A Google Business Profile audit tests every field for four things: accuracy, specificity, how it compares with the three profiles Google already shows for your main search, and whether anything has moved lately. Completeness gets a profile to the starting line, and the audit is everything after it.
Your profile probably looks finished from the inside. What follows is the audit I run, field by field, with the mistake I find most often at each one.
What is a Google Business Profile audit?
A Google Business Profile audit is a systematic assessment of every field on the profile against four tests: accuracy, specificity, competitive position against the businesses ranking above you, and ongoing activity.
The dashboard tells you which fields are filled in. The audit judges whether what sits in them is any good.
Benchmark your profile against the local pack before auditing anything
Record the three profiles Google already rewards for your main query before you touch a field of your own, because an audit without a benchmark is a list of opinions.
Mine included.
So search your most important query in the area that matters most, and write down the three businesses in the local pack, the block of map listings above the ordinary results. Then open each one properly. What is their primary category, how specific is the profile language, and how many reviews do they carry? When did the last review, photo or post arrive?
Those three profiles are Google’s current answer to the search you care about. The gaps between theirs and yours are your priority list, and a better one than any generic checklist, including the one below.
Without a benchmark, a business spends its effort on whatever looks untidy from the inside rather than on what is costing it position. If you want the field-by-field explainer first, what each Google Business Profile field is for covers it, and how Local SEO works as a whole sets out the wider programme.
- Record the three local pack profiles for your top query: category, review count, last activity, and how complete each one looks.
- Repeat it for your second query if a different three come back, then keep the notes beside you for every section below.
Choosing a primary category specific enough to match real searches
Take the most specific primary category Google offers you, and keep your secondary categories to service lines the business genuinely runs.
Primary category is the most influential field on the profile and the one I find wrong most often. Is it the most specific option on Google’s list, or a generic parent that happens to contain you?
“Restaurant”, when “Thai restaurant” was sitting there on the list. “Locksmith” on a business that gets called out at two in the morning, when Google has a category that says so. “Lawyer” on a practice that does family law and nothing else.
Category is how Google works out which searches a business belongs in, so a general answer buys a general result. Google adds categories and renames them without announcing it, so the best option on the day the profile was set up may have been overtaken since. Check the list once or twice a year.
Secondary categories earn their place when they describe real service lines, two or three of them. Six that cover work the business barely does drag the profile towards searches it cannot win.
The mistake is choosing the category that describes the business in general terms when Google had a narrower one. It costs two minutes to change. I have watched that one change move a profile off page two and into the pack.
- Open the category picker and check whether something more specific exists than the category you are using now.
- Compare your primary against the three benchmark profiles, and treat a more specific competitor category as a finding.
- Cut every secondary category that does not match a service line you actually sell.
Setting your profile’s service area to where you actually work
Set the service area to the suburbs the business genuinely works in and no wider, because for a business with no shopfront it carries the weight an address would.
That is my reading from the audits rather than a line out of Google’s documentation. I have seen profiles sharpen up after the service area was brought back in line with where the work happens, and I have yet to see a padded one help.
Two questions settle the field. Is it set at all, and does it match the suburbs the business served in the last 12 months? A service area drawn around two suburbs when the vans cover 12 keeps a business out of most of its own market.
One drawn across half the state claims equal relevance everywhere in it, a thinner claim than being the obvious answer in six suburbs.
There is more to it when the van is effectively the premises, and Local SEO without a shopfront takes that on.
- List the suburbs you invoiced in the last 12 months, from your own records rather than from memory.
- Set the service area to that list, and treat the field as your second priority after category if you have no shopfront.
Name, address, phone and website: four fields, three tests each
Each of these four fields has to be current, has to match every other source character for character, and has to be complete.
The name is the trading name and nothing else. No suburb tacked on the end, no service keyword squeezed in beside it.
The address is formatted the way the website formats it, down to the suite number. The phone number is the one somebody answers, and the website URL points at the page representing the business rather than a homepage that buries it.
A profile that disagrees with the website tells Google two different things about the same business, and Google sensibly believes neither. A business moves, updates the website, and never touches the profile. That conflict is the commonest finding in this part of every audit I run.
The wider version of the problem, across every directory the business appears in, has why NAP consistency matters to Google and the full NAP audit method to itself.
- Put the four fields beside your website’s contact page and compare them character by character.
- Correct whichever source is wrong on the day you find it, and log every variation for the wider NAP audit.
Writing a profile description in the words customers type
State what the business does and where it does it, in the words a customer would type, and do it in the opening lines.
Google gives you 750 characters. The opening lines are the part a customer reads before deciding whether to bother with the rest, so they carry the description.
Then read it next to your benchmark profiles and your own main keyword. If the words people use to find a business like yours are missing from the first two sentences, the description is not working, however nicely it reads.
The mistake is the marketing blurb. “Premium bespoke solutions delivered with passion” holds nothing Google can match to a search, and nothing a human being has ever typed into one. Founding years and mission statements can go further down, if they go in at all.
- Rewrite the opening lines so they name the service and the area in plain language.
- Check every service you want to be found for appears inside the 750 characters.
- Cut anything that reads like a slogan.
Why listing every service separately wins more searches
Every real service, listed separately with a description of its own, gives Google another specific thing to match against a specific search.
In the audits I run, the section is usually empty or filled with labels lifted off the category list. Either way a relevance signal is going spare.
Are the services listed, do they match what the business sells, and are the descriptions specific enough to match a real search?
“Plumbing” tells Google what it worked out from the category already. “Hot water system replacement” is what somebody types at seven in the morning with cold water coming out of the tap.
- List every service a customer might search for, in the words they would use rather than your own.
- Write a one-line description for each that names the service, and remove anything the business no longer offers.
Which photos your profile needs, and how recent
Cover all four types, the outside, the inside, the team and the work, and add something within the last three months.
Nothing added in two years is a finding in its own right. The photos you added are the ones you control, and customers’ photos are often the ones at the top.
The mistake is the batch uploaded the week the profile was claimed and never touched again. You know the ones. The signage has changed twice since.
- Note the date of the most recent photo you uploaded yourself, and treat anything older than three months as a finding.
- Fill whichever of the four types is missing, then put one photo a month in the calendar.
What your last post says about the profile
A specific post every few weeks reads as a business somebody is minding, and an empty posts section reads as inactive however complete the rest of the profile is.
A useful post is concrete: a real offer with a date on it, a seasonal service, a job just finished. The monthly “we’re open, come and see us” post is filler, and Google can tell the difference as easily as your customers can. Five posts in the week somebody remembered, then 18 months of silence.
- Find the date of the last post, and treat anything older than a month as a finding.
- Schedule one specific post every two to four weeks, and drop anything that reads like a press release.
Measuring reviews against the profiles ranking above you
Measure all four against the three benchmark profiles, answer every review, and start with the negative ones.
Reviews are not a profile field, but they sit on the profile and Google reads them as part of it. Volume counts against the benchmark, since 40 reviews is strong in one category and thin in another, and recency says whether the business is still asking.
Response rate covers the awkward ones as well as the pleasant ones, and sentiment is where an unanswered one-star review does its quiet damage at the top of the page. That is the audit view, and how local reviews and citations build prominence takes on the job of building them.
- Compare your review count and your last review date against the three benchmark profiles.
- Answer every unanswered review, negative ones first, and build the ask into the way a job finishes.
Which findings to fix first on your Business Profile
Fix the category and the service area first, then the business information and the description, then the maintenance layer of services, photos, posts and reviews.
Category and service area lead because they are the relevance signals with the largest effect and the cheapest fixes. Business information and the description come next, since a conflict or a vague description caps whatever the rest of the profile earns. Photos, posts and reviews are ongoing work, and they will not rescue a wrong category.
In 20+ years of auditing these profiles, the pattern is nearly always the same: a business polishing that maintenance layer while the category and service area sit wrong underneath. Posting every week. Photos on schedule.
Lovely photos of the wrong kind of business.
The audit catches that before another year goes past, and it is where the Local SEO work Belmore Digital runs starts as well.
- Fix the category and the service area this week.
- Resolve the business information conflicts and rewrite the description next.
- Set up the maintenance rhythm last, once the foundation under it is right.
The nine-check Google Business Profile audit in one list
Nine checks, in the order they are worth doing.
- Benchmark: the three local pack profiles for your main query, with category, review count and last activity.
- Category: the most specific primary Google offers, with secondary categories limited to real service lines.
- Service area: the suburbs actually served in the last 12 months, and no wider.
- Business information: name, address, phone and website matching the website exactly.
- Description: the opening lines state the service and the area in customer language, inside 750 characters.
- Services: every real service listed, each with a description specific enough to match a search.
- Photos: all four types present, with something added in the last three months.
- Posts: one in the last month, specific rather than generic.
- Reviews: count and recency measured against the benchmark, with every review answered.
FAQ
What should a Google Business Profile audit cover? Every field, tested for accuracy, specificity, competitive position and activity rather than for whether it has been filled in. That means the category, service area, business information, description, services, photos, posts and reviews, each measured against the profiles Google shows for your main query.
How often should I audit my Google Business Profile? A full audit against the local pack benchmark once or twice a year, and again whenever something about the business changes. The activity signals, meaning posts, photos and reviews, want a short monthly check rather than a full audit.
What are the most important GBP fields for Local SEO? The primary category first, because it carries more of the matching than any other field. The service area second, particularly for a business with no shopfront. Then business information that agrees with every other source, and a description written in the words customers search with.
TL;DR
- A Google Business Profile audit tests every field for accuracy, specificity, competitive position and activity.
- Benchmark first: the three local pack profiles for your main query show what Google is rewarding now.
- Category is the most influential field, and the most specific honest option wins.
- Service area carries the geography for a business that travels to the customer. That one is my view from the audits rather than Google’s documentation.
- Photos, posts and reviews are the maintenance layer, and two years of silence is a finding in itself.
- Work the findings in order: category and service area, then information and description, then maintenance.
If you’d like your Google Business Profile assessed against this standard by someone who has done it across many clients in many categories, get in touch with JB.
