Last updated: July 2026

We’ve put together this handy guide to give you a quick and easy reference for claiming and verifying the Google Business Profile for your pest control or lawn care company. Updated for July 2026, because Google just changed how verification works, and the old advice will get you stuck.

Google Maps? Google My Business? Google Business Profile? What Is This Thing?

Many business owners come to us with understandable confusion about Google’s business listings, because Google has renamed this product enough times to confuse anyone. Google Maps listing, Google My Business, Google Business Profile: whatever Google calls it this year, it’s the same thing. It’s the listing Google maintains on your business that lets customers find you, see your hours, read your reviews, and call you, and it lets you keep Google updated with your most current information.

Today it’s officially called the Google Business Profile, or GBP, and it matters more than ever. When someone in your service area searches for pest control or lawn care, the map results at the top of the page come from Business Profiles. And it now matters beyond Maps: when AI tools like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or Gemini recommend a local company, your Business Profile is one of the primary sources they draw from. An unclaimed or thin profile is invisible to them too.

One thing that surprises a lot of home service owners: you do not need a storefront to have a Google Business Profile. If you run your pest control or lawn care company out of your house, you can list your business as a service-area business, define the areas you serve, and hide your home address from the public. Google built this for exactly your kind of company.

Start at business.google.com and sign in with the Google account you want to manage the business with. Use an account you control permanently, not an employee’s personal Gmail.

Search for your business name. One of three things will happen:

Your business appears and is unclaimed. Select it and follow the prompts to claim it. Google often creates listings automatically from public data, so your company may already be on the map waiting for you.

Your business appears but someone already claimed it. Maybe a former employee, maybe a previous marketing company. Choose “Request access.” The current owner has 3 days to respond. If they don’t, you may be able to claim the profile yourself. If a marketing company is holding your listing hostage, this is the escape hatch.

Your business doesn’t appear at all. Choose “Add your business to Google” and enter your details. When Google asks about your business model, choose storefront or service-area business as appropriate. Do not select “online-only” just because you work from home; service businesses that pick online-only run into compliance problems later. If customers come to you, you’re a storefront. If you go to customers, you’re a service-area business. Pest control and lawn care companies are almost always the latter.

Whatever path you take, enter your business name exactly as it appears on your signage, trucks, and website. Google checks. A mismatch is the single most common reason the next step fails.

Here’s the big change: as of July 3, 2026, Google has retired postcard verification for most businesses. To verify a new profile, or re-verify an existing one after major edits, you’ll typically record a short video instead. Get it right the first time, because a failed attempt can stall your listing for days or weeks, and while you’re unverified, you don’t rank.

What Google wants to see in your video:

• One continuous, unedited take, recorded through the Google Maps app or your Business Profile on your phone, signed into the same Google account that manages the profile. Pre-recorded footage uploaded later doesn’t count. No cuts, no edits.
• Your location in context. Start outside: street signs, building numbers, or recognizable neighborhood landmarks that prove where you are.
• Your permanent signage showing your business name, matching your profile exactly. A piece of paper taped in a window doesn’t count.
• Proof you actually run the business. Unlock the door. Open the branded work truck. Show your spray rig, your mowers, your license paperwork, or log into your business software. Google wants to see that you control the place, not just that you can stand in front of it.
• Keep it roughly 30 seconds to 2 minutes, filmed during quiet hours: no voices, no faces, no customer documents in frame.

Running your company from home? Google explicitly allows service-area businesses to record at your home address. Show the surrounding neighborhood to confirm the location, then show your branded vehicle, wrapped trailer, equipment, or licensing as proof of operation. If you have a wrapped truck, it’s about to be your best friend: film the branding, then unlock it and show the equipment inside.

After you submit, review takes up to 5 business days. If it fails, Google usually tells you why in the Maps app (tap “Review issues”). Fix the cause and re-shoot a better video; don’t resubmit the same one and hope. The most common rejections are a business name mismatch between signage and profile, no exterior context shown, and footage too shaky or dark to read.

One more thing worth knowing: verification isn’t necessarily one-and-done anymore. Changing your business name, address, or phone number can trigger re-verification. Get your details right before you verify, and think twice before casually editing them afterward.

Of course, we are always here to help if you have additional questions. Helping good people and businesses win is what we do.

Now the fun starts. A claimed profile is the ticket to enter; an optimized profile is what actually wins the map pack. Start here:

• Fill out everything. Categories, services, service areas, hours, photos, business description. Google rewards complete profiles, and AI tools can only recommend what they can read.
• Get your first reviews immediately. Review count and rating now influence everything from map rankings to whether AI tools recommend you, and you’ll need at least a few reviews before you can run Local Services Ads.
• Add photos that prove you’re real. Trucks, techs, completed work. Profiles with real photos get dramatically more engagement than logo-only listings.
• Keep it alive. Post occasionally, answer questions, respond to reviews. A profile that hasn’t moved in a year tells Google, and your customers, exactly what it looks like it tells them.
• Work through our free GBP Optimization Checklist. It’s the same checklist we run on real client accounts, every field and setting in the order that matters.

And when you’re ready to stop DIYing, our Local SEO and Google Business Profile service handles all of it, for every location you have.