Google Business Profile Optimization
Your Google Business Profile is the single highest-leverage asset in local SEO. Most businesses fill in the basics, get verified, and stop. The ones that ranked above them in the local pack did six more things. Here’s the full list.
Why GBP is the highest-leverage local SEO move
The local pack — the three businesses with stars and phone numbers shown above the regular search results — is fed by Google Business Profile signals more than by anything on your website. Proximity to the searcher matters; relevance via your category settings matters; prominence via reviews and citations matters. Your H1 tag matters less here than how completely your GBP is filled in.
For local businesses, ranking #1 in the map pack often produces more leads than ranking #1 in regular organic. And it is faster to win.
The 14-point GBP audit
- Primary category — most-specific accurate category (huge ranking signal)
- Secondary categories — up to 9 more, each one extends keyword coverage
- Business name — exact legal name only (no keyword stuffing — that gets your listing suspended)
- Address — verified, formatted to match Google’s standards, NAP-consistent across web
- Service area — only cities you actually serve (over-claiming reduces relevance)
- Phone number — local number preferred for local SEO; tracked numbers OK if forwarded properly
- Hours — actual hours, special holiday hours updated
- Services — every service you offer, with descriptions and prices where appropriate
- Products — for retail or product-led businesses
- Attributes — wheelchair accessible, accepts cards, free Wi-Fi, dog-friendly, etc.
- Photos — exterior, interior, team, products, behind-the-scenes (10+ to start)
- Posts — weekly updates, offers, events
- Q&A — seed common questions yourself, monitor for new ones
- Reviews + responses — strategy below
Most businesses get points 1–6 right. The lift comes from completing 7–14 with discipline.
Categories, services, attributes (the right way)
The primary category is the single most important field in your GBP. Google uses it as the primary relevance signal for local-pack inclusion. We test multiple categories against your target keyword volume before locking one in. Adding secondary categories extends coverage but cannot fix a wrong primary.
Services let you list specific offerings inside a category. For an SEO agency: “SEO consulting”, “Local SEO”, “Link building”, etc. Each service can have a description and price. These get matched against searcher queries.
Photo + post strategy
Listings with 10+ photos get 35% more clicks than listings with fewer (Google’s own data, BrightLocal corroborates). Photo upload cadence also signals “active business.” We plan a quarterly photo refresh: products, team, work-in-progress, community moments. Geo-tag where appropriate.
Posts (offers, updates, events) push your listing higher in user-history results and add fresh content for Google to index. Weekly is the realistic minimum; daily is better for retail.
Review acquisition + responses
Reviews are the single most-impactful ongoing local SEO action. Volume matters, recency matters, and your responses matter. We set up a review acquisition flow (post-purchase email, WhatsApp message with the direct review link, QR code at point-of-sale), train your team on response templates that don’t sound robotic, and monitor for review manipulation.
Pricing: $300 one-time for the full 14-point optimisation. Ongoing management $200–500/month depending on review volume and post cadence.