ADD YOUR BUSINESS TO APPLE MAPS

Do this before you create anything. Apple builds place cards from data aggregators and third-party feeds whether you asked or not, so the normal starting point is a listing that already exists with details nobody at your business has ever checked.

Look it up the way a customer would:

1. On an iPhone or iPad, open Maps and search your exact business name.
2. Search your name plus your city, then your phone number on its own.
3. Tap through to the place card and read every field. Hours especially.

Three outcomes, and they lead different ways:

• A card exists and looks unmanaged. The common case. You'll claim it in step 5.
• Nothing at all. Rarer. You create a new location in step 5 instead.
• A card exists and somebody manages it. Apple will tell you so when you try to add it. That's the transfer path, also step 5.

Write down what's currently wrong while you're looking. Old hours and a disconnected phone number are the two that cost real money, and they're the reason this is worth 45 minutes rather than a nice-to-have.

Two decisions get made in the first thirty seconds of signing in, both are hard to undo, and the interface presents neither as a decision.

First, signing in is a one-way door. Apple's documentation is explicit: the first time you sign in to Apple Business with a Business Connect or Business Manager account, your organization moves across and you can no longer sign in to those consoles. There's no trial run. If other people at your business still use the old console for anything, tell them before you do this, not after.

Second, you pick an account type. If you're coming in with a personal Apple Account, Apple offers two paths:

• Create an Apple Account for Work. A managed account with the full platform, including device management.
• Keep using your personal Apple Account. You then get only the brand and location management features.

For a single local business that wants to appear correctly on the map, the limited option is the right one. Brand and location management is the entire job in this guide. The full platform exists to manage company iPhones and app deployment, and taking it on means administering something you didn't want. Nobody tells you the smaller door is the correct door, so it gets skipped.

Go to business.apple.com and select Sign up now. Per Apple's documentation, you enter your organization name, an optional website URL, and your address, then confirm codes sent to both your email and your phone.

Four details that cause avoidable rejections:

• Give the website URL even though it's optional. Apple says providing it can expedite verification, and verification is the slow part.
• Use a real human name for the enrolling person. Apple explicitly rejects entries like "IT Coordinator" or "Apple Deployment" and sends them back for correction.
• Don't tick the agency checkbox. That's for third-party partners managing listings for other companies. Ticking it as a business owner puts you in the wrong flow entirely.
• Watch for a domain conflict. If another organization has already verified your email domain, your administrator account can't use it.

Allow mail from all apple.com domains before you start. Apple repeats this warning throughout its own documentation, which tells you how often filtered mail is the actual cause of a stalled application.

The clock starts now. From sign-up you have 60 days to get verified. Write today's date into the tracker below before you go any further.

This is the step the old guides don't have, and the one with real consequences attached.

Apple requires two separate verification methods for the organization, and says review can take up to five business days, longer at busy times. Go to Settings, then Organization, then Verify Now. The accepted methods:

• Business ID. A D-U-N-S Number, or an Employer Identification Number. An EIN is a United States tax ID, so Canadian businesses will be using D-U-N-S or skipping this one.
• Domain validation. A TXT record on your DNS. Usually the easiest if you can reach your registrar.
• App Store Connect. Only if you publish an app.
• An official document. Business licence, sales tax permit, food, health or alcohol permit, lease or property agreement, or a utility bill.

For most Canadian small businesses the workable pair is domain validation plus a document. Pick both before you start rather than discovering halfway that you only have one.

Now the part worth reading twice. Apple's documentation states that if your organization isn't approved during the verification window, your organization, its data and any Managed Apple Accounts are deleted. Not suspended. Deleted. This is a platform four months into a merge, and that's the sharpest edge on it.

With the organization submitted, go to Brands, then Locations, then Add at the top right. What happens next depends on which of the three situations you found in step 1.

The card already exists. Type your business name, let Apple find it, and select it. Check the map pin sits on the right building and drag it if not. Apple lets you switch to Hybrid or Satellite view to find your actual entrance, which is worth doing for anywhere a customer has to physically locate a door.

Nothing exists. Enter the name and choose Add a new location with this name, then place the pin yourself.

Someone else manages it. Apple shows a note saying This location is already managed. Continue through anyway, add the location, then use Request Transfer under Status. You give a reason and supporting documentation such as a business licence or utility bill, and the review takes up to five business days. This is the Apple equivalent of the access request in the Google Business Profile guide, and it usually means a former developer or agency still holds it.

Either way you then set the default language, the display name shown in Maps, a primary category, the status, phone number, an optional website, and your hours. Then you attach it to a brand, creating one if this is your first location.

This one is quick and usually finishes while you sit there. It applies when the location already existed on Maps.

Select Location Verification, then Next, add an extension if you need one, and choose Phone Verification. Apple calls you and reads a four-digit code, which you type in.

The catch is whose phone rings. Apple calls the number it already has on record for that location, not a number you supply. On a listing built from old aggregator data, that can easily be a line you disconnected years ago, and this is exactly where people get stuck.

If you don't recognise the number Apple is about to call, don't guess and don't keep retrying. Apple's documentation says to contact Apple Business support, and that's genuinely the fastest route. Trying to brute-force it is how an afternoon disappears.

Now the part that actually pays. And the rule that governs all of it: match your Google Business Profile exactly. Not roughly. Character for character.

Consistent name, address and phone across platforms is what makes every platform more confident it has the right business. Two versions of your address is worse than one imperfect version, because it introduces doubt where there was none. Fill in the sheet below from your Google profile first, then copy from the sheet. Don't type from memory into a second system, which is how the mismatch gets created in the first place.

Work through, in this order:

• Name, address, phone. From the sheet. This is the whole point.
• Hours, including holidays. The single field customers act on immediately, and the one most likely to be wrong on an unclaimed card.
• Categories. Apple updates the list regularly and says to check back, since a better fitting category may exist now than when you claimed.
• Photos and logo. Brand-level images cascade to locations, and each location can override the cover photo.
• Actions. Available once the location is verified. This is your conversion path, so add at least one, whether that's booking, ordering or a call.
• Showcases. Promotions and offers displayed on the card in Maps. Also verification-gated.

Actions and Showcases are where nearly everyone stops early, because they unlock after verification rather than during setup, so people finish the form, close the tab, and never come back to the two features that do the selling.

Everything so far happened inside a console. The test is whether it reached the places customers actually use, because the place card feeds Maps, Safari, Spotlight and Siri from the same data.

Take a phone that isn't signed into your Apple Business account and run the script in the artifacts below. Ask Siri for your business by name, then by what you sell plus your area, then whether you're open right now. That third one is the real test, because it reads the hours you just corrected.

Expect a lag. Give it a day or two before deciding something didn't take.

Then the part that matters more than any of the setup: diarise it. This is the listing nobody looks at again. Nothing prompts you, no email arrives when it drifts, and it decays quietly when your hours change or a category is added. Put it in your monthly check alongside your Google profile, and it stays right for years. Skip that and you're back to a stale card, which is exactly where you found it in step 1.