Google Business Profile Services List: What to Add and Why It Matters

What the Services section is — and why most businesses leave it blank

Underneath your category and description sits a section called Services (Google labels it "Products" for some retail categories) — a list of the specific things you offer, each with its own short description. It's separate from your business description and separate from your category, and a large share of local businesses never fill it in at all.

That's a missed opportunity. The Services list is one of the few places on your profile where you can spell out, in plain language, every individual thing you do — not just your one primary category. A plumber's profile might carry the category "Plumber," but the Services list is where "hot water system replacement," "blocked drain clearing," and "gas fitting" each get their own line.

How it's different from your category and description

Your primary category tells Google broadly what kind of business you are, and it's a strong relevance signal for search — but you only get one primary category, plus a handful of secondary ones. Your business description is a short block of free-flowing text about who you are and what makes you different.

The Services list sits between the two: more granular than a category, more structured than a description. Each service is its own discrete entry, which means Google — and a customer scanning your profile — can see the specific offer that matches what they searched for, rather than inferring it from a paragraph.

How to add and edit your services

In Google Business Profile Manager, open your profile and go to Edit profile > Services (or Products, depending on your category). You'll be offered pre-set service categories drawn from your business type — add the ones that apply, then add custom services under each one for anything Google's list doesn't cover.

Each service gets a name and, optionally, a short description and a price or price range. You can add, remove, and reorder services at any time, and changes usually appear on your live profile within a day.

Writing service descriptions that actually help

• Use the words a customer would actually type — "blocked drain clearing," not "drainage remediation services."
• Keep each description to a sentence or two. This isn't the place for your full pitch — that's what the business description is for.
• Be specific about what's included. "Full interior and exterior detail, including engine bay" tells a customer more than "car detailing."
• List services people frequently search for individually, even if you think of them as part of a bigger job — "pre-purchase building inspection" as well as "building inspections."

Pricing: whether to include it

Google lets you attach a fixed price, a starting price, or a price range to each service. Adding pricing tends to set expectations before someone even calls, which can reduce time spent on enquiries that were never going to convert — but only add a figure you're confident holding to. A price that's wrong or wildly optimistic does more harm than no price at all, and misleading pricing on a public listing can also raise Australian Consumer Law concerns about accuracy.

If your pricing genuinely varies by job — most trades and many professional services — a "starting from" figure, or leaving price blank and describing your quoting process in the service description, is usually the more honest option.

What to avoid

• Don't list services you don't actually offer just to appear in more searches — Google can suspend profiles for misrepresentation, and it damages trust the moment a customer asks about it.
• Don't leave the section empty because you're not sure what to write. Even five or six honestly described services is better than none.
• Don't duplicate your entire service list as a wall of keywords in one entry. Separate, specific entries perform better than one entry stuffed with every term you can think of.
• Don't forget to update it when your offering changes — a services list that hasn't moved in two years signals a profile nobody's maintaining.