The 27-Point Google Business Profile Checklist We Run on Every Scottish Client

Most local SEO checklists are written to be impressive rather than useful. This one is the list we actually work through when we take on a new profile, grouped the way we work through it.

A fair warning before you start: most business owners who run this honestly complete somewhere between eight and twelve of the twenty-seven. That is not a criticism. It is what happens when a profile is set up once by whoever had a spare afternoon and then left to look after itself while everybody gets on with the actual job.

Foundations

1. The profile is claimed and verified. Not just created. If there is no verification badge on the management panel, nothing else on this list will work properly.
2. The primary category is correct and specific. This is the strongest single lever in local search. “Electrician” beats “Contractor”. Choose the most precise category that genuinely describes you.
3. Secondary categories are added. Up to nine, covering the other things you genuinely do. Do not add categories for work you do not want.
4. The business name matches your real-world signage. No added keywords or towns. Keyword-stuffed names are a common cause of suspension, covered in why profiles get suspended.

Accuracy

5. Name, address and phone number are identical everywhere. Website, profile, directories, social accounts, invoices. “St” in one place and “Street” in another is enough to weaken the signal.
6. Opening hours are correct, including special hours. Set holiday hours in advance. A profile showing “open” when you are shut generates a bad experience and occasionally a bad review.
7. The service area reflects where you actually work. Not a pin on the office if you cover three council areas. See service area setup.
8. The website link points to the most relevant page. If someone finds you through a service search, sending them to a generic homepage loses enquiries.

Visibility

9. Services or products are listed individually, with descriptions. Most profiles leave this empty. It is free space to describe exactly what you do.
10. Attributes are set. Wheelchair access, free parking, appointment required, women-owned, and so on. These appear as filters in Maps.
11. The business description is written and uses the full length available. Plain language, what you do, who for, where. Not marketing patter.
12. The opening date is set. A small trust signal, and it costs thirty seconds.

Content

13. A post has gone out in the last month. Profiles that are updated look active to customers and to Google.
14. The questions and answers section has real content. You are allowed to ask and answer your own questions. If you do not populate it, somebody else will.
15. An action link is set. Book, quote, order, enquire. Give people something to press.

Reputation

16. There is a repeatable process for asking for reviews. A habit tied to job completion, not an occasional campaign.
17. Every review has a reply. Positive ones included. Reply rate is visible to anyone reading the profile.
18. Reviews that breach policy have been flagged. Not the unfair ones, the ones that genuinely break the rules. See how to remove a Google review.
19. Review flow is steady rather than spiky. Twenty reviews in one week then nothing for a year reads badly to customers and to Google.

Imagery

20. Logo and cover image are set and correctly sized.
21. There are exterior and interior photographs. People use these to work out whether they have found the right place.
22. There are photographs of the team and of real work. Genuine photographs outperform stock imagery for trust, particularly in trades and professional services.
23. Something has been added in the last three months. Photo recency is a visible signal of an active business.

Monitoring

24. Google-suggested edits are checked monthly. Members of the public and automated systems can change your information. If nobody is watching, wrong hours or a wrong address can sit there for months.
25. Duplicate listings have been checked for and resolved. Duplicates split your reviews and confuse Google. See fixing duplicate listings.

Reporting

26. Calls from Maps are tracked separately. Otherwise you cannot tell what the profile is producing. See tracking calls from Google Maps.
27. Profile performance is reviewed monthly. Searches, views, calls, direction requests, and how they compare with last month. Our guide to Google Business Profile insights covers what is worth watching.

What Your Score Actually Means

If you completed twenty or more, your profile is in better shape than most and your effort is best spent on reviews and content rather than settings.

Between twelve and nineteen is where most established businesses land. The foundations are usually fine and the gaps are in the ongoing work: posts, photos, review replies, monitoring.

Under twelve, the good news is that the fixes are mostly quick and the difference tends to be noticeable, because the businesses you compete with are frequently in the same position.

The pattern worth noticing is that items one to twelve are jobs you do once. Items thirteen to twenty-seven are habits. Almost every profile that underperforms does so because the one-off jobs were done and the habits were not.

If You Would Rather Not Run It Yourself

At Wicked Spider we work through this list for businesses across Scotland, then keep the ongoing half of it running month after month. That is what our Google profile management service is: not a one-off audit, but somebody keeping the profile accurate, active and monitored while you get on with the work.

We do not promise specific rankings or a guaranteed number of enquiries. What we do promise is that the twenty-seven items above are actually done and stay done.

If you would like us to run this list against your profile and show you where the gaps are, our free Google Maps visibility report does exactly that.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should be on a local SEO checklist?

The essentials are a claimed and verified profile, a precise primary category, consistent name, address and phone number, a correct service area, complete services and attributes, real photographs, a steady flow of reviews with replies, regular posts, and monthly monitoring for suggested edits and duplicate listings.

How often should I audit my Google Business Profile?

Run the full list quarterly and check the monitoring items monthly. Suggested edits and duplicate listings are the two that cause real damage if nobody notices them, and both can appear without any warning.

Which item on the checklist matters most?

The primary category. It is the single strongest ranking lever available and it is the one most often set imprecisely, usually because it was chosen quickly when the profile was first created.

How long does it take to work through the list?

The one-off settings items take an afternoon for most businesses. The ongoing items are habits rather than tasks, and they are the reason profiles either keep improving or quietly slide backwards.