Business Profile Services and Products: The Fields Most Owners Leave Empty

Open the profiles of the three businesses in the local pack for almost any UK search and count their listed services. Then count yours. In most audits we run, the winners list twenty to forty services with descriptions and the client lists three, or none. The services and products sections are the most under-used relevance signal on the profile, and they are free to fill.

Why they matter

Google matches long-tail searches against the profile's services. "Boiler repair" is not a category; it is a service under "Plumber" or "Heating contractor". A profile that lists it, with a description, is eligible for that search in a way a profile that only has the category is not. The same applies to "Invisalign", "end of tenancy clean", "EV charger installation", "will writing". Services also appear on the profile itself, so a customer can see you do the thing before they call.

Products are the equivalent for things you sell: dishes, retail items, treatment packages, priced service bundles. They show as a carousel with photos and prices, and they can appear in Maps product searches.

Services: how to fill them

1. Google suggests services per category. Tick every suggested one that is true. These are the ones Google's classifier expects.
2. Add custom services for everything else you do, named the way customers search: "Emergency call-out", not "24hr response solutions".
3. Write a description for each — up to 300 characters. One or two sentences: what it is, who it is for, a differentiator. This is the text Google matches against.
4. Add prices where you can — fixed or "from". Profiles with prices get more qualified calls.
5. Group under the right category. Services attach to a category; keep each under the one it belongs to.

Aim for every service you would put on a website menu. Twenty is normal for a trade; forty for a dental practice; a dozen for a solicitor by practice area.

Products: how to fill them

• Restaurants: signature dishes with photos and prices, or menu sections as products.
• Retail: best-selling items, ranges, brands stocked.
• Clinics and salons: treatment packages ("Hygiene visit £65", "Full head highlights from £120").
• Trades: fixed-price offers ("Boiler service £79", "EICR from £150").
• Professional services: fixed-fee packages ("Limited company accounts from £600/yr").

Each product takes a name, category, price or range, description, photo and a button (Buy, Order, Learn more, Get offer). Keep it to the twenty items that matter; a two-hundred-item catalogue nobody maintains goes stale.

Examples

Mistakes

• Keyword lists as services. "Plumber Croydon", "Plumber South Croydon" are not services. Google may remove them and it looks like spam.
• Services under the wrong category, or under a secondary category you added only to hold services.
• Descriptions left blank. The name alone matches weakly.
• Products with no photos — the carousel shows a grey box.
• Never updating. Discontinued treatments and old prices are worse than none.

Menus and booking

Restaurants get a separate menu feature (structured menu with sections and items) and a menu URL field; use both. Businesses with booking systems that integrate with Reserve with Google can attach services to bookable slots, which puts a "Book" button on the service. Worth setting up for salons, clinics and restaurants.

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