Is your Google Business Profile ready for voice search? The checklist
- Google Business Profile
- Voice search
- Checklist
A Google Business Profile is ready for voice search when it is fully completed, correctly categorised and current: exact name, address and phone number, the most specific category available, accurate opening hours (public holidays included), recent photos and answered reviews. Google Assistant reads its answers straight from this data, and Siri, Alexa and AI search tools like ChatGPT cross-check what they find elsewhere against your Google profile. One profile, outsized influence — below you can check it point by point.
Why does your Google Business Profile matter so much for voice search?
When someone asks "OK Google, is the launderette nearby open right now?", the answer does not come from your website. It comes from your business profile: your hours, your address, your busy times. To Google Assistant, your profile is your business.
The other assistants look over its shoulder. The systems behind Siri, Alexa and AI search compare sources, and the Google profile is the most consulted reference point of all. If things are wrong there, your whole online presence wobbles. If things are right there, you have the foundation everything else builds on.
The checklist: ten points, half an hour of work
Open your profile at business.google.com and tick off:
- Your business name is your real name. No add-ons like "Marina Hair Salon ✂ best hairdresser in town". Google can suspend profiles for it, and assistants trip over the clutter.
- Your primary category is the most specific one that exists. "Beauty salon" loses to "Nail salon" when someone asks for a nail salon. Only then add extra categories.
- Address and phone number match your website to the letter. "5A Station Street" versus "5 A Station St" looks harmless; to a machine those are two different places.
- Your opening hours are right — including next Monday. Set holiday hours in advance. Nothing burns goodwill like "the assistant said you were open".
- Every service or product you offer is listed. The question "who repairs phone screens near me?" is answered from exactly these lists.
- Your description says in two sentences what you do and for whom. Write it the way you would say it to a customer at the counter — which happens to be what AI understands best.
- There are recent, genuine photos. Profiles with current photos build trust with Google and with customers who want to see your place before visiting.
- You reply to reviews — including the poor ones. A profile where the owner visibly responds is alive. Reputation signals feed into who becomes the answer.
- The questions-and-answers section is not empty. Anyone can ask questions there; as the owner you can add and answer the most common ones yourself.
- Your profile is actually claimed and verified. Sounds obvious, but plenty of businesses run on an unclaimed profile Google generated itself — with data nobody manages.
Which mistakes do we see most often?
Three classics. The move that was only updated on the website, so the profile keeps sending customers to the old address. The "temporary" summer hours still active in November. And the owner whose profile was set up years ago by a nephew, and who can no longer get into it. All three can be fixed in an afternoon — once you know they exist.
A fourth deserves an honourable mention: the duplicate profile. A restaurant that once changed its name or moved often has two listings — the old one and the new one. Reviews, photos and search traffic get split across two half profiles, and an assistant that sees two versions of the same business fully trusts neither. Duplicates can be merged or removed through your profile management; it is tedious paperwork, but it pays off immediately.
How do you keep this up without it becoming a job?
Put one recurring moment in your calendar: fifteen minutes a month is enough to refresh hours, photos and reviews. And after every change in your business — new service, new number, new hours — update your profile straight away.
Want to know how your profile stands today, together with the rest of your visibility on Siri, Alexa and AI search? Run the free RankPrima Scan — you get the full picture in a few minutes, based on the data sources voice assistants rely on.