For most local service businesses, a complete Google Business Profile produces more phone calls than the website does. The three things that matter most are an accurate primary category, current contact details and hours, and recent photos of real work. All of it is free, it takes about an hour, and Second Opinion weights your profile and business identity at 35% of your score.
If you only do one thing after reading your audit, do this one.
For most local service businesses, the Google Business Profile brings in more phone calls than the website does. It's free, it takes about an hour, and it carries a third of your Second Opinion score.
What we check, and what it means
Second Opinion checks your public profile information: phone number, website link, hours, category, and whether the business still reads as open. It is the single heaviest check in the whole audit.
Most profiles we look at are about a third filled in. Not wrong.. just abandoned somewhere around 2019.
The hour, in order
- Primary category. The highest-leverage field on the page, and the one most often left vague. "Contractor" and "Excavating contractor" are not the same thing to Google.
- Phone and website. Use the same number that is on your website. If you run a tracking number in one place and your real number in the other, you are creating a mismatch that costs you.
- Hours, including the holiday ones. A profile that says you are closed while you are open loses the call outright.
- Service area. Name the places you actually drive to, not the whole state.
- Photos. Recent ones, of real work. Not the stock image the last web guy used.
About photos
We report your photo count, but it doesn't affect your score. That's deliberate. There is no number of photos that makes a business rank, and anyone who tells you otherwise has something to sell you.
What is true: profiles with recent, real photos get more clicks from people who are already looking at them. That's a conversion win, not a ranking one. Worth doing, for the right reason.
Reviews, honestly
We don't currently measure reviews in the audit, so nothing in your report says anything about them. But while you're in there: a steady trickle of recent reviews does more for you than a pile of old ones, and replying to them costs nothing.
That's advice, not a finding. We'll always tell you which is which.
What this does not fix
A great profile sitting on top of a site nobody can open is still a business nobody can reach. The profile is the fastest win. It is not the only one.