Your Google Business Profile does more work than your website. It is what appears when someone searches your name, it feeds the Map Pack, and it is increasingly what AI assistants read when deciding whether to mention you.
It is also, on most pool and swim businesses, about a third complete. Set aside twenty minutes. Open it on a laptop, not the phone app — more of the fields are visible.
Name, exactly as it is
Your business name field should contain your business name and nothing else. No city, no services, no "Best". It is against Google's guidelines, any competitor can report it, and the suspension lands on the asset you can least afford to lose.
Check it matches your website, your invoices and your other listings character for character. "Blue Water Pools & Spa LLC" and "Blue Water Pools and Spa" are two businesses as far as a machine is concerned.
Categories
Most specific true option as primary. Swimming Pool Cleaning Service, Swimming Pool Repair Service, Swimming Pool Contractor and Swimming School are genuinely different and win different searches. If you do both service and lessons, you need both represented — and if lessons are a real part of the business, consider whether they deserve their own profile at their own location rather than being a footnote on a service listing.
Do not add a category for work you would turn down.
Service area, or address, not both carelessly
If customers do not come to you, hide the street address and set a service area. A visible address you do not receive customers at is a guideline problem and skews your distance signal to a place that does not matter.
A swim school with a physical pool is the opposite case: that address is real, it should be visible, and it should be pinned accurately. Drop the map pin on the entrance parents actually use, not the centre of the lot.
Hours, including the seasonal ones
Set real hours, and use special hours for holidays and for the off-season. A profile that says open on a day you are closed generates exactly one thing, and it is a bad review.
If you answer the phone outside working hours — and most service operators do during summer — say so in the description. A lot of businesses have that advantage and never mention it.
Services, individually
Usually empty, and one of the strongest relevance signals available. Add each as its own entry with a description and, where you can, a price or range. "Green Pool Recovery — from $350, typically 3–5 days" is worth more than a hundred words of general copy. For lessons, list by age band and level.
The description
750 characters, written for a parent or a homeowner. Who you are, where you work, what is different. If you are accredited, say so and link your verification page — it is a checkable claim, which most business descriptions are not. If your instructors hold current CPR, lifeguard or CPO certifications, this is the place to say it in words rather than logos.
Photos
Logo, cover, then real photos: team, vehicles, equipment, work in progress, a clear pool you just recovered. At least ten, a couple added monthly. Geotagging does nothing; taking them yourself does.
For children in the water: written parental permission, no names, no identifying detail, and when in doubt use a photo without faces. Careless handling of that is itself a trust signal, in the wrong direction.
Q&A
Anyone can answer a question about your business, including someone who has no idea. Post your own common questions and answer them. Six is plenty to start.
Reviews: read the last ten
Not the score — the text, and your replies. Every review should have a reply, including the good ones, and they should sound like a person rather than a template. A row of identical "Thank you for your feedback!" responses reads worse than no replies at all.
If there is a bad one you never answered, answer it now. The audience for that reply is not the reviewer, it is the next person reading.
Messaging and booking
If messaging is on, someone has to watch it. Google measures response time and a profile that ignores messages is worse than one with messaging off. Decide honestly which you are — and remember that in June you will be busier than you are the day you decide.
The last check: search your own name
Private window, search your business name, read the whole panel as a stranger would. Wrong number? Old address? A photo from four seasons ago? Fix what you find, and put a note in the calendar to do it again in three months.