Google Business Profile in Morocco: How to Create and Optimise Your Listing, Step by Step
Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is the free listing that puts your business in Google Maps and in the local block of search results. For a Moroccan business it is often the first contact with a customer: they see your reviews, opening hours and phone number before they ever open your website. This guide covers creating, verifying and optimising the profile, then the mistakes that lead to suspension.
What is Google Business Profile, and why is it a priority?
When someone searches “dentist Tangier” or “real estate agency Casablanca”, Google first shows a map and three business listings, above the regular websites. Those listings come from Google Business Profile. Without one, you are missing from that space, however good your website is.
The profile is free, can be managed from a phone, and gives customers what they need to reach you: phone, directions, opening hours, website, photos and reviews.
How does Google choose which listings to show?
Google states that local ranking rests on three criteria:
- Relevance: does your profile match what the person is looking for? This is where your category, description and services count.
- Distance: how far are you from the person, or from the city they typed?
- Prominence: how well known your business is, online and offline. Reviews, their rating and mentions of your business on other websites all contribute.
You cannot control distance. The rest of this guide works on relevance and prominence.
How to create your profile in 5 steps
- Check that a listing does not already exist. Search your business name in Google Maps. If a listing appears, click “Own this business?” to claim it rather than creating a second one.
- Go to business.google.com with the Google account that will manage the profile (ideally a company account, not an employee’s personal one).
- Enter your business’s exact name, as it appears on your sign, invoices and documents. Do not add a city or keywords.
- Choose your primary category, then say whether customers come to you (visible address) or you go to them (service area).
- Add your phone number and website, then start verification.
How does verification work?
Google offers one or more methods depending on your business: phone call or text, email, video recording, live video call, and sometimes a postcard with a code. You do not pick freely: you choose from the options offered.
Video verification is increasingly common. Prepare it: in one continuous shot, film the street or exterior, the sign or something that identifies the business, then a work tool or a professional document. Until the profile is verified, it does not fully appear in results.
How to optimise your profile to get found
A verified but empty profile does not rank. These are the settings that make the difference, in order of impact.
Choose the right primary category
This is the single most important setting for relevance. Pick the category that describes your main activity, not the one you think gets searched most. You can then add secondary categories for your other activities. Look at the categories used by competitors already showing in your city’s local block: it is a good guide.
Complete every section
- Description (750 characters maximum, no links): what you do, for whom, in which cities, and what sets you apart.
- Opening hours, including special hours during Ramadan and public holidays such as Eid: a profile that says “open” while you are closed generates bad reviews.
- Services or products, with a short description for each.
- Attributes Google offers for your category (for example accessibility or payment methods).
- Links to your website and social profiles.
Publish real photos
Logo, cover photo, exterior and interior if you receive customers, team, finished work. Real photos reassure more than stock images. Add new ones regularly.
Get reviews, and reply to them
Reviews influence both ranking and the customer’s decision. From your profile, Google provides a direct link to ask for a review: send it on WhatsApp to every satisfied customer, right after delivery. Reply to every review, including negative ones, calmly and with a solution. A professional reply to a bad review often reassures more than a row of perfect ones.
Publish posts
The profile lets you publish updates, offers and events. A post every two weeks (a finished project, a tip, something new) shows the business is active.
Your contact details must be identical everywhere
Google cross-checks your information across the web. Your name, phone number and cities must be written exactly the same way on your profile, your website, your Facebook page, your Instagram and the Moroccan directories you appear in. A different number on two sites, or a city spelled two ways, is enough to blur the signal.
This is where your website comes in: one page per service that clearly names the cities you serve strengthens your profile’s relevance. We cover this in our guide to local SEO in Morocco.
Mistakes that lead to suspension
| Mistake | Why it is a problem |
|---|---|
| Adding keywords to the name (“DESORA Cheap Marketing Agency Casablanca”) | Against Google’s rules: the name must be the one you actually use |
| Declaring an address where you receive no one (virtual office, a relative’s home) | A common reason for suspension |
| Creating several listings for the same business at the same place | Google treats them as duplicates |
| Buying reviews or offering a discount for a review | Reviews removed, profile penalised |
| Frequently changing the name, category or address | Can trigger a new verification |
How do you measure results?
The profile’s “Performance” tab shows how many people found you, through which searches, and how many called, asked for directions or clicked through to your website. Watch calls and website clicks month after month above all: those are what turn into customers.
Your Google Business Profile checklist
| To do | Done? |
|---|---|
| Profile claimed or created, then verified | ☐ |
| Exact name, no added keywords | ☐ |
| Precise primary category, relevant secondary categories | ☐ |
| Visible address, or service area with the real cities | ☐ |
| Full description, current hours, Ramadan and holiday hours | ☐ |
| Services or products filled in | ☐ |
| At least 10 real photos | ☐ |
| Review link sent to every satisfied customer | ☐ |
| A reply to every review | ☐ |
| Same name, phone and cities on the website and social profiles | ☐ |
Need help with your local visibility?
DESORA sets up and optimises Google Business Profiles and builds the website pages that reinforce them, as part of its SEO service. To talk it through, get in touch: we reply within 24 business hours.