Your Google Business Profile is probably broken. Here's how to tell.

When was the last time you actually opened your Google Business Profile?

If your honest answer is "I don't really remember," it's almost certainly broken.

Not in a flashing-red-error kind of way. Broken in the way most small-business profiles are broken: stale, miscategorized, missing the half-dozen things Google actually uses to decide whether to put you in the map pack for "plumber near me." It's the kind of broken that costs you calls without ever telling you it's costing you calls.

Profiles like this tend to break in the same five ways. None of them require a developer. Most of them take ten minutes.

Here's how to tell if yours is one of them.

1. Open your profile while signed in

Search your business name on Google while logged into the email that owns the profile. You should see a "Your Business Profile" panel at the top of the results, with edit buttons next to every field.

If you don't see that panel — if all you see is the public-facing card with a "Suggest an edit" link — you either don't have a profile, or you don't have admin access to the one Google is showing. Both are problems. The second one is worse, because somebody else does.

Fix that first. Everything downstream depends on it.

2. The category is almost always wrong

Your primary category is one of the biggest factors in whether Google decides you're a "Plumber" or a "Plumbing Supply Store." Those are very different searches and very different customers.

Most owners pick something close-but-not-exact when they first set up the profile, then never look at it again. "Marketing Consultant" instead of "Web Designer." "Construction Company" instead of "Roofing Contractor." "General Contractor" instead of "Kitchen Remodeler." Each one of those is a category Google actually offers, and the wrong one will quietly cost you every search that uses the right one.

While you're in there, add secondary categories. Google lets you add several. Use them. They're a free way to show up for adjacent searches.

3. The photo audit

Open the Photos tab. Sort by newest.

If your newest photos are years old, customers notice. A stale profile looks neglected, like nobody's minding the store, and people weigh that before they call. Fresh photos are the cheapest way to look open and active.

You don't need a photographer. You need to take three phone photos a month. The inside of the shop. A finished job. The team. A behind-the-scenes shot of you working. Done.

The bar here is much lower than people assume. Slightly blurry phone photos with real people in them do more for you than stock-looking photos.

4. The review reply problem

You have reviews. Probably more than you think. Go look.

Now look at the replies.

Most owners reply to the five-star ones with "Thanks!!" and either ignore the bad ones or reply in a way that makes them look defensive. Both are wrong, and not only because of Google (its own tips for local ranking include replying to reviews). Future customers read the replies. A profile with a thoughtful, full-sentence reply on every review, including the rough ones, looks like a business that pays attention. A five-star profile with dead silence doesn't.

If you have unreplied reviews from 2024, that's two years of unanswered reviews sitting there. Reply to them. Even the old ones. Write like a person, not like a brand. "Hey John, thanks — glad the install went smoothly. Appreciate you calling us instead of the big-box guys" beats anything that starts with "We appreciate your valued feedback."

5. The website link mistake

Most profiles point at the homepage. That's fine if you have one location.

But if you serve a specific area — Jacksonville and Orange Park, say — and your homepage doesn't make that crystal clear in the first screen of content, you're sending Google a mixed message. The profile is local. The page it points to is generic. Google has to guess which one is true.

The fix is either to build a real location page on your site that mirrors the service area on your profile (like my Orange Park web design page), and link that, or to fix the homepage so the service area is obvious without scrolling. This is the one item on the list that crosses over from "Google Business Profile" into "your actual website," which is also why it tends to be the highest-leverage fix.

Why this matters more than it used to

A year ago, "rank in the local pack" was pretty much the only Google Business goal worth talking about.

That's already changed. Many searches now show an AI Overview at the top, a Gemini-generated summary that pulls from a small number of sources, and for local questions your Business Profile is one of the places it can pull from. A complete, well-categorized, recently photographed profile with thoughtful review replies gives it more to work with than a half-built one.

I'm not promising you a citation. Nobody can. (And if a marketing agency does promise you one, they're lying.) What I am telling you is that the gap between a good profile and a bad one is wider than it used to be, and it's going to keep widening.

What I left off the list on purpose

Three things you may have noticed I didn't tell you to obsess over:

• "Post to Google" updates. Almost nobody reads them, and the ranking impact is small.
• The Q&A section. Worth a quick pass if you're getting questions, optional if you're not.
• Booking buttons. Only matter if you use one of Google's integrated providers.

Spend your ten minutes on the five things above first. Then, if you still have time, get to those.

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If you ran through this list and quietly realized your profile is in worse shape than you thought, Google Business Profile management is part of my local SEO service. Or book a free call and we'll talk it through first.