Your Google Business Profile is the box that shows your salon’s name, hours, photos and reviews when someone nearby searches. Get the facts right, follow Google’s naming rules, add real photos and keep your hours current. It’s free, and for many customers it’s the first thing they’ll see of you, before your website gets a look-in.
We run three tanning salons, so we’ve got a soft spot for the unglamorous jobs that pay off. This is one. Google says local results mainly depend on relevance, distance and prominence, and it says you can’t pay for a better local ranking.
Field by field
These come from Google’s guidelines for how a business should be represented.
| Field | Do this | Avoid this |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Use the name on your shopfront | “Best Sunbeds Doncaster” if that isn’t your name |
| Category | Pick the fewest, most specific ones | Adding categories as keywords |
| Address | Your real salon address | PO boxes and virtual offices |
| Hours | Regular hours, plus holiday hours | Leaving Christmas hours to chance |
| Description | Plain words about your salon | Prices, offers or links, which Google doesn’t allow |
The name is where most people get tempted. Stuffing “tanning” and your town into it breaks the rules, so leave it be. If your salon is genuinely called Doncaster Tanning, you’re in luck.
Photos worth adding
Show the things a nervous first-timer wants to see. Our photography shot list covers this in detail, and most of it works here too.
- The shopfront, so people can find the door.
- Reception, and the rooms.
- Your beds, spray booth and lotion shelf.
- Your staff, if they’re happy to be in the picture.
Skip the stock photos of sun-kissed strangers. Customers can tell, and those people won’t be there when they arrive.
Hours, walk-ins and bookings
Say how your salon really works. If sunbeds are walk-in and spray tans are by appointment, put that in your description in plain words. Google says some businesses with varied or appointment-only hours shouldn’t list regular hours, so check that if you don’t keep set opening times. Link to the page that helps most, whether that’s your booking system or your directions page. Our walk-in salon website guide explains how to split the two routes.
If you’ve got more than one salon
Google’s guidelines allow one profile for each location, and salons under one brand should use the same name unless they’re known differently in the real world. Give each profile that salon’s own address, hours and photos, and link it to that salon’s page on your website. A photo of your Rotherham rooms on your Doncaster profile helps nobody.
Posts and offers
Posts are a handy place for holiday hours, new beds or a lotion delivery. Anything promotional still counts as marketing, so the Advertising Standards Authority’s sunbed advice applies. Don’t call sunbeds safe, and leave out vitamin D. Don’t aim anything at under-18s either.
Your ten-minute monthly routine
- Check your hours, especially ahead of bank holidays.
- Reply to any new reviews.
- Add a fresh photo or two.
- Search your salon on your phone, then tap call and directions.
- Fix anything Google or a helpful stranger has changed.
Reviews are the next job, and our guide to getting more Google reviews covers how to ask. For the bigger picture, read how to get more tanning customers.
Sources
Checked on 30 October 2026: