How to write a Google Business Profile description that works

The description on your Google Business Profile is one of the few parts of the listing written entirely by you. Most businesses fill it with a slogan, a string of suburb names, or nothing at all. It is worth twenty minutes of proper thought.

The limits

The description field takes up to 750 characters, and only the opening shows before the reader has to expand it, so the first line carries most of the weight. Google’s guidelines rule out links of any kind, content focused on promotions, prices or sales, low quality content such as gimmicky characters, and anything irrelevant to the business. Keep it plain and factual.

What the first sentence should do

Say what you are and who you serve, in words a customer would use. Not “Delivering excellence since 2019”. Something closer to:

Family run cafe in Officer serving breakfast, lunch and specialty coffee seven days, with a kids corner and plenty of parking.

That sentence answers the questions people actually have: what is it, where is it, when is it open, and is it for me.

What goes in the rest

What you actually do, in plain terms. Services, specialties, the thing people come for.
Who it is for. Families, tradies, small businesses, new home builders.
Where you work, described once, honestly. “Serving Pakenham and surrounding suburbs” is fine. A list of forty suburbs reads as spam to people and to Google.
What makes you different, stated as a fact rather than an adjective. “Same day quotes” beats “exceptional service”.

What does not belong

Keyword stuffing. Repeating “plumber Pakenham” five times does not help and looks careless.
Offers and prices. Google does not allow promotional content in the description. Use posts or the products and services sections for those.
Links and phone numbers. They have their own fields.
Claims you cannot back up. “Best in Melbourne” is both against the spirit of Google’s rules and a misleading claim risk under Australian Consumer Law if it cannot be substantiated.

How much does the description affect ranking

Google says local ranking comes down to relevance, distance and prominence, and that complete, accurate information helps it match your profile to searches. The description is part of relevance, but it does less than your primary category and far less than distance. Its bigger job is converting the person who has already found you. More on the factors in why your business does not show up in Google Maps.

Borrow your customers’ words

The best description writing we see is lifted almost directly from reviews. If six customers mention the parking, the kids area, or that you turn up on time, those are your selling points in the language buyers use. Read three months of reviews before you write. See you have the reviews, now put them to work.

Keep it current

Update it when something real changes: new hours, a new service, a move. An out of date description is worse than a short one, because people act on it.