What to fill in on your hotel's Google Business Profile

1. 1Search for your hotel at business.google.com/add and claim it.
2. 2If someone else already manages it, such as a former employee or an agency, request access from the same page.
3. 3Verify it by the method Google offers you. Google says its review of a verification can take up to five business days.
4. 4Add a second owner or manager, so that the profile isn't lost when one person leaves.

• Name: your hotel's name as it is on your sign and your website, with nothing added. Google doesn't allow anything in the name that isn't part of it, such as a tagline, and can suspend a profile that adds it.
• Category: Hotel, or the most specific one that fits, such as Resort hotel or Hostel. You can add up to nine more, but Google asks for as few as possible, each saying what you are rather than what you have.
• Address, phone and website: a phone that is answered at the hotel, and your own website's address, never a booking site's.
• Hours: none. Google treats a hotel as open to its guests at all hours, so a hotel can't edit them.
• Description: what you are, where, and who you suit, in up to 750 characters, with no links and no prices or promotions.

Once your profile is verified, you can set your amenities and services under Hotel details, on a computer: breakfast, parking, a pool, wifi, access for wheelchairs and the rest. Google shows a summary of them on Search and Maps, so check it and correct what is wrong. Add your check-in and check-out times too. Google also takes these from other sources, such as guests and licensed content, and you can choose whether to accept its updates.

Some parts are Google's, not yours:

• Your star class, which Google gives the hotels it has assessed. If it is wrong or missing, ask Google's support.
• The highlights beside your amenities, such as free wifi or free parking, which Google doesn't show for every hotel.
• The prices and booking links, which come from Google's hotel listings through your booking engine, not from the profile (see the guide on Google's free hotel listings).

• The outside and the entrance, so that an arriving guest knows it when they see it.
• Each kind of room, with its bathroom and its view, by daylight.
• The restaurant, the pool, the halls and anything else guests choose you for.
• New photos as things change, and none of a room that no longer looks like that.

• Posts: news and events, such as a festival dinner or a new restaurant. Google doesn't let hotels post offers, or any post that mentions deals, promotions or discounts, so that guests aren't confused about where the prices are.
• Messages: a WhatsApp or text number, so that a guest can ask before booking.
• Links to your Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

A restaurant, bar or spa inside your hotel that people can visit without staying should have a profile of its own, with its own name and category, rather than a Restaurant category added to the hotel's. Ask Google's support to show it as located in your hotel.

Reply to reviews, the low ratings first. Ask every guest for one, with the QR code your profile can make. Check the profile each month for changes others have suggested. Google says there is no way to ask or pay for a better place in its local results: a complete, accurate profile and reviews that are answered are what you control.