When somebody in Lagos searches for a supplier near them, the results that appear first are usually not websites. They are the map listings, with the pin, the opening hours, the photographs and the reviews. That listing is a Google Business Profile, it is free, and a large number of Nigerian businesses either do not have one or have one somebody else created years ago and never claimed.
For a business with premises customers visit, or a defined area it serves, this is often the single highest return item on any digital list.
First, check whether one already exists
Search your business name plus your city on Google. There are three possible outcomes.
A listing appears with an option saying claim this business or own this business. That means Google already has a record of you, probably assembled from other sources, and nobody has taken control of it. Claim it. Do not create a second one.
A listing appears and looks managed already. If that is not you, somebody else has claimed your business. There is a process for disputing it, and it is slow, so start early.
Nothing appears. Then you create one from scratch.
The reason to check first matters. Creating a second listing where one already exists produces duplicates, duplicates split your reviews and your history across two records, and merging them afterwards is far harder than claiming the original would have been.
Setting it up
Go to the Google Business Profile site and add your business. You will be asked for the name, the category, the address or service area, a phone number and a website.
The name must be exactly your trading name. Not your trading name plus your keywords. "Adeyemi Solar" is a business name. "Adeyemi Solar Best Solar Installation Lagos Cheap Inverter" is a guideline breach, and it is one of the most common reasons Nigerian profiles get suspended. The listing is not a place to do keyword optimisation.
Choose the primary category carefully. It carries more weight than almost anything else in deciding which searches you appear for. Pick the one that describes what you actually are rather than the one that sounds most impressive, and add secondary categories for the rest.
Address or service area, not both loosely. If customers come to you, give the address. If you travel to them, set a service area and be honest about its size. Claiming to serve the whole country when you work in three local government areas does not help you and can hurt you.
Use a number you actually answer. Obvious, and frequently ignored.
Verification, which is where Nigeria differs
Google has to confirm the business is real and that you control it. It offers different methods depending on the business and the country, typically some combination of postcard, phone, email and video.
The postcard method is the historical default and it is the one to avoid here if you can. A postcard sent to a Nigerian address may take weeks, and may never arrive at all. Addressing in much of the country is not standardised in the way the process assumes. Businesses wait, the code expires, they request another, and months disappear.
Video verification is now commonly offered and is usually the fastest route from here. You record a continuous video showing the premises, some evidence that the business operates there such as signage, equipment or stock, and then yourself with access to the place, all in one take without cuts. Prepare before you start recording, because a failed attempt costs another wait.
Whatever method you are offered, start this early. Verification taking weeks is normal and it is outside your control, so it should not be the last item on a launch plan.
After verification
A verified but empty profile does very little. What moves it is unglamorous and ongoing.
Photographs of the actual premises, the actual team and the actual work, not stock images. Opening hours that are correct, including during public holidays. The services listed individually rather than as one vague description. Questions answered when customers ask them. And reviews, requested from real customers after real work, never bought, because bought reviews are detectable and getting caught costs the profile.
The single most damaging thing you can do after verification is let the information go stale. A profile listing hours you no longer keep, at an address you have left, does more harm than no profile at all, because the customer who turns up and finds you gone does not give you a second chance.
Why profiles get suspended
Worth knowing in advance, because reinstatement is slow.
Keywords stuffed into the business name. An address that is a virtual office, a mailbox, or a residential address presented as a shopfront. Multiple listings for the same business at the same address. A category wildly at odds with what the business does. And a sudden burst of reviews that do not look like they came from customers.
None of these are traps. All of them are things people do deliberately because somebody told them it works.
Where this sits against everything else
If you have a location and you are choosing between building a new website and claiming your Business Profile, claim the profile. It takes an afternoon plus a wait, it costs nothing, and for a local business it frequently produces more enquiries than a website does.
It is also one of the checks in our free deep digital audit, along with everything else a customer and a search engine can see. If you are not sure what state yours is in, that will tell you.
