Most advice about Google Business Profiles is somebody’s opinion. This is not. Whitespark analysed 1.8 million profiles across 4,209 categories and published what actually correlated with better local rankings. Two things stood out, and both are free.
1. Pick the most specific category that is genuinely true
Profiles on a specific primary category appeared in the top 10 local results 12.5% of the time. Profiles on a generic one managed 9.2%. That is roughly 36% more presence, out of a dropdown menu.
The pattern repeats across trades. “Criminal justice attorney” outperformed plain “Attorney”. A restaurant listed under its actual cuisine outperformed “Restaurant”. A specific category tells Google what you are for. A generic one asks it to guess.
The word “true” in that heading is doing real work. Categories are not keywords to stuff. Google’s guidelines for representing your business expect the category to describe what the business actually is, and getting that wrong risks suspension rather than a ranking dip.
2. Add secondary categories for services you really offer
An electrician who installs EV chargers can list that. A plumber who does drainage work can list that. Each accurate one makes you eligible for another set of real searches, at no cost.
The same rule applies. If you do not do it, do not list it. Two accurate secondary categories are worth more than eight aspirational ones.
Then finish the profile
The study also scored profiles from 0 to 5 on five basics: a website link, a description, hours, photos, and a claimed listing. Moving from 0 to 5 was associated with an average rank improvement of about 19 positions, and roughly triple the rate of appearing in the top 10.
Worth being precise about what that means. It is a correlation across a very large sample, not a promise that filling in your hours moves you 19 places. Complete profiles tend to belong to owners who are paying attention in general. But those five items take an afternoon, and half-finished profiles are still extremely common, which is good news if yours is not one of them.
What this does not fix
Google describes local ranking as relevance, distance and prominence. Categories and completeness are relevance. Distance you cannot do anything about. Prominence means reviews, mentions and consistency, which is slower work and still matters, and we went through that list in what actually moves the needle for local SEO.
If you only do one thing this week, open your profile and look at the category you are on. It is the highest-leverage dropdown in local search.