Google Business Profile: the complete setup for a Thai venue

Your Google Business Profile is the box that appears on the right when someone searches your name: the map pin, the hours, the photos, the reviews, the button to call or visit. For many guests it is the first thing they see, and they trust it more than your own site. Most venues set it up half-way and leave money on the table. Here is the full setup.

Claim and verify it first

If you have not claimed the profile, Google is filling it in with guesses, and guesses are often wrong. Claiming is free. The step-by-step is in the restaurant-on-Google guide, and it is the same for any venue: search your name, claim the profile, and verify by phone, postcard, or a short video Google asks for.

Get the category right

Your primary category is one of the strongest signals for which searches you appear in. Pick the most specific one that fits ("Seafood restaurant", not just "Restaurant"; "Boutique hotel", not just "Lodging"), and add secondary categories for the other things you genuinely do. Wrong or vague categories are a common reason a good venue does not appear for its own kind of search.

Hours, including the ones that move

Set your real opening hours, and then set the ones Thailand actually needs: special hours for Songkran, Buddhist holidays, and long weekends. A profile showing "open" on a day you are closed sends a guest to a locked door and costs you the next visit too. Google lets you set holiday hours in advance; use it.

Photos: real, many, refreshed

Add more photos than feels necessary, and make them real. Ten or more, of the rooms, the food, the room with a view, the front of the building so people recognise it from the street. Refresh them through the year. Profiles with real, current photos get more clicks than ones with a single old image or a stock photo, and Google shows them more.

The description, attributes and services

Fill in the description in plain language (not a keyword list), the attributes that apply (outdoor seating, sea view, free parking, wheelchair access), and your services or menu where the category allows it. Each one is another way to match a guest's search and to answer a question before they have to ask.

Keep it alive: posts, offers and Q&A

A profile is not set-and-forget. Post an offer or an event now and then. Answer the questions people leave in the Q&A section (and seed the obvious ones yourself). An active profile signals a real, running business, which is exactly what Google and the guest are looking for.

Reviews: get them, and answer them

Ask happy guests to leave a review, steadily rather than in a burst. Then answer them, all of them. A warm reply to a good review and a calm, brief reply to a bad one both reassure the next reader, and answering reviews feeds your local ranking. A bad review answered well does more good than no bad reviews at all.

The mistakes that bury a good venue

• Duplicate listings. Two profiles for the same place split your reviews and confuse Google. Find and merge them.
• A pin in the wrong place. If the map pin is off, guests get lost and Google trusts the listing less. Drag it to the real door.
• A keyword-stuffed name. Adding "best cheap hotel Sarti" to your name breaks Google's rules and can get you suspended. Use your real name.
• Fake reviews. Tempting, and a fast way to lose the profile. Do not.

Your profile and your website are two halves: the profile is found and trusted, the site is yours and takes the booking. Getting both right is most of local SEO. If you would like a hand setting yours up alongside a site built to be found, tell us what you are working with.