One of the main reasons that people look for details about a shop on the internet is to discover when it's open.

Business owners should regularly check that their store’s details are correct on websites such as Google Maps. If you find that your opening hours are incorrect or you need to amend them, use our step by step guide.

Step 1. What does Google Maps show for your opening times?

Open Google Maps and log on and find your store. You will find your store details including opening hours on the left-hand side bar.

Step 2. When you first open your store location the opening times for today are shown.

Click on the downward arrow to reveal the recorded times for each day of the week. If they are correct then you do not need to take any further action.

Step 3. If the hours recorded on Google Maps are not correct click on “Suggest an edit”.

This will the take you to page that shows all the information that you can publish about your store. To open Hours for correction click on the days and times that are wrong.

Step 4. This will open a box that asks you to “Enter correct hours”.

Click in the box once and it will offer you the opportunity to change the opening and closing time for the day or days that Google Maps had previous recorded for the incorrect times. Click on the “Day/s” box twice and a drop-down days of the week list is reveal. If you are open the same hours on Monday through to Saturday and different hours on Sunday tick the boxes that appear to the left of each day that you wish to show the same trading hours.

Important Information: Google Maps uses a 12-hour clock so 8.00 could be AM or PM it is important to label your opening and closing times correctly 8.00 AM for morning or 8.00 PM for afternoon. Unless you tell Google Maps the right information, potential customers who find you on the website may see "closed now" instead of "open now".

Step 5. Submit

Once you are happy with the opening time details for each day of the week click on the Submit button located at the bottom right of the panel. After clicking on the Submit button a new window will open thanking you for improving Google Maps. Google Maps will also send you a thank you by email when the edit has been published. The one for this edit arrived within two minutes.

Special thanks to Chris and James Brundle of Eat 17 for allowing us to use their Hackney store to illustrate this article.