visible local properties:

• Google Maps: Your business may show up as a "Promoted" pin when people search for relevant keywords nearby, or as a sponsored result at the top of the search list side.
• Google Search: Your ad can appear at the top of the search results page along with your location info when someone searches for local products or services.
• YouTube: Your ad may appear as a TrueView in-stream ad or as a bumper ad to users who are physically near your business location.
• Google Display Network: Your ads may appear on various websites and apps to users Google determines are near your location and interested in your services.

Smarter Integration: Using Location Extensions in Your Regular Search Ads

What if you're already running standard Google Search ads for your services or products? You should absolutely enable Location Extensions to give those ads a physical presence.

Enabling this extension attaches your Business Profile information directly to your ads. This can add your address, a map to your location, your business hours, and a click-to-call button. This does two powerful things: it makes your ad physically larger and more noticeable on the results page, which increases your click-through rate. And it provides immediate, helpful information for someone who might want to visit or call, reducing friction and generating better-qualified leads.

Closing the Loop: How to Track Your GMB Performance

Whether you're sticking to organic optimization or running paid campaigns, you need to track your performance to see what's working.

Inside your Google Business Profile dashboard, you'll see a Performance tab. This report gives you all the data you need to know.

Key Metrics to Watch:

• Interactions: This is the total number of actions people took, mainly calls, direction requests, website visits, and messages. This is the ultimate proof of whether your profile is driving business results.
• How people discovered you: This useful chart shows how many customers found you via "Direct" searches (typing in your business name) versus "Discovery" searches (searching for a category, product, or service that you offer). A high number of discovery searches means your optimization is working to attract new customers.
• Search queries: Anonymized, but super valuable. This shows you the actual terms people typed into Google before they found your business. It's a goldmine for understanding customer needs and can give you ideas for Google Posts and even ad headlines.

Advertising on your Google Business Profile effectively is about combining a perfectly polished digital storefront with smart, targeted ad campaigns. Nail the organic fundamentals first, then use ads to amplify your reach. This simple two-step process can transform your Profile from a passive listing into a proactive, customer-generating machine.

Final Thoughts

Promoting your Google Business Profile is a powerful combination of foundational optimization and targeted paid advertising. By first building an informative, trustworthy profile and then thoughtfully using Google Ads to amplify its reach, you create an incredibly effective engine for attracting local customers.

While an optimized GMB wins customers during their search, building a lasting brand and community happens everywhere, especially on social media. Consistently showing up with great content can feel like a full-time job, but that's why we built Postbase. It helps social media managers and business owners plan, schedule, engage, and analyze their content for Instagram, TikTok, and more, all from one clean, visual calendar. Our goal is to streamline your social workflow so you can stay top-of-mind with your audience across every platform, not just when they happen to find you on Google Maps.