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How to Verify your Business with Google My Business

If you own a brick-and-mortar store with a fixed location or a business that covers a service area, verifying your business on Google My Business is essential to helping customers find your business location, address, hours of operation, and more.

Getting your business on Google My Business is free and pretty simple. Entering your business information only takes a few minutes (although it can take a few days for Google to finish your verification). You can set up your Business Profile directly through Google, but using Bluehost.com to list your business streamlines the process and lets you access everything from one place.

Listing your Business

We'll go into more detail below, but here are the main steps to listing your business:

Link your business’s Google account to your Bluehost.com account.
Submit your business information to Google.
Verify your business location with pin placement (this isn't required for every business).
Verify that you own the business.

If you're creating a Google My Business profile through Bluehost, you'll get help on what to do each step of the way. If you want more details or if you want to understand the process before you start your listing, continue on to Connecting Your Google Account.

1. Linking your Google My Business Account

Linking your accounts only takes a minute or two. As an added bonus, linking Google My Business to Bluehost will allow you to manage your Google My Business account from Bluehost!

Just follow these steps:

Log in to your Bluehost.com account.
Navigate to My Sites.
Select the website or business you want to list with Google.
Open your Marketing Center and select Google My Business
Click on the Get Started button.

After you click the Get started button, we’ll ask you to choose the Google account you want to link (or to create an account if you don’t have one yet).

2. Submit your Business Information to Google

Next, you’ll be asked to enter some basic information about your business—things like business name, business category, address, and contact information.

After you submit your information, Google will check it to make sure everything is accurate and that it meets their partner guidelines.

You'll be able to change some of this information after your business has been verified, but changing some higher-level details, like business name or address, might trigger a re-verification process with Google.

Common reasons your information might not be accepted by Google:

Your Address Type is Invalid

The address you list will be the address visible to your customers who search for your business online. Because our goal is to make sure customers can find your physical address, the following address types are not accepted:
- P.O. boxes
- Addresses that do not belong to your business, or addresses you are not affiliated with
- Mailing facilities or mailing facilities
- Addresses that are not identifiable or listed in United States Postal Service mailing databases
The easiest way to make sure your business address will be right (and will get accepted by Google) is to enter it the same way as it appears on Google Maps.

Your Phone Number is Invalid

The phone number you list will be the number visible to customers who search for your business. It will also be the number Google uses to verify your business if you decide to verify through SMS or a phone call. For those reasons, the following phone number types won’t work for your listing:
- Phone numbers that are inactive
- Phone numbers that are not associated with your business
- Toll-free phone numbers

3. Confirm your Location on the Map

During this process, Google might ask to verify your location on Google Maps. Google will place a pin on the map and ask you to verify that it’s in the right place. If it’s off, move the pin until it’s right where you want it.

4. Verify your business

Once you have confirmed your location, all of the information you entered is sent to Google.
Then, Google will send you a verification number. Depending on your information and location, you’ll receive a few options for receiving your verification code:

Phone call
Text message (SMS)
Email
Postcard (can take 5-7 business days to receive via post)

Once you receive your code, go back to the Google My Business section of your Marketing Center to enter your code. Please note, it sometimes takes several days for Google to finalize your business listing.

If you exit the verification process after submitting your business information form, you can always come back to it through My Sites > Marketing Center > Google My Business. You’ll see any business verifications you may have started and the status for each location.

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