A clearer online presence. Twenty practical checks.

Check the profile represents a real business that meets customers in person, at its own premises or by visiting them. If you operate only online, focus on your website and other discovery channels.

What good looks like: You can explain where genuine in-person customer contact happens.

Find the existing profile before making another. Confirm the business owner can sign in and complete the verification method Google actually offers. Add trusted managers rather than sharing a password.

What good looks like: The owner controls the account and knows the verification status.

Use the real-world business name. Choose the most accurate category for the core business; put services and places in their proper fields.

What good looks like: The name matches your branding and the category describes what the business is.

Show an address only when customers are genuinely served there. For a service-area profile, use actual named areas and hide an address customers cannot visit.

What good looks like: No invented offices, borrowed addresses or duplicate town profiles.

Check normal hours, breaks and holiday exceptions. Make it clear when customers can actually receive the service, rather than copying the hours an automated tool is online.

What good looks like: The website, profile and booking page agree; bank-holiday changes are planned.

Open it using mobile data. Read the first screen, tap the menu and check whether any text or button is cut off.

What good looks like: Your main service and next action are readable without zooming or sideways scrolling.

Say what you do, who it helps and where you work. Give useful price or quoting information and explain what a customer needs to do next.

What good looks like: A new visitor can describe the offer after reading the first screen.

Tap the phone, email and booking links yourself. Use a number you answer and a monitored inbox; make any expected response window clear.

What good looks like: Each link opens the right destination and the customer can reach a real person.

Send your own test from a normal browser using non-sensitive test details. Check the confirmation, delivery and reply route, then remove the test from your working queue.

What good looks like: You receive the enquiry and the customer knows what happens next.

Try an available slot and an unavailable one. Check the service length, price, deposit, cancellation wording and the confirmation message.

What good looks like: The customer can understand the commitment before confirming a booking.

Use genuine examples with permission. Label concept designs and demonstrations so they cannot be mistaken for client results.

What good looks like: Every testimonial, result and client name has a real, checkable source.

Use clear, compressed images at the sizes the site needs. Describe informative images in alt text; leave purely decorative images empty.

What good looks like: Important visual information also makes sense without the picture.

Offer the same neutral opportunity to genuine customers. Do not pay, offer discounts, screen out criticism or demand particular words.

What good looks like: The request welcomes honest feedback and uses the correct review link.

Check the listings people actually use for the correct business name, public phone, website and customer-facing location or service area.

What good looks like: Customers are not sent to an old number, wrong business or private home.

Ask only for details needed to respond. Explain how submitted details are used and check the form has a clear, accessible label for every field.

What good looks like: A visitor knows who receives their enquiry and can complete the form with a keyboard.

Explain scope, customer questions, next steps and genuine local coverage. Link to it from relevant pages; avoid changing only a town name across copies.

What good looks like: Each page adds something useful and is reachable through normal navigation.

If you own the site, inspect key URLs in Google Search Console. Check for accidental noindex settings, broken links and the intended canonical URL.

What good looks like: Your important pages are accessible and their indexing status is understood.

For a normal week, log missed calls and what happened afterwards. Separate spam, repeat calls and existing bookings from potential new work.

What good looks like: You have a dated baseline and a realistic idea of which enquiries are recoverable.

Use a consistent source label on the Google website link, and track real calls, forms or bookings in the tools you use. Avoid personal information in tracking tags.

What good looks like: You can distinguish visits from enquiries and completed work.

Write an action, owner and review date for each. Re-test the actual customer journey after making a change.

What good looks like: The next review compares the same measures and records what improved.