Why the profile matters more than you might think
For a trade contractor, the Google Business Profile is often the first thing a homeowner sees, before your website and sometimes instead of it. Someone searching "AC repair near me" gets a map and a short list of businesses, each with a star rating, a category, hours and a phone button. Some call straight from that list. Your profile has a few seconds to look like a real, local, working business that does the job they need.
Much of what decides that is in your control, and most of it is free: the right category, accurate hours, real photos, a steady flow of honest reviews and a name that matches your truck. This checklist covers those items.
Where the items come from
The items follow Google's published guidelines for representing a business on Google and its review policies. Where Google gives a specific rule, such as hiding the address of a service-area business that doesn't serve customers there, or keeping the business name free of keywords, the item says so. The rest are habits that keep a profile accurate and current: photos, responses to reviews and consistent details across the web.
How the score works
Each item has a weight of 1, 2 or 3. The score is the weight of the items you've ticked divided by the total weight of every item, shown out of 100. The "fix these next" list is the three unticked items with the highest weight, in checklist order when weights tie.
The weights are our priority order, not Google's. Google says local results depend on relevance, distance and prominence, and it does not publish how much any single field counts. We weight by a simpler question: if this were your profile, which fix would we make first? A wrong primary category or a suspended listing costs more than a missing holiday-hours entry, so it carries more weight. Treat the number as a to-do list with a progress bar, not a prediction of where you'll rank.
The fixes that often get skipped
- The owner login. Profiles are often set up by a former office manager or a previous agency. If you can't log in as the owner, fix that before anything else.
- Tracking links. Tag your website link with UTM parameters so visits from the profile show up on their own in your analytics. Otherwise they blend into "organic search" and you can't tell what the profile is doing for you.
- Asking every customer. Reviews come from asking, and asking works best when it's part of how a job is closed. Our review request message builder writes the text or email for you.
What this checklist can't see
It can't see your profile, your competitors, or how Google treats your listing. It won't catch a duplicate listing, a suspension risk you don't know about, or a competitor's spam. And the profile is half the picture: a homeowner who clicks through lands on your website, which the website conversion scorecard covers. If you'd rather have someone look at both with you, that's part of our SEO management work.
Your ticks stay in this browser. Nothing is sent to us or to Google, and clearing your browser data clears the checklist.