The 20-point Google Business Profile scorecard.

Your Google Business Profile is the only marketing asset that shows up before your website does. When someone searches "plumber near me," the map with three names loads above every blue link — and those three slots are decided mostly by your profile, your reviews, and how consistent your name, address and phone number are across the web. Nothing on this page requires buying ads.

How to use it: open your profile (search your business name while signed into the Google account that manages it), open this page on your phone, tick what's true. Print it if you want — the print button is your browser's, and the header and footer drop out.

Group 1 — Ownership and identity (does Google know who you are?)

• 1. Claimed and verified. If the profile sits unverified, everything else is a rounding error. Check: the listing shows "Verified" / "Managed by you," not "Claim this business."
• 2. You're not a duplicate. Old moves, old phone numbers and previous owners leave ghosts. Check: search your phone number and your business name; if two listings appear, one has to go.
• 3. Name is your real name. Exactly what's on the truck, the sign and the invoice — no "Best Plumber Troy Michigan." Check: read the title aloud; if a customer wouldn't say it, it's a suspension risk.
• 4. Primary category is your exact trade. "Plumber" beats "Contractor" every time; it's the single strongest relevance field you control. Check: edit categories and look at what's set as primary.
• 5. Two to four secondary categories that match work you actually take (drain cleaning, water heater repair, gas line). Check: the services you're asked about most should each have a home.
• 6. Hours are right — holidays included. Wrong hours produce calls you can't answer and one-star reviews about it. Check: is "Open now" telling the truth at 7 a.m. Saturday?
• 7. Service area set to towns you'd really drive to. Google matches claimed territory against where your reviews actually come from. Check: if you hide your address as a service-area business, the cities listed should be the ones you want more of.
• 8. Phone matches your website. Same number on the profile, the site header and the footer — ideally the one a thumb can tap. Check: tap it. It should dial, not show text.

Group 2 — Proof (why would a stranger pick you?)

• 9. Ten or more real photos — trucks, crew, finished work, the shop. Stock photos read as fake to customers and add nothing. Check: count them; anything older than a season looks stale next to competitors.
• 10. Your best job is the first photo. That image is your storefront on mobile search. Check: look at the result someone sees for "[your trade] near me."
• 11. Review count is in the same league as the three listings above you. Check: search your trade in your town, note their counts, note yours. That gap is the campaign you haven't run yet.
• 12. A new review inside the last 30 days. Fresh activity is what makes the profile read as an active business. Check: date of the newest review.
• 13. Every review answered, with a name and the service. "Thanks for the kind words" adds nothing; "Thanks, Dave — glad the panel swap went smoothly in Troy" is what customers read. Check: are there unanswered ones? Start at the best and the worst.
• 14. Q&A seeded by you. You're allowed to ask and answer your own questions. Do it before a competitor does it for you. Check: any questions on the profile at all? Three real ones customers phone about.
• 15. Services list written like a customer would search. Each service with a line of plain description and a price or a range where you can give one. Check: does the list name the job, or use internal shorthand?
• 16. A post in the last month. A finished job, a seasonal offer, a photo of the crew. Posts keep the profile alive between reviews. Check: date of the last update.

Group 3 — Conversion and hygiene (does the click become a call?)

• 17. A booking or quote link is set. The most valuable button on the profile points at your form (or a landing page built for it), not your homepage. Check: open the profile on a phone and follow the button a real customer would tap.
• 18. Messaging answered within a day, or switched off. A chat button nobody monitors loses the lead quietly. Check: does the message notification reach a phone that someone reads?
• 19. NAP is identical everywhere — profile, site footer, Facebook, the directories you never updated. Same abbreviation, same suite number, same phone format. Check: compare your site footer with the profile character by character.
• 20. You can find yourself from a browser that doesn't know you. Open a private window, search "[your trade] near me" and "[trade] [city]," and look at the map. Check: if you're not in the top three, you now know exactly which of checks 1–19 is failing.

Scoring it

One point per check. Eighteen to twenty means your profile is doing its job — your growth is elsewhere. Twelve to seventeen is where most established local businesses sit: the profile works, but a few missing pieces are quietly costing calls, usually in Group 2. Under twelve, the map is showing someone else's name for your own customers' searches regardless of how good your website is.

The three that usually hurt most

Across the trades we look at, the pain is boringly consistent: an unverified or duplicated listing (1–2), a primary category that's one step too broad (4), and a review habit that stopped last spring (11–12). None of them need a new website. All of them need someone to sit down and do them, then keep doing the review part every month.

Related

• Why each of these checks moves the map — the longer read, no scorecard.
• Local SEO services — what we do monthly for the profile and the reviews.
• How to get more Google reviews — the one-tap ask we set up for clients.
• Pricing · Start a plan.