Google Business Profile Optimization: The Complete Checklist

Google's local algorithm weighs three things: relevance (do you match the search?), distance (are you close?), and prominence (do signals say you're legit?). You can't move your shop, but you can maximize the other two.

In order of impact: primary category, review count + velocity, keywords in reviews, complete profile fields, photo freshness, citation consistency.

Business name (exactly as registered — no keyword stuffing, it triggers suspensions), hours including holidays, services with descriptions and prices, attributes, opening date, and a 750-character description that mentions your city and top 3 services in the first sentence.

NAP = Name, Address, Phone. If Yelp has your old address and Facebook has your old number, Google trusts you less. Audit your top 30 citations and fix mismatches — this alone has moved clients from page 2 into the map pack.

Post once (offer, update, or photo), answer every new review within 48 hours, add 3+ photos, and check the Q&A tab — you can seed and answer your own frequently-asked questions.