The Google Business Profile Checklist Most Local Businesses Skip

For a local business, the Google Business Profile often does more work than the website. It fills the map pack and shows up on a phone before anyone scrolls. It’s also free.

On most listings it’s also mostly empty. Somebody set it up during a busy week and never opened it again. Here’s the pass we’d make.

Primary category, the field that matters most

Your primary category decides which searches you can show up in more than anything else on the profile. "Contractor" and "Electrician" are different markets. Pick the most specific category that describes your main line of work, then add secondary categories for the rest.

Here’s a useful trick. Search the term you want to rank for and look at the categories the businesses in the map pack use. Google shows the primary category on each profile.

Services and products, filled in properly

The services section lets you list every distinct thing you do, each with its own description. Most listings have three entries or none. It’s free structured data about your business, handed straight to the system that decides whether to show you, and most people leave it blank.

Write real descriptions, two sentences each, in the words customers use.

Hours, including the awkward ones

• Regular hours that are true. A listing that says you’re open when you’re closed gives people a bad first experience and sometimes earns you a bad review
• Holiday hours, set ahead of time. Google prompts for them, and leaving them unset shows visitors a warning
• More hours for specific services, if you offer them, such as emergency call-out

Photos, and what they tell a customer

Photos carry weight in ranking, and they’re what a person looks at before calling. Four stock-looking images from 2019 make a business look like it might have closed.

Phone photos are fine. Shoot the van, the shop, the team and finished jobs. Add a few every month instead of thirty at once, since a listing with recent activity looks alive.

Your photos only have to prove somebody was there recently.

Reviews, and responding to all of them

Volume and recency both count, and so does whether you reply. When the owner answers every review, even with a two-line thank you on the good ones, people read the listing differently and the system treats it differently.

Answer bad reviews calmly and stick to the facts. Don’t argue. You’re writing for the next twenty people who read that review.

Posts, the Q&A, and the two underused fields

Google Posts expire after a week or so. They’re worth a few minutes when you have something to say, like a seasonal service or a job you’re proud of. They won’t transform your rankings, though an empty posts section on an otherwise complete profile hints at neglect.

Few businesses use the Q&A section. Anyone can ask a question on your listing and anyone can answer it, so a competitor or a confused stranger may answer for you. You’re allowed to post your own questions and answer them. Seed it with the five things people call to ask.

The consistency check

Last, put the profile next to your website and check that the name, address and phone match character for character. "Street" and "St." count as different. So does a suite number that appears on one and not the other.

Everything else in local search sits on that consistency, and it’s broken on most of the profiles we audit.