Free tool
How well is your Google Business Profile actually set up?
Sixteen questions, four minutes, a 0-100 score and a prioritised action plan you can work through yourself. No signup. Nothing leaves your browser.
Categories
Is your primary category the most specific match for what you do?
Specific beats general. "Emergency Plumber" beats "Plumber". "Driving School" only if you have multiple instructors - otherwise "Driving Instructor".
How many secondary categories do you have set?
Up to 9 secondary categories are allowed. 3+ specific ones are ideal - one for each service you offer.
Photos
How many photos are on your profile?
Includes photos of work, premises, vehicle, team, and the owner. Profiles with 20+ photos get 35% more clicks than those with under 10.
When was your last photo added?
Google bumps profiles that look actively maintained. Stale = ignored.
Posts
When did you last post on your GBP?
Posts show as cards in the search panel. They expire after 7 days for offers, longer for updates.
How often do you post?
Weekly is the sweet spot. Anything is better than nothing.
Reviews
How many Google reviews do you have?
The biggest single ranking factor for local pack. 50+ is the threshold where review signal really kicks in.
How often do you get new reviews?
Recent reviews carry more weight. Steady drip beats one big batch.
How often do you reply to reviews?
Responses are a confirmed ranking factor. Reply to every one - good or bad.
Services & attributes
Are your services filled out?
Services live in their own section. Each should have a name, description, and price if you have one.
Have you set attributes (emergency call-outs, online quotes, etc.)?
Attributes are the small tags Google offers when you edit your profile. "24-hour emergency", "online appointments", "family-owned".
Trust
Are your name, address, and phone identical everywhere?
NAP = Name, Address, Phone. Must match on website, GBP, Yell, Bark, Facebook, Checkatrade. One typo is a real ranking penalty.
Is your profile verified?
If you can edit it from your Google account, yes. If not, you need to verify - postcard, video, or phone call.
Q&A
Is there activity in the Questions & Answers section?
You can pre-seed Q&As. Most businesses ignore this entirely. Even one or two pinned answers helps.
Logistics
Are your hours set, including special hours?
Bank holidays, Christmas closures, summer schedule changes. Empty hours triggers Google to mark you as unreliable.
Is your website link set?
Without a website link the profile cannot pass traffic to you. If you don't have a website, a Linktree or Facebook page is better than nothing - a proper site is better still.
Answered 0 of 16 questions
Why this is a self-audit, not a scrape
Most “free GBP audit” tools online scrape the public version of your profile, count how many fields are filled in, and output a generic score. That works for the surface stuff (do you have a phone number, are your hours set) but misses the things that actually move rankings - how recently you posted, whether you reply to reviews, whether your secondary categories are specific to what you do.
You can see all of that. We can't. So we ask you. The tradeoff is four minutes of your time for an honest score instead of a flattering, useless one.
The weighting reflects what local SEO practitioners report as the highest-impact GBP optimisations in 2026: reviews come first, then category specificity, then NAP consistency, then everything else. Your score breakdown shows where the points came from so you can see the levers.
Want more?
We wrote a full guide on how UK sole traders actually get found on Google in 2026 - the actions, in order, with time commitments. GBP is the first half. The second half is the website you point it at, and the local citations that reinforce both.
When you're ready to fix the website side, we build proper sites for sole traders for £20 a month - request one here.
Stop putting it off.
£20 a month. Your business website live next day.