A Christmas light installer's Google Business Profile is set up in 8 steps, and the step that decides the rest is the category. Google's category list has no Christmas light installation entry (4,046 categories in the May 9, 2026 list), so the primary is Lighting contractor, with Christmas store added for the season only if you sell the lights you install. Below: each step in job order, the photo rules, Google's review rules in Google's words, seasonal hours and a posting calendar.
I run a permanent lighting company in Ottawa and I built GlowBid. Every rule on this page is quoted from Google's own help pages, checked on September 7, 2026 and linked at the bottom. You will not find a review count or a ranking promise here. Google publishes rules, not numbers, and nobody outside Google can tell you how many reviews put a profile in the map pack. What we can tell you is what Google says it looks at, and how to set up a lighting profile so nothing on it can be held against you in November.
The 8 steps, in the order you do them#
| Step |
What you enter |
Google's rule |
Time |
| 1. Claim and verify |
Business name as registered, phone, website |
Verification method is Google's choice; a category change later may trigger it again |
30 min plus the wait |
| 2. Service-area business |
Remove the address, add the neighbourhoods you serve |
Up to 20 service areas, within about 2 hours of driving from your base |
15 min |
| 3. Category |
Primary: Lighting contractor. Additional: see below |
Categories affect local ranking; pick what the business is |
10 min |
| 4. Services and description |
Seasonal install, takedown, permanent lighting, tree wrapping, with your price-per-foot pages linked from the site |
Services list what you offer; the description is plain text |
30 min |
| 5. Hours |
Real hours, extended in October and November |
Special hours for holidays; 7 or more days closed means temporarily closed |
10 min |
| 6. Photos |
Your own dusk photos of your own installs, the truck, the crew |
JPG or PNG, 10 KB to 5 MB, 720 by 720 recommended, must represent reality |
10 min per install |
| 7. Reviews |
The review link or QR code, sent the evening of the install and at takedown |
No incentives, no selective asking, no reviews from staff or family |
5 min per job |
| 8. Posts |
One update or offer every two weeks in season |
Three types; archived after 6 months unless a date range is set |
15 min per post |
Steps 1 to 5 are a Saturday morning in August. Steps 6 to 8 are the season, and they are the part most installers skip.
Should you hide your address?#
Yes, if you work at the customer's house and nobody comes to yours. Google's service-area page says a business that does not serve customers at its location should "Remove your address and only enter your service area." You can list "up to 20 service areas," and "The boundaries of your overall area shouldn't be more than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based."
Enter the areas as the neighbourhoods and towns you actually drive to, not the whole province. A homeowner in Kanata searching for an installer is looking at profiles that name Kanata. It also matches the way you should be routing the season anyway; our route planning guide prices the drive to a scattered job at about $68 a trip, and the 20 areas on the profile are the 20 clusters you want to fill.
Which category should a lighting installer pick?#
Lighting contractor, because it is the only category on Google's list that describes what an installer is. I checked the full category list (4,046 entries, updated May 9, 2026). The lighting entries are Lighting contractor, Lighting consultant, Landscape lighting designer, Lighting store, Lighting manufacturer, Lighting products wholesaler and Stage lighting equipment supplier. The Christmas entries are Christmas store, Christmas market and Christmas tree farm. There is no Christmas light installation, holiday lighting or permanent lighting category. Anyone who tells you to pick "Holiday light installation" is naming a category that does not exist.
Google's category page says "The categories you select affect your local ranking on Google," tells you to pick "a specific category from the list that shows up," and warns against a category for every service: "use a few categories from the provided list." It also says: "If you add or edit an existing category, you might be asked to verify your business again."
So the recommendation is one primary and at most two additional, set once:
| Category |
Use it when |
Why |
| Lighting contractor (primary) |
Always |
The only entry that describes an installer |
| Landscape lighting designer |
You sell and install landscape lighting in the off season |
Describes a second thing the business is |
| Christmas store |
You sell the strands, clips and timers as part of the job and want to be found for Christmas searches from October to January |
A retail category; defensible if product changes hands, a stretch if you only install customer-owned lights |
| Electrician |
You hold the licence |
Otherwise it is a claim you cannot back up |
Strandr's contractor guide (September 5, 2026) says 71 percent of ranking installers use Lighting contractor as primary; that is their figure with no source, but it agrees with the list. Where I part from the common advice is the seasonal swap. Changing the primary to Christmas store every October invites a re-verification in the one month you cannot afford to be unlisted. Add it once as an additional category and leave it.
What photos does Google accept, and which ones should you post?#
Google's photo guidance sets the format: "JPG or PNG," "Between 10 KB and 5 MB," a recommended "720 px tall, 720 px wide" and a minimum of "250 px tall, 250 px wide." The quality rule is the one that matters for a lighting business: "The photo should be in focus and well lit, and have no significant alterations or excessive use of filters. In other words, the image should represent reality."
That rule settles three questions installers ask. Stock photos of someone else's house are out. Street View or satellite images of a customer's house are out too, and not only for Google's profile rules; our Street View page covers why you never save or reuse that imagery anywhere. And a mockup, which is lights drawn on the homeowner's photo, is an alteration by definition. It is honest and it sells, so it goes in a post that says "mockup" in the first line, not in the gallery beside the real installs.
The gallery is for the photos only you can take:
| Photo |
When |
What it shows a homeowner |
| The lit roofline at dusk, from the street |
The evening of every install |
What they are buying |
| The same house by day with the clips in place |
Install day |
That the work is tidy |
| The crew on the ladder with harness and stand-off |
Any install |
That you are the ones doing it, safely |
| The truck with the name on it |
Once |
That you are local |
| The labelled bin at takedown |
January |
That their lights are looked after |
Two or three per install, uploaded the same evening, is a gallery that grows by 100 photos in a 40-job season. How to make a Christmas light mockup covers the drawing itself; the free roofline tool draws the runs on your own photo with no login until export.
What are Google's review rules?#
Three rules, each quoted so nobody has to take my word for it.
On incentives, from Google's Tips to get more reviews: "Offering incentives, like free or discounted goods or services, in exchange for customers to post reviews, change reviews, or remove negative reviews is considered fake & misleading content and is strictly prohibited."
On choosing who to ask, from the Maps content policy, which lists as prohibited any attempt to "Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers." Asking only the customers you know are happy is against the policy; the fix is to ask everyone the same way.
On who may write one, the same policy bans "Content that is based on a conflict of interest," which "may include current or former employment, a contractual or consultory relationship, or other professional or personal affiliations." No reviews from the crew, the bookkeeper or your brother-in-law.
The way to ask is the one Google gives: "you can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code," from the Ask for reviews button on your profile. Text the link the evening the lights come on, with the dusk photo, and again at the January takedown if they did not reply. Reply to every review with a detail from the job. And keep the review ask and the referral credit on different days; the credit is fine for a referral and prohibited for a review. How to get Christmas light customers has the wording for both.
How do seasonal hours work?#
Set real hours and keep them all year. Google's special-hours page is for when "your hours of operation change for a brief period of time," and it says: "It's a good idea to confirm your hours for official holidays, even if they're the same as your regular hours." Google prompts you before each holiday; confirm them for Thanksgiving, December 24 to 26 and January 1, since those are the days a homeowner with a dark run calls.
The trap is the temporarily-closed rule: "If your business is closed for 7 or more days in a row, or will be closed for an unknown period of time, you should mark your business as Temporarily closed." A seasonal-only company that shuts its phone from February to August meets that definition. A company quoting permanent lighting through the summer, or taking August re-books, does not. If you are the first kind, the honest move is temporarily closed with a reopening date, and the better move is to become the second kind.
In season, extend the hours to match the phone. If you answer until 8 pm in November, say so; a profile that says closed at 5 sends the 6 pm caller to the next result.
What should a lighting installer post?#
Google's posts page gives three types: updates, to "Share info about your business"; offers, which need a title and dates and can carry a coupon code; and events, with start and end dates. Two rules to know: "Posts older than 6 months are archived unless a date range is set," and "Posts that include a phone number in the post description might get rejected." Put the phone number in the profile, not the post.
| Month |
Post type |
What it says |
| August |
Update |
Re-booking last season's customers; a dusk photo from last December |
| September |
Offer, dated |
Early booking, with the date it ends |
| October |
Update |
A mockup on a real customer's photo, labelled as a mockup, with the lit result to follow |
| November |
Update, every two weeks |
This week's installs, photos from the street |
| December |
Update |
Service response for dark runs over the holidays |
| January |
Update |
Takedown window, what happens to the lights, the review link |
| February to July |
Update, monthly |
Permanent lighting installs, one lit photo each |
The first sentence is the whole post on a phone, so the sentence carries the message and the photo carries the rest.
Worked example: the setup, timed#
One installer, one Saturday in August, then the season.
| Task |
Hours |
| Claim and verify, add phone and website |
0.5 |
| Service areas: 12 neighbourhoods within 45 minutes of the shop |
0.25 |
| Category: Lighting contractor primary, Christmas store additional (sells product), no swap later |
0.25 |
| Services and description, linked to the per-foot pricing pages on the site |
0.5 |
| Hours, holiday confirmations for Thanksgiving, December 24 to 26, January 1 |
0.25 |
| Upload last season's 20 best dusk photos, 720 by 720 or larger |
0.5 |
| Save the review link as a text template with the dusk-photo ask |
0.25 |
| August re-book post |
0.25 |
| Setup total |
2.75 |
| In season: 3 photos and the review text per install, 40 installs at 15 minutes |
10 |
| In season: 10 posts at 15 minutes |
2.5 |
| Season total |
15.25 |
Fifteen hours over five months, most of it done on the driveway before the truck leaves. That is the whole cost; Google's ranking page names relevance, distance and prominence as the factors and says there is no way to pay for a better position, so the hours are the only spend.
Mistakes we see on installer profiles#
- A category that does not exist. "Holiday light installation" is not on the list. Someone typed it as a service and assumed it was a category.
- Swapping the primary every October. A category edit can trigger re-verification, and a profile under review in November is a profile that is not answering.
- Street View as the cover photo. It fails Google's represent-reality rule and it breaks Google's imagery terms. Your own dusk photo, always.
- A mockup in the gallery with no label. The homeowner who arrives expecting the drawn version is the one who leaves the review you did not want.
- A discount for a review. Prohibited in Google's words, and a profile that loses its reviews in December loses the season.
- Reviews from the crew. Conflict of interest under the Maps policy, and easy to spot.
- Hours that say closed at 5 in November. The 6 pm caller goes to the next profile.
- Temporarily closed and forgotten. Set in February, still set in September, and the August re-book texts land on a profile that says you are shut.
None of this needs software. What GlowBid does is give you the two things the profile keeps asking for: a mockup on the homeowner's own photo with the price already on it, and a signed job whose install and takedown dates are booked, so the review ask lands on the right evening. The free roofline tool does the drawing with no login until export; Core is $299 a year at the founding price, 7-day trial, no card, full product open November 1, 2026.
