The phone rings for jobs you don’t want. Or it doesn’t ring for the ones you do. For most local businesses that isn’t a visibility problem. It’s a relevance problem: Google isn’t sure what you do best.
Most owners picked their category in a few seconds when they set the profile up and haven’t looked at it since. Google is blunt about why that matters: “The categories you select affect your local ranking on Google.” You also can’t pay Google for a better local ranking, so this is one of the few levers you control, and it’s free.
This guide covers how to choose Google Business Profile categories properly. A category tells Google what kind of business you are. You get one primary category plus up to nine more. The six steps below help you pick the right primary, decide which extras are worth adding, make the change without tripping a re-verification, and keep it all honest.
Step 1: Write Down What You Actually Sell and Which Job Pays the Bills
Five minutes with a pen beats an hour scrolling Google’s dropdown. Start from your business, not the list.
- List every service you genuinely do. Leave out the work you’d like to do one day and the job you take on twice a year.
- Circle the one that pays the bills. The service that earns the most, or the one you most want new customers to find you for.
- Mark which of the rest are genuinely separate lines of work. Not variations of the main trade. You’ll need this in Step 4.
For example:
- A plumber who also fits bathrooms: plumbing leads, bathroom fitting is separate.
- A roofer who also does guttering and fascias: roofing leads, guttering is separate.
- A dental practice doing general and private cosmetic work: which do you want the new enquiries for?
One wrinkle: your main earner and your most searched service aren’t always the same. If they differ, go with what you want more of, and be honest with yourself. There’s no point ranking for work you’d rather turn down.
By the end of this step you should have one service at the top of a short list. That’s your primary category candidate.
Step 2: Check Which Primary Category Your Top Local Competitors Use
The answer to “which category should I pick?” is usually sitting in the map results for your own town.
- Search your main service and your town the way a customer would. Say you’re a roofer in Warrington: search “roofer Warrington”. A dentist in Widnes might try “emergency dentist Widnes”.
- Look at the businesses in the map results. Under each business name you’ll see a label. That’s their primary category.
- Skip the sponsored listings at the top. Ads can show different labels, and they don’t tell you what’s winning in the unpaid results.
- Look for a pattern. If most of the top results share one primary category, that’s strong evidence of what Google associates with that search.
Two caveats before you copy anyone.
First, you’ll usually only see a competitor’s primary category. Their additional categories aren’t shown in a normal listing. One practitioner, Tim DiSabatino, built his own tool just to see them. So use this step for your primary choice only.
Second, copy the category, not the whole profile. If the top three all say “General contractor” but you mostly do roofs, the more specific option in Step 3 may still be right.
Why not pick from a Google Business Profile category list you found on a blog? Because lists go stale. The map shows you what’s winning today, in your town, for the search you care about.
Step 3: Pick the Most Specific Primary Category That Is Actually True
Google’s own example: choose “Nail salon”, not “Salon”. The broader option is true. Google still says it’s the wrong choice.
That’s the rule for your GBP primary category: the most specific option that genuinely describes your main earner from Step 1.
Google names three things that decide local results: relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well your profile matches the search, and “what kind of business you are” is part of how Google judges it. Your category isn’t a separate fourth factor. It’s the main way you tell Google what you are. (Our guide to Google Business Profile ranking factors covers all three.)
So a broad or wrong Google Business Profile category makes Google less sure you match the search, and you lose out to competitors whose category matches it exactly. Some local SEOs go further and say a wrong primary can take you out of the running for a search altogether. That’s practitioner opinion, not something Google has said.
Take a business that mostly does roofs. “Roofing contractor” beats “General contractor” or “Remodeler”, even though both are technically true.
How to find the right label: type your trade into the category field in your profile and read what the dropdown suggests. Try a few wordings, such as “pest”, “pest control” and “exterminator”. The live field is the only up-to-date list. There are thousands of categories and the list changes.
If your trade isn’t listed: Google says to choose a general category that describes your business. You can’t create a custom one. Is there an official way to ask Google to add a new category? We looked. There isn’t one. All we found was a community forum thread asking the same question, with no official answer.
It’s one of the first things we check when we manage a Google Business Profile.
Specific and true beats broad and safe.
Step 4: Add Secondary Categories Only for Genuinely Separate Services
You can add up to nine additional categories on Google Business Profile, ten in total with your primary. So why not fill every slot?
Because “more categories, more people find me” sounds right and works backwards. Google says so directly: “Do not select a category for every product or service.” Use a few instead. Google also says separately owned departments, such as an independent café inside a health club, need their own profiles rather than extra categories on yours.
The best evidence we found has limits. Tim DiSabatino looked at 34 electricians in one market. The business in first place used a single category. Competitors using four to six were spread from first down to 28th and beyond, with no clear link between category count and rank.
That’s one trade in one market, so it isn’t proof. It does point the same way as Google’s advice: relevance matters more than quantity.
On the other side, well-known local SEO Joy Hawkins of Sterling Sky pushes back on the idea that adding several relevant categories hurts you. The two views fit together. Relevant extras are fine. Padding isn’t.
Also avoid a secondary that’s a near-duplicate of your primary. Some practitioners say overlapping categories dilute your relevance. That’s their advice, not Google policy.
Back to the roofer. With “Roofing contractor” as the primary, guttering is a genuinely separate line of work and a candidate for a secondary category, if a matching one exists. Same for the plumber who fits bathrooms. Check the dropdown rather than assuming a label is there.
Add it if it’s a separate service you’d happily get calls for. Skip it if it’s a synonym for your primary or a one-off job.
Step 5: Change Your Category in Google Business Profile (Desktop and Mobile)
Sign in to the Google Account linked to the profile. If a former agency or employee set it up, sort out access first.
On desktop:
- Go to business.google.com and sign in.
- Select the business.
- Select Edit profile.
- Click the edit (pencil) icon next to Business category.
- Type your category and pick it from the dropdown.
- Use Add another category for secondaries.
- Select Save.
Shortcut: Google lets you edit category directly on Search and Maps. Search your business name while signed in, select Edit profile, and Business category sits just below the name.
On mobile, in the Google Maps app:
- Open the Google Maps app.
- Tap Business at the bottom right.
- Tap Edit profile.
- Make your changes and tap Save.
Google notes that menus can differ between Search, Maps and your phone’s operating system.
The one risk to know about. Google says that if you add or edit a category, “you might be asked to verify your business again”. Darren Shaw, founder of Whitespark, says in his experience the change itself usually isn’t the trigger. A big, unrelated jump (his example: plumber to restaurant) is far more likely to prompt re-verification than a sensible, adjacent change your website backs up. If it does happen, our verification guide walks you through it.
So make sensible, adjacent changes, and check your website says the same thing before you press Save. Saved, and your website agrees: step done.
Step 6: Back Your Categories Up With Services and Your Website, Then Review Them
A category is a claim. Your services list and website are the evidence, and none of it stays right forever.
Use your services list for keyword variety, not extra categories. The Services section of your profile is where you cover the different ways customers describe the same job. Near-duplicates are fine there in a way they aren’t as categories. A plumbing and heating business might list both “boiler repair” and “boiler servicing”. That’s a practitioner tip, not a Google rule.
Give each secondary category services to back it up. If you’ve added a guttering category, list your guttering services. A category with nothing behind it is a label, not a line of work.
Make your website agree. As Step 5 covered, Shaw’s view is that website content supporting the category is what makes a change go smoothly. A page on your site for each main service helps, and it’s the core of good local SEO.
Review on a schedule. Remember the category picked in a few seconds and never touched again? Recheck yours whenever you add or drop a service, whenever enquiries drift towards the wrong jobs, and at least once a year. That’s our advice, not a Google rule.
If your enquiries don’t match the work you want, start by rechecking Step 3.
FAQ
How many categories can I have on Google Business Profile?
One primary category plus up to nine additional categories, ten in total, according to Google’s own help pages. You don’t have to use all ten. As Step 4 explains, Google advises using a few relevant categories rather than one for every service, and the best evidence we found suggests relevance matters more than the number.
Can I change my Google Business Profile category later?
Yes, at any time, using the steps in Step 5. Google says you might be asked to verify your business again after adding or editing a category. In Darren Shaw’s experience, sensible changes that follow on from what you already do, backed up by your website, carry much less risk than a jump into an unrelated trade.
How many Google Business Profile categories are there?
Thousands, and the list changes. Google doesn’t publish a fixed count, so any printed category list will go out of date. The reliable way to find yours is to type your trade into the category field in your own profile and see what the dropdown suggests. Try a few different wordings if the first search doesn’t turn up a match.
Does my category affect whether I show up in AI search, like Google’s AI Overviews or ChatGPT?
We couldn’t find anything from Google that ties categories to AI answers specifically, and the statistics going round on this don’t trace back to a real study. What is documented is that categories affect your local ranking. For how we approach AI search visibility, see our GEO service.
Can I pay Google to rank higher in the map results?
No. Google states: “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.” Getting your categories, profile and website right is the part you control, and it costs nothing but time.
If you’d rather someone checked your categories and the rest of your profile for you, tell us what you do and where. We’ll give you a straight answer on whether we can help, and if we can’t, we’ll say so. See our Google Business Profile management service or get in touch.