How to pick your Google Business Profile categories

What categories actually do

Categories tell Google what kind of business you are. When someone searches "plumber near me" or "emergency dentist", Google uses your categories, along with your name, services, reviews and website, to decide whether your profile is a relevant answer.

You get one primary category and can add additional ones. The primary category matters most for which searches you show up for, and it is usually the label shown under your name on Maps. It also shapes some of the features your profile gets, such as preset services, menus or booking options that appear for certain kinds of businesses.

You cannot make up a category. Google keeps a fixed list, and you choose from it by typing and picking from the suggestions. If the exact wording you want is not offered, it is not on the list.

Categories are also one of the first things a customer reads about you, so the right one helps the person deciding as well as the search engine.

How to choose your primary category

Pick the category that describes what your business is at its core, as specifically as the list allows. A useful test, in line with Google's guidance, is to finish the sentence "this business is a" rather than "this business has a". A pizza place is a "Pizza restaurant", not a business that happens to have pizza.

Specific usually beats general. If most of your work is cosmetic dentistry, "Cosmetic dentist" may fit better than "Dentist". If you mostly handle injury cases, "Personal injury attorney" is more precise than "Lawyer". Only go specific if it really is your main business, though. A general dental office that does some whitening is still a "Dentist".

Think about the searches that bring your best work. A heating and cooling company might choose "HVAC contractor", while a company that does almost entirely air conditioning work in a hot climate might weigh a more specific air conditioning category. Pick for the work you want most, as long as it honestly describes the business.

When to add additional categories

Additional categories are for other real, significant parts of your business. A plumbing company with a large drain and sewer side, or an HVAC company that also does plumbing, can add categories that describe those lines of work.

Google's guidance is to use as few categories as possible to describe your core business, and it is sensible advice. Adding a long list of loosely related categories will not make you show up everywhere. It blurs what you are, for Google and for the customer reading your profile.

A good rule of thumb: add a category only if you would be comfortable painting that word on your truck or your sign. If a customer searching for that category would be disappointed to find you, leave it off.

Categories and services do different jobs

A common mistake is trying to use categories to cover every service. Categories describe the type of business. Services describe what you do. A roofer does not need separate categories for shingle repair, metal roofing and gutter work if those are all services of one roofing business.

Use the Services section of your profile for the full list, with a short description of each. Many categories come with suggested services you can switch on, and you can add your own. Your website should have its own page for each main service as well, which gives Google more to go on than the profile alone.

The same goes for your business description. It is the place to explain the range of what you do in plain sentences, not a place to repeat category names over and over.

And do not put keywords into your business name to make up for categories. That is against Google's guidelines and a common reason profiles get suspended.

See what the businesses that show up are using

Search for your main service the way a customer would, in your own town, and look at the businesses in the map results. The category under each name is usually their primary category. If most of the businesses showing for the search you want share a category you are not using, that tells you something.

Additional categories are not shown on the public profile, but some browser extensions and audit tools can reveal them. Use what you find as research, not a template. Copy only categories that truly describe your own business.

Pay most attention to the businesses that keep showing up for the searches you care about from several locations, rather than the one competitor that happens to be closest to your shop.

Check more than one search, and from more than one spot in your area. Map results change with where the searcher is standing, so a single search from your office is not the whole picture.

Changing categories safely

You can change categories whenever you need to, but a change to the primary category can shift which searches you appear for, sometimes noticeably, and edits can go through a review before they show. So change it deliberately, not as a weekly experiment.

Before you change anything, write down where you show up today for your most important searches, from a few locations in your area. Make one change, give it time, then check again. If you change the primary category and three other things at once, you will not know what helped or hurt.

Look over your categories once or twice a year. Google adds new categories from time to time, and a more precise fit for your business may have appeared since you set up the profile.

Mistakes that hold profiles back

Most category problems come from the same few habits. Choosing a broad category because it sounds bigger, when a specific one describes the business better. Picking a category for a service you barely offer because it seems popular. Stacking every loosely related category on the list. Never revisiting the choice made in a hurry on setup day.

Each of these makes it harder for Google to match you to the searches that bring your best customers. Fixing them costs nothing but a careful look.

Reviewing your categories against the searches you want is part of Northward's Google Business Profile Management service.