Google Business Profile audit: what we check

Almost every listing suspension that reaches us was avoidable, and had been avoidable for months. The name had keywords in it, the address didn't qualify, or someone edited three key fields on the same day. None of that appears suddenly: it accumulates until Google reviews it.

A profile audit is the work of finding that before Google does. This is the checklist we use, and it's written so you can run it yourself.

Block 1: suspension risk

These aren't optimization points. These are the ones that take your listing down, which is why they come first.

• Is the business name exactly what's on your signage and your tax documents? No city, no services, no adjectives. If there's anything extra, it's the most urgent finding in the audit. The representation guidelines say so unambiguously.
• Does the address qualify? PO box, virtual office, coworking without your own staffed presence, or a residential address declared as a walk-in storefront. Any of those is live risk.
• Is the model correct? Walk-in storefront if the customer comes to you, service area if you go to the customer. Declaring the wrong one is grounds for suspension and video verification finds out.
• Are there duplicate listings? Search your name, your phone and your address separately. Two listings for one location is a violation.
• Were there recent drastic edits? Name, address and category changed together trigger an automated review.
• Did reviews grow naturally? Bursts of five-star reviews from accounts with no history is the easiest pattern to detect.

If anything in this block comes back wrong, fix it before touching anything else. What happens when it isn't fixed in time is in Google Business Profile suspended.

Block 2: what's costing you visibility

No risk here, just revenue that isn't coming in.

• Primary category. The heaviest field and the one most people get wrong. Search your service in Maps, open the top three and compare. If none of them uses your category, yours is wrong.
• Secondary categories. They should map to real services, not keywords.
• Services section. The one most often left empty. Each service with a name and description is relevant text tied to your listing.
• Link destination. If you have multiple locations or services and the listing points at the generic homepage, you're losing conversion at the last step.
• NAP. Name, address and phone identical across listing, site and directories. Actually identical.
• LocalBusiness markup on the site, per the structured data documentation.

Block 3: what decides whether they contact you

They already found you. This decides whether they message.

• Real hours, with local public holidays entered manually. Showing open while closed is a one-star review.
• A phone that gets answered. Sounds obvious, fails often.
• Photos. Storefront with legible signage, interior, team, finished work. The storefront shot doubles as useful evidence if you ever appeal.
• Questions and answers seeded by you. If you don't answer them, anyone can, including your competitors.
• Replies to reviews, especially bad ones. A professional reply to a one-star review converts better than having no bad reviews.

Block 4: the process, which is what holds it all up

An audited and fixed profile degrades again within six months if there's no process behind it.

• Is there a routine for asking for reviews after every job? Not campaigns: a routine. Google publishes guidance.
• Does anyone review the listing monthly? Google accepts third-party edit suggestions. If nobody looks, your hours get changed and you never find out.
• Is the account in the business's name? If your previous agency administers it with their email, it isn't yours.
• Is there a second administrator? A single point of access is a single point of failure.

How to prioritize the findings

Our criteria, in this order:

1. Everything in block 1. That's risk of losing the asset.
2. Primary category and services. Biggest movement for the least effort.
3. Review process. That's what compounds over time.
4. Everything else.

What we don't recommend is starting with photos and the description copy, which is where almost everyone starts because it's visible and comfortable.

When it's worth having someone external do it

If you ran the checklist and everything came back clean, you don't need to hire anything. Seriously: most profiles are fixed with blocks 1 and 2 and need nobody.

It makes sense to bring someone in when block 1 has findings and you don't know how to correct them without triggering a review, when you have multiple locations whose listings contradict each other, or when there's already been a suspension and you don't want a second. That's what we cover in our SEO audit and our local SEO service.

For the complete setup from scratch there's the Google Business Profile guide, and if the profile still doesn't appear, start here.