Top 10 Google Business Profile GMB Optimization Factors for 2026

Google Business Profile (hereafter GBP) or until recently Google My Business (GMB) has long been a crucial free Google tool globally that helps businesses attract new customers. In Latvia too, increasing attention has been paid to it in recent years because, unlike Google Ads and much like SEO optimization, you do not pay for clicks. In a way, GBP profile optimization is simpler and cheaper than SEO. However, many companies use GBP profile optimization within their overall SEO strategy, where both channels complement each other perfectly.

As seen in the image below, often when entering a keyword on Google, Google Maps and GBP profile results dominate, while Google organic results appear much lower, and often clients do not even reach them. This primarily applies to various service sectors where this GBP channel is particularly significant.

In this article, we will look at the 10 most important factors to follow so that your GBP profile ranks as high as possible in Google results, giving you the opportunity to acquire as many potential clients as possible who are already searching for the relevant services.

Every year, Whitespark publishes an interesting study on the main factors of local Google optimization. Here you can also see that the importance of the GBP (formerly GMB) profile in the context of local searches increases significantly every year.

If we look over the past few years, the GBP/GMB profile factor in local search has grown the fastest over the last 8-9 years.

1. Main GBP Category

The most important thing to remember when creating a GBP profile is specifying the category in which the business operates. Each business profile can be assigned a main category and related categories, and choosing the correct main category will be decisive for the future of your GBP profile. Of course, it can be changed; if you are unsure which category is the right one, you can test it.

2. Keyword in the GBP Profile Name

Although the value of this factor has decreased, especially when talking about broad locations in large markets (such as the US), it is still very important, and keywords do not need to be removed from the name, or should be added if not already done. Studies show that you also cannot overdo the number of keywords; it is enough to place 1-2 main services in the name. For example, in our case, it is "Digital Marketing Agency MMN (SEO + Google Ads)"

3. Business Location

It is important to specify the geolocation where the business operates. In Latvia, this can be the whole of Latvia, specific regions, cities, or even a street. The primary signal is the business address, but you can also specify the operating region with additional locations.

4. Additional GBP Categories

The weight of the main GBP category mentioned above is very significant, but secondary categories must not be forgotten either. For instance, in our case, the main service would be "marketing agency", with secondary ones being "marketing consultant", "internet marketing services", etc. It is important to note that the selection must be made from existing GBP-defined categories. If the GBP profile is in English, the categories are automatically translated into Latvian and vice versa.

5. Links to the Business Website

The stronger the business website, the better the GBP profile - this correlation is becoming increasingly strong. This means that better GBP results will be achieved by companies that have strong websites and perform quality SEO on them. This includes:

• internal categories, services
• geolocations
• internal content, news, announcements, blog posts
• external content with links to the website
• various business profiles linking back to the website

6. GBP Reviews and Keywords in Reviews

Many consider reviews to be the main factor influencing GBP success, but it is much like a house - you do not see the foundations, they seem self-evident, yet they are the most important factor in house construction. In the case of GBP too, everything must be in order with the profile, and then reviews will carry a completely different weight.

It is important to note that the content of the reviews matters greatly - the better the reviews (4-5 stars), the better, and a recent trend is business keywords within reviews. How to achieve this? Give ideas to clients, or even generate ready-made text that clients can simply copy into their review.

Does this mean we can generate bad reviews for competitors and come out ahead? Not really, because the Google algorithm is getting better at detecting fake reviews, simply ignoring and not publishing them. Secondly, if there are many reviews, a few fake ones will not affect the overall standing.

A crucial point - the quantity of reviews matters in the context of competitors. If everyone in the industry has 3-5 reviews, then 50 reviews will be a very significant factor for a better result. Conversely, if industry leaders have 500 reviews, then even 400 reviews will not be enough.

7. Regular Content Updates in the GBP Profile

Several specialists call this an overrated factor, yet at least in the context of Latvia, we have noticed that regular content updates help achieve better results. Ideas for content updates:

• promotional offers can be published on the GBP profile
• blog posts, news, updates on the website - links to them with a short description can be posted on the GBP profile
• social media content - can safely be duplicated on the GBP profile as well
• photos and videos of new products - definitely must not forget to post them on GBP too

8. Using GBP Offered Tools

An essential factor is utilizing all the opportunities provided by GBP:

• complete profile fill-out - all fields, description, working hours, address, contact information, details about business specifics must be filled out.
• adding products and services
• promotional offers
• content updates
• enabling direct messaging - so clients can easily communicate

9. Locations on the Business Website

If a business operates in multiple specific locations, all of them must also be indicated on the website in the form of branches, agents, or stores/offices. For example, if there is a representative office in every city in Latvia, this should also be indicated on the website, preferably with a separate page for each city featuring its own title and description tags.

10. Links to the GBP Profile

Finally, the entire digital infrastructure must be integrated with itself, which directly applies to the Google Business Profile - links to it must be on the website, and the GBP profile should periodically create links back to the business website (in the description, info block, content updates).

In the image below, you can see one specific scheme of how the business website and GBP profile are connected to each other.