The 15-minute Google Business Profile checklist
7 min read · Dec 2024
Your Google Business Profile is your most-visited storefront — most customers see it before they ever see your website. Yet most profiles we audit are missing half the fields Google uses to decide who shows up in local results.
Block out fifteen minutes and run this checklist. It's the highest-leverage quarter hour in local SEO.
Categories and services (5 minutes)
Confirm your primary category is the narrowest accurate one — “Dental clinic,” not “Business.” Then add every relevant secondary category. Fill in your services list with real descriptions, not one-word entries.
Hours, phone, and appointment links (3 minutes)
Wrong hours are the fastest way to burn trust and get filtered. Check special hours for upcoming holidays, verify your phone number matches your website exactly, and connect an appointment or booking link if you have one.
Photos and posts (5 minutes)
Profiles with recent photos get dramatically more engagement. Add exterior, interior, team, and work-in-progress shots — and make a habit of adding new ones monthly. Publish a Google Post about a current offer or update while you're in there.
Q&A and messaging (2 minutes)
Seed your own Q&A section with the three questions customers always ask, and answer them yourself. Turn on messaging if you can respond within a few hours — responsiveness is a light ranking signal and a heavy trust signal.
