The short answer
Go to google.com/business, add your business with its real name, choose a courier category and say you deliver to customers. Hide your home address, add the towns you cover (up to 20), then verify by the method Google offers. Add your hours, photos and website, and ask happy customers for reviews.
When someone searches for a courier near them, Google often shows a map with a few local businesses underneath. Those come from Google Business Profiles. Setting one up is free and doesn't take long, though Google may take a few days to verify you.
In smaller towns it can put you almost alone on the map. When we searched 8 market towns for a same day courier, Google Maps showed just 9 local couriers with a website between them. See our audit of 100 courier websites.
Before you start
- A Google account (a Gmail address is fine).
- Your business name, exactly as it appears on your van, invoices or insurance.
- A phone number customers can call.
- Your website address, if you have one.
Step by step
- Go to google.com/business and sign in. Choose to add your business.
- Enter your business name. Use your real name only. Google doesn't allow extra words like "same day courier Birmingham" in the name, and can suspend your profile for it.
- Pick your category. Search for "courier". Pick the category that best fits what you do; you can add more later.
- Say you deliver to customers. Couriers are what Google calls a service-area business: you go to your customers, they don't come to you.
- Hide your address. If you work from home, don't show your address. Google says service-area businesses should hide it. You still give it to Google privately so they can verify you.
- Add your service areas. Add the towns or postcodes you cover, up to 20. Google says your whole area shouldn't be more than about two hours' drive from your base, and you can't just set a radius.
- Add your phone number and website.
- Get verified. Google picks the method. It might be a phone call, a text, an email, a postcard or a short live video call. On a video call you may be asked to show your van, your equipment and that you run the business.
Things Google doesn't allow
- A PO box or a virtual office as your address.
- Keywords, phone numbers or web addresses in your business name.
- More than one profile for the same business.
Make your profile work harder
- Add your opening hours, including any weekend or out-of-hours work.
- Add photos: your van (clean, in daylight), you, and deliveries in progress.
- Ask for reviews. Straight after a good job, send the customer your review link. That's when they're most likely to say yes.
- Reply to every review, good or bad, politely and briefly.
- Link to your website. When someone finds you on the map, your site is where they check you're the real deal and ask for a quote.
Check your website link still works
In our audit of 100 courier websites, 17 of the website links on Google Maps didn't lead to a working site. Seven web addresses no longer existed, two were up for sale, two had been taken over by someone else, and the rest showed error pages or a security warning. Every one of those profiles was still sending customers there.
- Open your profile on your phone and tap the website button.
- Do it again every few months, and whenever you change your website.
- Put your web address renewal date in your calendar.
Google changes these rules from time to time. For the latest, see Google's own guidelines for business profiles.