Google Business Profile Audit Checklist: 28 Checks That Decide Your Ranking
By the MapsBoost team · Updated October 5, 2026
- ✓ A complete profile (foundation) is worth 40 of 100 ranking points — it is the highest-leverage fix.
- ✓ 10+ reviews at 4.0+ stars unlocks most of the 25 review points; velocity matters more than age.
- ✓ Photos and weekly posts decide the 15 content points that separate active listings from dead ones.
Why audit in four categories
Google never publishes a score for your listing, but local ranking breaks down into the same four buckets every time: how complete your profile is, what customers say about you, how alive the listing looks, and whether your website backs it up. Scoring each bucket separately tells you where one hour of work moves the needle most.
Our framework weights them 40 / 25 / 15 / 20. That weighting is deliberate: a business with 200 reviews but no website link or service area still loses to a complete profile with 30 reviews. Completeness beats raw review count.
Foundation checks (40 points)
Walk through these eleven items and fix every miss before touching anything else: primary category set, at least one additional category, a written description with local keywords, website URL, local phone number, physical address, defined service area, accurate business hours, listed services, added products, and verification. Verification alone is worth little — but an unverified listing cannot use posts or Q&A at all.
Reviews, content, and website checks (60 points)
Reviews (25 points): cross 10 reviews, hold a 4.0+ average, push past 50, and keep at least one review from the last 30 days with gaps no longer than two weeks. Content (15 points): upload 10 photos minimum, 25 to compete, add something new every month, and publish a post every week. Website (20 points): HTTPS, a meta title with your business name plus city, a meta description with a call to action, one H1 with your service keyword, LocalBusiness schema, city names in the copy, and a mobile-friendly layout.
- The single most skipped check is LocalBusiness schema — five minutes of JSON-LD for 3 of your 20 website points.
- The second is service area: delivery and home-service businesses lose 3 foundation points by leaving it blank.
- Review recency decays silently — set a monthly reminder to request reviews, not a yearly one.
This checklist is the exact model behind the MapsBoost score. Paste your Maps link on the homepage and the free preview runs every check above — failed items come with the fix attached.
Run the free auditFrequently asked questions
How often should I audit my Google Business Profile?
Quarterly at minimum, plus after any change: new services, new hours, a website relaunch, or a review-rating drop below 4.0.
What is a good Google Business Profile score?
Above 70 means the fundamentals are solid and you should invest in reviews and posts. Below 40 usually means missing foundation items — categories, description, or service area.
Can I audit a competitor’s listing?
Yes for anything public: categories, photos, posts, review counts, and ratings are all visible. You cannot see their private data, but the public signals are enough to benchmark.