Why is my Google Business Profile not showing up?

Check it is actually verified

An unverified profile can exist, look complete, and never appear in the map results. Sign in and look for the verification badge or a prompt to verify. If Google asks for a video verification, do it properly: a continuous clip showing your van, your tools and your paperwork, without cutting.

The main category decides almost everything

Google matches searches to your primary category far more strongly than to anything you have typed in your description. A plumber filed under "Handyman" will lose every plumbing search in the town to a plumber filed under "Plumber". Set the primary category to the exact trade, and use the secondary ones for the rest.

Your details have to match everywhere

The business name, address and phone number on your profile need to be identical to the ones on your website and in any directory you are listed in. Not similar. Identical, down to whether it says Ltd. Mismatches are read as a sign that the listing might be for a different business, and the listing quietly gets trusted less.

A word on the name itself: adding your keywords to it, so "Smith Plumbing" becomes "Smith Plumbing Heating Boilers Bathrooms", is against Google's rules. Google suspends profiles for it, and a competitor can report yours in about a minute.

Look for a second listing you forgot about

Old profiles from a previous address, a previous business name, or one Google created on its own are extremely common, and two listings for one business split the trust between them. Search your own name and phone number on Google Maps and see what comes back. Duplicates can be merged or removed.

The part nobody tells you about distance

The map results move depending on where the person searching is standing. You are not going to appear for someone twenty miles away as reliably as you do for someone in your own town, and no amount of work changes that. So if you are checking your own ranking from your kitchen, you are seeing your best case, not everyone's.

Then keep it alive

A profile with photos added this month, reviews being answered and a post now and again outranks an identical one that has not been touched since it was set up. Activity is a signal in its own right.