For most local businesses, the Google Business Profile gets more eyeballs than the website. It's what shows up in the map pack — and the map pack is where the calls come from. Yet most profiles were set up once, years ago, and haven't been touched since.
Here's the audit I run at the start of every local SEO project, as a checklist you can work through yourself. Or skip the pen and paper: the free profile scorecard asks these as yes/no questions and scores you out of 100, with the fixes in order of impact.
The foundations (worth the most points)
1. Claimed and verified. If you can't sign in and edit your listing, nothing else on this list is possible — and Google trusts unverified listings less. Search your business name, click "Own this business?", and follow the steps.
2. Primary category exactly right. This is the strongest ranking lever in the profile. "Plumber" beats "Contractor" if plumbing is what feeds you. Pick the most specific category for your main money-making service; add secondary categories for the rest.
3. 25+ reviews. Count, rating, and recency all feed both ranking and conversion. If you're short, the fix is a system, not charisma — a direct review link and QR code plus the habit of asking everyone, right after the work.
The trust signals
4. Name, address, and phone identical everywhere. Your website footer, your profile, Yelp, Facebook, the Yellow Pages — one exact format, no old numbers floating around. Inconsistency makes Google trust the listing less.
5. Contact basics complete and current. Phone, website link, hours — including holiday hours when they change. Wrong hours are one of the fastest routes to a one-star review.
6. 10+ real photos. Jobs, team, vehicles, storefront. Phone-quality is fine; real beats polished, and profiles with real photos get measurably more calls and direction requests.
7. Every review answered. Thank the good ones in a sentence. Answer the bad ones calmly, with your side and an offer to make it right — here's how to respond to a negative review without making it worse. Replies signal an active business to Google — and to the next customer reading.
8. A new review in the last 30 days. A profile whose last review is from 2023 looks dormant. Recency matters, not just the total — here's the system for keeping them flowing.
The compounding extras
9. Services section filled in. Every service you list is another set of searches you can match. A sentence or two each — what it is, who it's for.
10. A post in the last month. Updates, offers, photos of recent jobs. Once or twice a month keeps the profile visibly alive; recycle what you already post on social.
11. Description mentions services and areas. Use all the space: what you do, who you serve, and the towns and neighbourhoods you cover — written for humans.
12. Q&A under control. Anyone can ask — and answer — questions on your listing. Answer what's there, then seed your most common questions yourself.
13. The profile links to a page that converts. The profile gets the click; the website gets the call or loses it. Make sure the link works, loads fast on a phone, and shows the same services the profile promises — the free grader checks this in seconds.
What a score means
On the scorecard, 80+ means you're ahead of most local competitors. 50–79 means the basics are there but the profile is leaking calls. Below 50, competitors with weaker work but stronger profiles are taking calls that should be yours — which is also why your business might not show on Google Maps at all.
Re-run it quarterly: several checks are about freshness, so a profile that scored well in January can quietly decay by summer.
And if you'd rather have the fixes done than diagnosed, the free review covers your profile and the website behind it — where you stand against the businesses outranking you, no pitch.