Google Business Profile Optimisation Checklist

For most local businesses the Business Profile produces more enquiries than the website. It is also the most commonly half-configured asset in local marketing. This is the checklist we work through on every local audit.

Categories

• Primary category — the single highest-leverage field on the profile. Check what the top three map pack results in your area use, because that tells you what Google considers relevant for the query.
• Secondary categories — add every genuinely applicable one. Do not add stretches; irrelevant categories dilute relevance rather than widening it.
• Review categories annually. Google adds and retires them.

Core information

• Business name exactly as it appears on signage and legal documents. Adding keywords to the name is a guideline violation and a common cause of suspension.
• Address in a consistent format, matching your website and citations.
• Local phone number rather than an 0800 line where possible.
• Website URL pointing at the most relevant page — for multi-location businesses, that location's page, not the homepage.
• Opening hours including bank holidays and seasonal variation.
• Service area defined accurately if you travel to customers, with the address hidden.

Services and products

• List every service with a description. Most profiles leave this blank, and it is free relevance.
• Use the terms customers search for, not internal names.
• Add products with prices where it makes sense — price transparency filters enquiries.

Attributes

• Complete every applicable attribute. Some are used as search filters, so a missing one removes you from a filtered result set entirely.
• Accessibility attributes matter more than most owners assume.
• Payment methods, amenities, and any identity attributes that genuinely apply.

Photographs

• Logo and cover image set deliberately.
• Exterior shots from the direction customers approach from — this genuinely helps people find you.
• Interior, team and work-in-progress photographs.
• Add new photographs regularly rather than uploading a batch once. Recency is a signal of an active business.

Posts

• Post at least monthly. Offers, events, updates, new services.
• Include a call to action and a link.
• Posts expire, so this is maintenance rather than a one-off task.

Questions and answers

• Seed the questions customers actually ask, and answer them from the business account.
• Monitor for new questions — anybody can answer, and a wrong answer from a stranger sits there indefinitely.

Reviews

• Build the request into your delivery process so reviews arrive steadily.
• Respond to every review, positive and negative.
• Keep negative responses factual and brief; the reply is for everyone reading it later, not for the reviewer.
• Never incentivise, gate by rating, or write reviews.

Monitoring

• Check monthly for unauthorised edits. Anybody can suggest a change, and category or hours edits go live more often than owners expect.
• Watch for duplicate listings, particularly after a move or rebrand.
• Track map pack position across your catchment rather than from a single point — position varies substantially by where the search happens.