How do I choose the right Google Business Profile category?

Choose the Google Business Profile category that names what your business mainly is, as specifically as Google’s list allows. You can’t write your own category. You pick from a list Google maintains, so the task is to find the closest true match for the work that brings in most of your revenue and set it as the primary category. Finer detail belongs in additional categories and in the services list.

Start from your revenue, not from a keyword

Before you open the profile, look at last year’s invoices and note which line of work produced the most. The category that describes that work is your primary one. A hypothetical company in El Cajon that does both plumbing and heating should let the invoices decide which trade leads, and not the search term with the largest volume.

If the split is close, lead with the work you want more of. It’s commonly observed that the primary category counts for more than the additional ones, although Google doesn’t publish how much.

Search Google’s list for the most specific true match

Type your trade into the category field and read every option it offers before choosing. Google’s guidance is that a category should say what the business is, and shouldn’t be a list of everything it does or sells. Within that, specific beats broad: a category naming your trade describes you better than a general contractor one.

Specific still has to be true. A narrow category for a job that is a small part of your week misdescribes the company. Google also adds, renames and removes categories, so the option you remember from a few years ago may no longer be the closest one.

Look at what the businesses above you chose

Google Maps generally shows a business’s primary category under its name. Search for the job you care about most from a few points in your service area and note the category on each of the top listings. Those are the companies ranking for the searches you want, so they make a useful comparison.

If they all share one category and yours is different, that is worth testing. It’s a clue and not proof. Their job mix may differ from yours, and they may rank for reasons that have nothing to do with category.

Mistakes that cost relevance

• Choosing a broad category because it sounds like a bigger company.
• Choosing a category for work you’d like to win but rarely do.
• Trying to make up for a weak category by adding services or city names to the business name. That breaks Google’s rules.
• Changing the category together with several other fields, which leaves no way to tell which edit did what.

Test the choice

A category is a decision you can measure. I record your positions on a rank grid for the searches tied to the current category and to the one being considered. Then the category changes and nothing else does, and I run the grid again about two weeks later. If the searches you care about improved and nothing important fell, the new category stays. If not, it goes back.

Once the primary category is settled, the next questions are how many additional categories the profile should have and how the services list supports them. Both are part of my work on categories and services. Category is one input among several. The right one won’t overcome a long distance between your base and the person searching.