Google Business Profile optimization: the checklist for a contractor

Why the profile decides the map pack

Google says local results are ranked on three things: relevance (how well the profile matches what was searched), distance (how far the business is from the searcher or the place named) and prominence (how well known the business is, from reviews, links and the web). Distance you cannot change. Relevance and prominence are set mostly on the profile — the category, the services, the description, the reviews — and corroborated by the site and the listings. That is why the profile is the first thing we fix, before a page is written.

The checklist

1. Name. Exactly as on your signage, truck and legal paperwork. “Smith Roofing,” not “Smith Roofing — Best Roofer in Franklin TN.” Keyword-stuffed names violate Google’s guidelines and get profiles suspended.
2. Primary category. The single closest match to the work that pays the bills: Roofing contractor, Plumber, Electrician, HVAC contractor. Secondary categories for the other things you genuinely do. Check what the businesses that hold the pack in your city use.
3. Services. Every service you offer, listed under its category, each with a description in plain words. This is what a “tankless water heater” search matches against.
4. Description. Up to 750 characters: what you do, where, for whom, since when, what you are licensed and insured for. The same paragraph as your website and your llms.txt.
5. Hours. Real hours, including holiday hours. If you answer the phone 24 hours, say so; if you do not, do not.
6. Address or service area. A service-area business with no customer-facing storefront hides the address and sets the area — the cities and counties you actually drive to. Overstating it does not help and can get the profile flagged.
7. Phone and website. The same phone as everywhere else. The website link to your home page, with tracking parameters so you can see the profile’s clicks in analytics.
8. Photos. Real ones: the truck, the crew, the work, before and after. Added regularly, not in one batch at setup. Stock photos add nothing.
9. Reviews. A system that asks every customer at the end of the job with a direct link, and a habit of replying to every review — good ones briefly, bad ones calmly and specifically. No incentives, no gating, nothing fabricated: all three are against policy.
10. Q&A. Seed it with the questions you are asked on the phone, and answer them yourself. Anyone can post there; it is better if the first answers are yours.
11. Posts. A short update every week or two — a job completed, a seasonal service, an offer. It keeps the profile alive, which Google notices.
12. Attributes and booking. Every attribute that applies (veteran-owned, women-owned, wheelchair accessible), and a booking or quote link if you have one.
13. Messaging. On only if someone will answer within minutes. A message left for a day is worse than no messaging.

Keep it consistent with everything else

The profile is one record among many. The site, Apple and Bing maps, the directories and the review sites must carry the same name, address, phone, categories and services. Fix the old phone number on the two directories nobody remembers; merge the duplicate profile from the previous owner. Google resolves a business to one entity only when the record agrees with itself, and so do the AI engines.

The monthly routine

• Reply to every new review.
• Add photos from the month’s jobs.
• Post one or two updates.
• Check for edits Google has suggested or applied — hours, categories and names get changed by users and by Google itself.
• Review the profile’s own performance report: searches, calls, direction requests, website clicks.

Half an hour a month keeps the profile current; a profile nobody has touched for a year reads as a business that may not be open.

The AI answers read it too

When Google’s AI Overviews or AI Mode answer a local question, the businesses they name and describe come first from Business Profile data: the category, the services, the rating and the reviews. ChatGPT, Perplexity and the others read the same public record. A complete, current, well-reviewed profile is therefore the single field of work that improves the map pack, the organic results and the AI answers at once. The free AI answer check reads your profile against the three that hold the pack and shows what the AI answer drew on.