How to add a booking button to your Google Business Profile

Google's Business Profile help page on local business links gives you two ways to get a booking button onto your profile. You can paste in your own link - to a scheduling page, a booking form, or the page on your site where people set up a job - or you can connect a booking provider through what Google calls Reserve with Google, and the button shows up on its own.

Either way, the button lands on your profile on Google Search and Google Maps, which is where most of your customers see you before they ever see your website. Google puts it this way: the links let customers "take action directly from your profile on Google Maps or Search."

Below are the steps for both, taken from Google's own help pages as of September 2026, plus how to set a preferred link, how to remove a link you never added, and the honest limit of the whole thing - a button is a link, and it only books the customers who tap it instead of calling.

The button is only as good as the page behind it. When a customer taps it, they should land somewhere they can actually pick a day and time, not on your homepage with a phone number.

For most shops that means one of three things: the scheduling link from whatever booking software you already pay for, a simple request form on your own website, or your contact page if that is honestly all you have. Any of them beats a dead button. If you are still deciding whether to pay for booking software at all, our guide to what an online booking system costs walks through how those bill and what they leave out.

If you do not have a link yet and do not want to buy one, you probably already own the thing that makes it: a Google Calendar appointment schedule gives you a free booking page on a personal account, and our walkthrough of setting one up covers the steps and the settings worth changing before you send it out.

If you work strictly by appointment, the button matters more to you than to anybody else, because Google's guidelines say appointment-only businesses should not post hours at all - which leaves the booking link as the only way a stranger can get on your schedule. Our guide to changing your business hours on Google covers that case and the rest of the hours editor.

One thing to say plainly, because this site sells a booking product: Handlebar does not give you a booking page to link to. It books jobs inside the text conversation with the customer, on the calendar you already use, so the button on your profile is a separate thing. More on how the two fit together at the end.

This is the route for a shop that already has a link and wants it on the profile today. Google's steps, from its "Manage your local business links" page:

First, you can add more than one. Google says you "can also add up to 10 links per category," and booking is one category. Most shops need one, but if you run two services with two scheduling pages, you have room.

Second, this is a hands-on job. Google notes that "local business links are not available via the Business Profile API or spreadsheet upload." If someone manages your profile for you, they have to add the link the same way you would.

If you use booking software that partners with Google, you can connect it instead of pasting a link, and Google adds the booking button and the live calendar itself. Google's "Set up bookings through a provider" page gives these steps: go to your Business Profile, select Bookings, select Get started to sign up your preferred provider, select your provider, and select Done.

Three things that same page tells you before you do it:

Not every profile shows it, and Google's help pages do not publish a list of which business categories get it. Two things to check before you conclude yours does not have it. Try both paths Google lists - the Booking section from Google Search, and Edit profile from Google Maps - because they are separate screens. And make sure you are signed in to the account that owns the profile, not one that only has a view of it.

Google's Reserve with Google help says the provider route "is only available in certain countries/regions for businesses that work with a supported scheduling provider," so if your software is not a partner, Option 2 is off the table regardless.

For home-service shops there is one more wrinkle. Google's own "Make a booking" page, the one written for customers, routes home services through Local Services rather than through the regular Book online button it describes for salons, gyms and restaurants. Its Local Services page says a customer can "select Book, then select the booking partner name" and finish on the partner's site, and that "if you're a service provider, you can enable booking through one of our eligible booking partners." In plain terms: if you run Local Services Ads, booking there goes through a partner too, and it is set up on that side, not in the Business Profile screens above.

If you end up with more than one link, you can decide which one sits on top. Google's page says that with more than one link on your profile, "you can set a preferred link at the top of your links as 'Business preferred.'" The steps: go to your Business Profile, select the transaction type (Booking), select Set preferred link, select the link you want, and select Save.

Put your own link on top. A customer who is going to book wants the path that puts the job straight on your calendar, not a middleman.

This is the one that surprises people. Google says that "links to certain services can automatically appear on your Business Profile on Google Search and Maps," and that "these links are provided and updated by third-party partners or through automated data from Google." So you can open your profile one day and find a Book button pointing at a booking site you have never used.

To take it down, Google's steps are: go to your Business Profile, then on Google Search select Booking and Remove Provider, or on Google Maps select Edit profile, then Booking, then Remove Provider. Google adds that "providers need to remove third-party links from your profile within 5 days of receiving a removal request," and that if a provider does not process it, you can report a violation.

Check for this every so often. A stray third-party link can quietly send your customers to a site that charges them, or you, for a booking you could have taken yourself.

Once it is up, be clear-eyed about what you have. A booking button is a link. It works for the customer who is on your profile, sees it, taps it, and finishes what is on the other side. That is a real slice of your calls, and it is worth the ten minutes.

It does nothing for the customer who taps Call instead. On a phone, the Call button sits right there next to it, and the person with water on the floor is going to call. If you are under a sink when that call comes in, the button on your profile did not book anything - the call rang out, and that customer is looking at the next shop on the map.

Which makes the Call button worth the same ten minutes you just spent on the booking one. The number behind it is set on the same Edit profile screen, Google only allows certain kinds of numbers on it, and a change to it goes through a review that can stall - our guide to your Google Business Profile phone number covers the path, the rules and what pending and not approved actually mean.

That is the half Handlebar is built for. When a call to your shop goes unanswered, it texts the caller back within 60 seconds from your shop number, holds a real conversation - answering questions and working out what they need - and books the job on the calendar you already use. It also sends a confirmation when the job is set and a reminder before it. There is no app for the customer to download and no form to fill out, so it does not replace the button; it catches the people who never tapped it.

Set up the button. Google lists no fee for adding your own link, and it takes ten minutes. Then decide what happens to the calls you miss. If the answer is voicemail, our comparison of an answering service and voicemail is the next thing to read. If you want the missed calls handled and booked, book a 30-minute call and we will walk through it for your shop.

Print this or screenshot it - it is the whole job in one list.