Your Google Business Profile description should say what your business does, who it's for and where it works, in plain words a customer would use. It can be up to 750 characters, with no URLs or HTML code and no focus on promotions, prices or sales. It shows under "From the business" and is separate from service descriptions, which take up to 300 characters each. Vague filler such as "professional, reliable service" tells a customer nothing about what you do.

If you're a UK business or trade writing your own description, this is what to put in it, in order, as of October 2026:

Start with what you do, who for and where. A Google Business Profile description should open with your main service in the words customers use, who it's for (homeowners, landlords, other businesses) and the towns and areas you actually cover. It goes first for a simple reason: the opening is what people read first. Someone with a boiler that's packed in wants two answers fast: do you fix boilers, and do you cover where they live? Your business name already sits at the top of the profile, so the description doesn't need to open with it.

Then why you, with something specific behind it. After that, a Google Business Profile description should give a reason to pick you that a customer could check: a qualification, how long you've been trading, a guarantee. The year you started trading is a fact. "Experienced" is an opinion you've given yourself, and it costs nothing to type.

End with a plain next step, if you want one. A Google Business Profile description can finish with a simple next step, such as calling or messaging to book a visit, as long as there's no offer or price in it. It's optional, and one short line does it. Point people at whichever way you'd actually like them to get in touch, then stop.

A made-up example. Here's one for a made-up heating engineer around Lincoln. It's not a client and not a real business:

Boiler servicing, repairs and replacements for homeowners and landlords in Lincoln, North Hykeham, Waddington, Bracebridge Heath and Nettleham. We also do landlord gas safety checks and fit new radiators and smart thermostats. Every engineer on the team is Gas Safe registered, and we've been working on heating systems in the area since 2011. If a repair isn't worth doing, we'll say so before any work starts, and every new boiler we fit comes with a written guarantee on the installation. Call or send us a message to book a visit at a time that suits you.

The opening sentence does the heavy lifting: what (boiler servicing, repairs and replacements), who for (homeowners and landlords) and where (Lincoln and four places around it). The second sentence adds the other work worth a phone call. The third and fourth sentences are the "why you": Gas Safe registered, in the area since 2011, honest about repairs that aren't worth doing, and a written guarantee on every new boiler fitted. The last line is the next step, and that's all it is.

What it leaves out matters just as much: no price, no offer, no phone number, no web address, no HTML (web page code) and not one "trusted" or "professional". Every line earns its place.

Before you paste yours in, check you've got the right box. There are two kinds of description on a profile, and they're easy to mix up.

What's the difference between a Google Business Profile description and service descriptions?

The difference between a Google Business Profile description and service descriptions is that the business description covers the whole business, while each service description covers one type of service you offer. The business description is one box per profile, takes up to 750 characters and shows in the "From the business" section. Service descriptions take up to 300 characters each, in a box you only see once you reopen a service you've already added. Use the business description for what you do, who it's for and where you work, and each service description for what that service is, what it fixes and where you offer it. Filling in one doesn't fill in the other.

  • Focus: A Google Business Profile's business description sums up the whole business, while a service description sticks to a single job.
  • Where you edit it: On a Google Business Profile, you reach the business description through Edit profile, then Edit next to Description, and each service description through Edit services, inside that service.
  • Limit: A Google Business Profile's business description takes up to 750 characters, once per profile, while a service description takes up to 300 characters, once per service.
  • Purpose: A Google Business Profile's business description gives a customer the full picture and a reason to choose the business, while a service description makes the case for one particular job.

Here's an easy way to tell them apart. Got one type of work you want more calls for (boiler replacements, say)? That's what its service description is for. The business description is for someone weighing up the whole business before they ring, so it needs the bigger picture, not one job in detail.

Right box, then. Now, what can't go in it?

What isn't allowed in a Google Business Profile description?

A Google Business Profile description isn't allowed to contain links, HTML or gimmicky characters, or to focus on offers, prices or sales, because it's meant to help customers understand the business. Misspellings and gibberish are out too, and the description has to stay within 750 characters. Offers and prices still have homes on the profile, in Offer posts and on the services themselves, and your web address goes in the website field. A phone number or address isn't one of the banned items, but each already has its own field, so repeating it in the description wastes space. Google's guidelines for representing your business ask for a description that's upfront, honest and relevant to customers, and name links, offers and low-quality text as things to leave out.

Not allowed, and where each thing goes instead:

  • Links and web addresses: A link of any kind is out of bounds in a Google Business Profile description, so your web address belongs in the profile's website field instead.
  • HTML code: HTML, the code web pages are written in, has no place in a Google Business Profile description, so type plain text (if HTML means nothing to you, you're already fine).
  • Offers and sales: An offer or sale can't be the focus of a Google Business Profile description, so run it as an Offer post, which carries start and end dates and gets its own "View offer" button.
  • Prices: A price can't be the focus of a Google Business Profile description, so put it on the service it belongs to, since adding a service to the profile asks for a price anyway.
  • Misspellings, gimmicky characters and gibberish: Misspellings, gimmicky character use and gibberish all count as low-quality text in a Google Business Profile description, so write the description in plain sentences and run a spell-check before you save.
  • Over 750 characters: A Google Business Profile description can't run past 750 characters, so anything that won't fit belongs in your services list, where each service gets a service description of up to 300 characters.

Most of that list is perfectly good stuff in the wrong box.

Not on that list, but still a waste: each of these four spends space you could use on what you do, who for and where.

  • Your phone number and address: A phone number or address in a Google Business Profile description doubles up on a field the profile already has. If you've hidden your address because customers don't come to you, typing it in puts it back on show, so list your towns in the service area setting instead.
  • Keyword stuffing: Repeating the same search term throughout a Google Business Profile description gives a customer nothing new after the first mention, and every repeat takes room from something they'd actually want to know.
  • Filler like "professional, reliable service": A line like "professional, reliable service" in a Google Business Profile description describes nothing a customer can check, a bit like a job reference that says only "turns up".
  • Towns you don't cover: A town named in a Google Business Profile description tells everyone who lives there that you work there, which is why the made-up Lincoln heating engineer leaves Grantham out: a Grantham customer with a dead boiler would ring, and get a polite no.

Staying off the first list doesn't make a line worth its space. Break anything on that list, though, and the description can be rejected, so check yours against it before you save.

Stuffing's on the waste list. But does a keyword or two, written naturally, do anything for rankings?

Do keywords in your Google Business Profile description help rankings?

Yes, keywords in your Google Business Profile description can help rankings when they're written naturally, because they give Google more to match against what customers search. Name your main service and your area once each, the way customers say them, in sentences that read properly. Stuffing the description with the same search term again and again makes it harder for a customer to read and earns nothing extra. The business description is one of several places for keywords on a Google Business Profile, alongside the primary category you choose, the services list and each service description. IvI SEO's Local Signal Ratings, Jack's scores out of 10 for 33 local ranking signals, put the business description at 7 out of 10, behind the primary category at 10.

The honest bit first. That 7 is my own score, based on the profiles I've worked on: an opinion with a number on it, not a measurement. There's no IvI SEO test of business descriptions on their own to point to here, so I can't put a figure on what a better description does to your map ranking. The rest of the scores are on the full ratings chart, if you want to see what scores higher and lower.

Search this question and you'll be told the description helps your ranking, and also that it doesn't. Depends how you phrase the search, apparently.

Where I land: worth doing properly, not worth obsessing over. The primary category you choose and your services list come first, and the description comes after them. And whatever it does for your ranking, it's still what a customer reads about you before they ring.

Here's natural against stuffed, using the made-up heating engineer around Lincoln again. Natural is the example's own opening line:

Boiler servicing, repairs and replacements for homeowners and landlords in Lincoln, North Hykeham, Waddington, Bracebridge Heath and Nettleham.

Stuffed is the same business trying far too hard:

Boiler repair Lincoln, boiler engineer Lincoln, emergency boiler repair Lincoln, gas engineer near me

The first names the job, who it's for and five places, each once. The second says Lincoln three times and still doesn't tell you who it's for. (Gas engineer near me. Near who?) One's a description. The other reads like someone's search history.

The description isn't the only place those words go, either. On a Google Business Profile, they also belong here:

  • The primary category you choose: on a Google Business Profile you pick the primary category from a list rather than typing it, so the job is choosing the one that matches your main service.
  • The services list: each service on a Google Business Profile gets its own name, so call it what customers call it, like "boiler repair" rather than "heating solutions".
  • Each service's description: each service description on your Google Business Profile is the place for the keyword that one service is about.
  • Posts: a Google Business Profile post about a job you've just finished can name the service and the town without forcing either.
  • The business name, only if it's real: a keyword only goes in a Google Business Profile's name when it's genuinely part of the name you trade under (what the name can hold).

There's more on where local keywords go on a profile, spot by spot.

Written yours? Here's where it goes.

How do you add or edit your Google Business Profile description?

Add or edit your Google Business Profile description from Edit profile: click Edit next to Description, type or paste the text and click Save. To reach Edit profile, sign in with the Google account linked to the listing and go to your Google Business Profile, for example by searching the business name on Google. Only the profile's owner or a manager can change the business description, so if your account doesn't have that access, get it before anything else. Write the text somewhere else first, check it fits within 750 characters and then paste it in.

Step by step, it goes like this:

  1. Go to your Google Business Profile.
  2. Click Edit profile.
  3. Next to "Description", click Edit.
  4. Enter your business description.
  5. Click Save.

Only step 4 takes any thought. The rest is clicking.

Some profiles also show a "Suggest description" button, which uses AI to draft a description from your profile and other sources, such as your website. It's only available in some regions and languages, so you may not see it, and anything it writes needs checking for accuracy. Treat it like a new starter's first go: handy, but you'd read it before it went out with your name on it.

Before you click Save, read the finished description out loud. If you'd trip over a sentence saying it to a customer on the phone, they'll trip over it reading it too. Then check it against the list of what isn't allowed. A minute spent now beats spotting a mistake once it's live and then waiting for the fix to go through.

Once it's saved, a change to a Google Business Profile description usually shows in about 10 minutes, though in some cases it can take up to 30 days. That's the same wait as any other change to the profile, and there's more on how long each kind of Google Maps change takes if you're waiting on something bigger, like a merge. Thirty days is the outside edge. Slow is annoying, not alarming.

Change your Google Business Profile description when what you do or where you work changes: a new service, one you've stopped offering, a new town you've started covering. If nothing's changed, leave it alone. A business description isn't a post, and it doesn't need a fresh coat of paint every month to look busy.

A new service or town belongs in more than the description, mind: add the service to your services list too, and the town to your service area if you have one. While you're signed in, it's worth running the rest of the profile past the common Google Business Profile mistakes as well.

That's the whole job. Or, if you'd rather not, hand it over.

Want a second pair of eyes on your Google Business Profile description?

You can write your Google Business Profile description yourself, or get a second pair of eyes on it before you save it. IvI SEO's local SEO service looks at the whole Google Business Profile, from the description to the services, and checks it against your website. Whoever writes the description, the starting point is the same: what you do, who for and where, in plain words. No description, however good, comes with a guaranteed ranking or a guaranteed call.

Writing the description yourself is a realistic job, because nobody knows your work, your customers and your patch better than you. It's one box, not a novel. Everything else you need is on the page: what goes first, what stays out, the steps to save it and a made-up heating engineer's description to borrow the shape from. (Bit of a flaw in my business plan, that.)

Help makes sense if you'd rather hand the writing over, or if you've a nagging feeling the description isn't the only thing on the profile that's a bit off. If either sounds like you, IvI SEO's local SEO service can be that second pair of eyes.

Either way, write it the way you'd describe the business to a new customer on the phone and you'll be golden.