Before anyone books a table at your restaurant, they almost always pass through Google first. They search “restaurant in [your neighbourhood]”, look at the map, check the photos, read two or three reviews and decide. All of that happens on your Google Business Profile listing — formerly Google My Business — not on your website.

That’s why your GBP listing isn’t a nice-to-have: it’s the single most important digital asset you own. And most restaurants only have it half set up.

This guide explains how to set it up properly from scratch and how to maintain it so it works on its own.

1. Create and verify your listing

If you don’t have a listing yet, go to business.google.com and sign in with a Google account. The process has 5 steps:

Business name — use the exact name as it appears on your sign.
Primary category — choose “Restaurant” or the most specific category (“Grill house”, “Rice specialist”, “Tapas restaurant”).
Address — enter the address and confirm the pin on the map.
Phone number and website — use the direct number, not a call centre.
Verification — Google sends a postcard with a 5-digit code. It takes 5–14 days. Until you verify, you can’t edit the listing or reply to reviews.

Important: if an unclaimed listing already exists, request ownership rather than creating a new one. Two listings for the same location confuse Google and can hurt your ranking.

2. The 10 fields that matter most for ranking

Google analyses more than 200 signals, but these fields carry the most weight for restaurants:

Name, address and phone number (NAP) — these must be identical across GBP, your website and every directory. A single different character is enough to break consistency.
Primary category and secondary categories — add up to 9 relevant secondary categories (“Tapas bar”, “Terrace”, “Mediterranean cuisine restaurant”).
Opening hours — update them for bank holidays, Easter week, summer. Incorrect hours ruin the experience and lower your score.
Special hours for holidays — turn these on ahead of every long weekend or local holiday.
Attributes — Google offers dozens: terrace, bookings, set menu, vegan options, wheelchair access, Wi-Fi. Tick every one that applies.
Menu — upload the menu directly or link to your menu’s URL. GBP can show individual dishes in search results.
Products — add your standout dishes with a photo and price. They appear in Google’s knowledge panel.
Business description — 750 characters. Include your value proposition, cuisine type and a natural keyword or two (“market cuisine in central Seville”).
Questions and answers — anyone can post them. Post the most useful FAQs yourself and answer them as the owner.
Booking link — if you take bookings online, enable the “Book” button (it works with compatible systems or a direct URL).

3. Photos: quantity, quality and frequency

According to Google’s own data, listings with more than 100 photos get 520% more calls and 2,717% more requests for directions than listings with few images.

What to upload:

Exterior (day and night, on sunny days)
Interior (tables laid, atmosphere, decor)
Food — your 5–8 standout dishes, well lit
Team — chef and front-of-house (it humanises the business)
Short videos (15–30 seconds) of the venue or the kitchen

Format and quality:

Minimum 720×720 px, ideally 1200×900 px or larger
JPG or PNG format, not WebP (GBP converts it itself)
No logos or text over the photo (Google may reject them)

Frequency: upload at least 4 new photos a month. Listings with recent activity score higher.

4. Reviews: how to get them and how to reply

Reviews are GBP’s most powerful prominence signal. A restaurant with 80 reviews at 4.7 ⭐ almost always beats one with 12 reviews at 5.0 ⭐.

How to ask for reviews:

Generate your short link in GBP (Profile → Share listing). Create a QR code and put it on the bill or on a small table card.
Ask for the review at the moment of highest satisfaction: when the customer says “everything was delicious”.
Don’t offer discounts in exchange — Google can penalise the listing.

How to reply:

Reply to 100% of reviews, positive and negative. Google rewards this.
On positive ones: say thanks, mention the specific dish or moment they highlighted, invite them back.
On negative ones: stay calm, apologise without admitting fault if there wasn’t one, offer to resolve it by phone or email.
Don’t reply with generic templates — Google detects copy-paste.

5. Google Posts: keeping the listing alive

Google Posts are updates that appear directly on your listing (similar to an Instagram story, but on Google). They’re free and last 7 days.

Useful types for restaurants:

News — seasonal menu, new dishes, a special pairing
Offers — set menu, birthday promo, “book this week and get a free dessert”
Events — Christmas Eve dinner, wine tasting, live music

Post at least 1 update a week. Active listings rank better than static ones.

6. Which metrics to check every month

Inside GBP, the “Performance” section shows:

Direct searches vs. discovery searches — discovery searches (the customer searched “Japanese restaurant Madrid” and found you) matter most. If they’re low, review your categories and description.
Requests for directions — customers asking for the route from their location. Strongly correlated with actual visits.
Calls — if your phone gets few calls from GBP, check the number is correct and up to date.
Clicks to your website — if these are low, make sure the URL links to a fast, clear website, not the front page of a PDF menu.

Your listing + your website: the combination that ranks

GBP and your website reinforce each other. Google cross-checks the information and rewards consistency:

Identical NAP on your listing and your website.
LocalBusiness schema markup on the website: it tells Google exactly what you are, where you are and how to contact you.
A menu page on the website with the same dishes as on GBP.
Speed — if someone clicks “visit website” from GBP and it takes 5 seconds to load, they’ll bounce.

A well-built website includes all of this by default. If yours doesn’t, now’s the time to fix it.

Setting up GBP properly takes a few hours. Maintaining it — photos, posts, replying to reviews — takes 20–30 minutes a week. For most restaurants, those hours are the best digital marketing investment they can make.

Google Business Profile for Restaurants: Complete Guide 2026