A GBP profile audit is not a checklist you complete once. It is a diagnostic you run at the start of every engagement, repeat after every major change, and use monthly to demonstrate progress to the client. Done right, it surfaces specific, fixable problems ranked by their impact on local search ranking.
To learn more about getting F! Insights set up end to end, visit F! Insights Setup: Google & Claude API Keys in 15 Minutes. Build a Service Page Architecture From a GBP Category and Generate and Push GBP Optimizations for Any Client cover adjacent steps in detail.
This article walks through all eight audit categories, what to check in each, how to score them, and how F! Insights automates the full audit and scoring process through the GBP Fulfillment tools in the Client Workspace.
The 8 Audit Categories
- Online Presence. Is the GBP profile verified? Is the listing active and not suspended? Is the business appearing in Google Maps and Google Search for its primary category and city?
- Customer Reviews. Review count, average star rating, review velocity, and response rate. Compare all metrics against the top three local competitors.
- Photos and Media. Total photo count, photo categories, photo upload recency, cover photo and logo presence. Google uses photo activity as a freshness signal.
- Business Information. Primary and secondary categories, business description, service area, hours, website URL, phone number, and appointment links.
- Competitive Position. How the profile compares to the top three Map Pack competitors across review count, photo count, profile completeness, and posting activity.
- Website Performance. Mobile PageSpeed score, desktop PageSpeed score, and Core Web Vitals metrics. A slow linked website reduces the overall quality signal the profile sends to Google.
- Local SEO Signals. Service list completeness, attribute population, GBP post recency and frequency, Q and A section activity, and structured data on the linked website.
- Page Speed. Scored separately from Website Performance because it is the most commonly actionable improvement. The mobile score specifically, as the majority of local searches happen on mobile devices.
What Each Category Measures in Detail
1. Online Presence
Online Presence is the foundational category. Everything else in the audit is meaningless if the profile has a verification issue, a suspension, or a duplicate listing problem. The first check is whether the profile is verified. Unverified profiles rank poorly or not at all. The second is whether the profile is active: a profile that hasn’t been touched in 12+ months shows staleness signals that Google weights against the listing.
Duplicate listings are common with multi-location businesses and service-area businesses that have moved. A duplicate pulls ranking signals away from the primary profile and sometimes outranks it. Check for duplicates by searching the exact business name plus city in Google Maps. Claiming the correct profile and requesting removal of duplicates is one of the fastest-impact fixes in this category.
Visibility is the third check: does the profile appear in the Map Pack for its primary category + city search? If a verified, active, non-duplicate profile isn’t appearing for its core search term, the issue is usually in Business Information (wrong primary category) or Competitive Position (profile gaps relative to current Map Pack holders).
2. Customer Reviews
Reviews are one of Google’s highest-weighted local ranking signals. The audit checks four dimensions: total count, average star rating, review velocity (new reviews per 30 days), and response rate. All four are benchmarked against the top three Map Pack competitors for the client’s primary category.
A client with 18 reviews and a 4.8 average may look strong in isolation. If all three Map Pack competitors have 80+ reviews and a 4.7 average, the client is losing the review signal comparison despite a comparable star rating. Review count gap is the most fixable ranking gap over a 60-90 day horizon, but it requires starting the review request sequence on day one, not month three.
Response rate matters beyond ranking. Google has signaled that responding to reviews is a positive engagement signal. An audit should flag any client with a response rate below 70% as a priority action item, regardless of their competitive position on count and rating.
3. Photos and Media
Google treats photo activity as a freshness and engagement signal. Profiles with regular photo uploads (at least weekly from the business, not just customers) show consistent engagement. The audit checks total photo count against category benchmarks, photo upload recency (last upload date), and photo category coverage (interior, exterior, team, product/service, cover, logo).
Missing cover photo and logo are the fastest fixes in this category and are commonly overlooked. A business using Google’s auto-selected cover photo (often a low-quality customer upload) is missing a basic optimization. Cover photo should be a high-resolution, brand-appropriate exterior or hero shot. Logo should match the business’s current branding.
Photo count benchmarks vary by category. A single-location restaurant competing for “best brunch downtown” needs 80+ photos to be competitive. A local plumber may need only 25–30. The audit’s value here is in benchmarking against named competitors, not applying a generic threshold.
4. Business Information
Business Information completeness is the most consistently underperforming category in new client audits. The common gaps: primary category that’s too broad (“General Contractor” instead of “Kitchen Remodeler”), business description that doesn’t include the city and primary service, service area that’s not defined for service-area businesses, appointment link missing, and website URL linking to the homepage instead of a relevant service page.
Primary category selection has the highest ranking impact of any single Business Information field. Google uses primary category to determine which searches the profile is eligible to appear for. A law firm categorized as “Legal Services” instead of “Personal Injury Attorney” is not going to rank for personal injury searches regardless of how optimized the rest of the profile is. Category correction is priority one in this category whenever the primary category is wrong or too broad.
Business description is the only free-text field that Google may use for keyword matching in local search. The description should include the primary service, the city or service area, and one or two differentiating points. Maximum 750 characters. The audit checks for a description that’s substantive (more than two sentences), includes location signals, and doesn’t contain keyword stuffing or promotional language that violates Google’s guidelines.
5. Competitive Position
Competitive Position is the category that contextualizes all the others. A profile with strong absolute scores may still underperform in the Map Pack if the local competitors have stronger profiles. The audit benchmarks the client against the top three current Map Pack holders for their primary category in their service area.
Competitive Position scoring covers review count gap, photo count gap, posting frequency comparison, and profile completeness relative to competitors. A client ranking fourth or fifth in local results is almost always losing on one or two of these dimensions to the businesses above them. The specific gap is typically reviews or photos at the early stage, or posting and attribute completeness at the more mature stage. Either way, the audit gives the agency a clear argument for what to prioritize.
6. Website Performance
Google uses the linked website as a quality signal for the GBP profile. A slow website, a site with Core Web Vitals failures, or a site that isn’t mobile-optimized sends negative quality signals that affect how Google evaluates the overall profile. The audit checks PageSpeed scores and Core Web Vitals on both mobile and desktop.
The diagnostic question is: does the website represent a meaningful SEO liability? A mobile PageSpeed score below 40 (the bottom third of the scale) is a significant issue. A score in the 50–70 range is a minor drag. Scores above 70 are generally not worth prioritizing relative to the other categories. Website performance gaps belong in a conversation with the client about their web development capacity. The agency typically can’t fix PageSpeed without access to the website’s codebase.
7. Local SEO Signals
Local SEO Signals covers the secondary optimization layer: service list, attributes, Q&A, GBP posts, and structured data on the website. These signals have a cumulative effect. No single item in this category moves the needle dramatically, but collectively they contribute to the profile’s completeness score in Google’s ranking evaluation.
Service list completeness is the most commonly empty field in new client audits. Many businesses have their primary categories set but no individual services listed. Adding a complete service list (including service descriptions) takes 30–60 minutes and is one of the highest-value low-effort optimizations in local SEO.
Attribute population is similarly underused. GBP attributes vary by category and include items like “Women-led,” “Free Wi-Fi,” “Wheelchair accessible entrance,” and “LGBTQ+ friendly.” The availability of specific attributes depends on the business category. An audit should check what attributes are available for the client’s category and flag which ones are unanswered. Attributes contribute to the profile’s relevance for specific modifier searches.
GBP post recency and Q&A activity round out this category. Posts older than 90 days are stale. A Q&A section with no owner-provided answers is a missed opportunity to seed relevant keyword content on the profile. For a detailed walkthrough of structured data requirements, see the full GBP audit checklist.
8. Page Speed
Page Speed is scored separately from Website Performance to isolate the most consistently actionable technical issue. Mobile PageSpeed is the primary metric because mobile devices account for the majority of local searches. The threshold that triggers priority action is a mobile PageSpeed score below 50. Below 50 on mobile, page speed is actively suppressing conversions from the GBP click-through. Users are landing on a page that doesn’t load fast enough to hold them.
How to Score Each Category
GBP audit score interpretation and action thresholds.
| Score Range | Interpretation | Action Required |
|---|---|---|
| 90–100 | Excellent: category is a strength | Monitor; no immediate action |
| 70–89 | Good: minor gaps present | Address in next optimization cycle |
| 50–69 | Fair: meaningful gaps affecting ranking | Prioritize; address within 2 weeks |
| Below 50 | Poor: significant ranking drag | Fix immediately; likely the primary cause of ranking underperformance |
Run a free GBP scan on any business to get a scored report across all eight categories in under 2 minutes. The scan includes AI-generated plain-language interpretation of each category score.
Not all categories carry equal weight. Online Presence and Business Information failures block progress in every other category. A suspended profile or wrong primary category is a ceiling on everything else. Competitive Position and Customer Reviews are the primary ranking levers for most businesses once foundational issues are resolved. Website Performance, Page Speed, and Local SEO Signals are secondary layers that matter most when the profile is otherwise optimized and ranking is still underperforming.
Common Findings and What They Signal
Certain patterns appear consistently across new client audits. Recognizing these patterns helps the agency set accurate expectations with the client about what’s causing underperformance and what the improvement timeline looks like.
High Business Information score, low Competitive Position score. The profile is complete but the market is competitive. This is usually a review gap problem: the client has a complete, well-configured profile but is outranked by competitors with significantly more reviews. Fix: start the review request sequence immediately and frame the retainer deliverable around review velocity for the first 90 days.
Low Online Presence score, everything else average. There’s a verification or duplicate issue. Stop all other work until the Online Presence issue is resolved. None of the other optimizations will register until the profile is in a clean verification state.
Good reviews, low Local SEO Signals. The business has been getting reviews consistently (often organic, without a formal request process) but has never been optimized beyond the basics. The service list is empty, attributes are unanswered, posts are absent. This client will respond quickly to optimization. The profile has review equity; what’s missing is the optimization layer. Service list and attributes are a same-day fix.
Low Website Performance score, everything else mid-range. The agency’s local SEO work is being held back by technical issues outside the profile. PageSpeed below 40 on mobile is worth escalating to the client as a separate project even if it’s outside the local SEO retainer scope. A GBP that sends clicks to a 6-second mobile load page is not converting those clicks regardless of ranking position.
Prioritizing Fixes After the Audit
- Fix any Online Presence failures first. A suspended or unverified profile must be resolved before any other work has effect.
- Fix Business Information gaps second. Missing categories, incomplete descriptions, and wrong hours are the most common sources of underperformance and the fastest to correct.
- Fix Website Performance issues dragging the PageSpeed score below 50 on mobile.
- Start the Photos cadence and GBP post cadence simultaneously. Both are time-based signals that compound over weeks, so starting earlier is always better.
- Build the review request sequence. Review velocity is a longer-cycle improvement but one of the highest-impact ranking factors. Start it in week one.
Audit finding to action mapping.
| Finding | Category | Fix | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profile suspended or unverified | Online Presence | Resolve verification; dispute suspension if wrongful | Same day |
| Wrong or too-broad primary category | Business Information | Update primary category; select best matching secondary categories | Same day |
| No service list | Local SEO Signals | Add full service list with descriptions | Same day |
| Attributes unanswered | Local SEO Signals | Populate all available attributes for the primary category | Same day |
| Review count below competitors | Customer Reviews | Implement review request sequence; target 3–5 reviews/month | 30–90 days to close gap |
| Photo count below competitors | Photos and Media | Batch 20 photos immediately; set weekly upload cadence | First week + ongoing |
| No GBP posts in 90+ days | Local SEO Signals | Schedule 4 posts immediately; set weekly post cadence | First week + ongoing |
| Mobile PageSpeed below 50 | Page Speed | Escalate to web development; compress images, reduce scripts | 2–6 weeks depending on access |
How Often to Audit
GBP audit frequency recommendations by context.
| Cadence | When to Use |
|---|---|
| At engagement start | Baseline audit before any work begins; establishes before state |
| After major profile changes | After pushing optimization suggestions, adding categories, or updating service list |
| Monthly | Progress tracking for active clients; feeds the monthly report |
| Before renewal conversations | Updated audit data is the strongest case for retainer continuation |
The baseline audit is the most important scan in the engagement lifecycle. Running it before any optimization work begins gives you a documented “before” state with scores across all eight categories. The before state is what you reference at month three to demonstrate that the profile went from a 52 in Customer Reviews to a 78, or a 44 in Local SEO Signals to an 81.
Monthly audits during the active optimization period allow the agency to track which interventions are having effect. If the Business Information score improves from 60 to 84 in month two but Competitive Position doesn’t move, the audit tells you that the optimization was executed correctly but the competitive review gap is the remaining constraint. That’s the conversation to have with the client in the month-two call: not “we’re making progress” but “here’s exactly what changed and here’s what we’re working on next.”
Before renewal conversations, a fresh audit scan is the single most persuasive document you can present. Score improvements across six of eight categories, benchmarked against the same named competitors from the original baseline, is a concrete deliverable record. It’s not a traffic chart that requires explanation. It’s a scored diagnostic with visible before-and-after data.
Using Audit Data in Client Reporting
The 8-category scored audit translates directly to client reporting without additional interpretation work. The structure maps to a monthly report: current scores, score changes from last month, what changed (with actions taken), and what’s planned next month.
Three pieces of the audit report make particularly strong client communication:
The competitive benchmark. Showing that the client’s review count went from 18 (gap of 62 behind the #1 competitor) to 34 (gap of 46 behind the #1 competitor) is more concrete than any traffic or impression metric. Clients understand the distance to a named local competitor. The audit’s competitor comparison table is the strongest concrete progress metric in local SEO.
The category scores over time. Plotting Business Information score from 58 to 85 over three months shows the compound effect of systematic optimization. Clients who see their scores move from “Poor” to “Good” to “Excellent” in specific categories understand what they’re paying for without needing to understand how local search algorithms work.
The remaining gap analysis. At the end of each monthly report, use the current audit data to identify what’s still below threshold and what the planned action is. A client who sees “Customer Reviews: 64 (Fair) – currently averaging 1.2 new reviews/month, need 3.5/month to close the gap with #1 competitor within 6 months” understands both where they are and what the roadmap looks like. For a detailed template on structuring this report, see How to Use a GBP Progress Report to Justify Your Monthly Retainer.
How F! Insights Automates the GBP Audit
F! Insights runs a full 8-category GBP audit as part of every scan. The scored report is available immediately after the scan completes. In the Client Workspace, the GBP Fulfillment tools allow you to generate AI optimization suggestions for any low-scoring category and push approved changes directly to the client’s GBP profile via the Google Business Profile API.
The audit runs on demand. There is no scheduling required and no limit on the number of scans. You can run a pre-change scan, push an optimization batch, then run a post-change scan in the same session to see how the scores update. Because all scan data is stored in your WordPress database, you have a full historical record of every scan across every client. That history is the foundation of the before/after reporting described above.
The AI-generated interpretation for each category score is produced by Claude Haiku at your own API rates (typically $0.01–$0.05 per full audit). The interpretation explains what the score means in plain language, identifies the specific gap, and suggests the first action to take. It’s the starting point for the optimization conversation in the Client Workspace, not a final deliverable. You review, approve, and push from there.
For how to generate and push optimization suggestions from the audit results, see How to Generate and Push GBP Optimization Suggestions for a Client. For how to use the audit data in a monthly client report, see How to Use a GBP Progress Report to Justify Your Monthly Retainer.
Related reading: For a plain-language explanation of what the profile score reflects in the context of local rankings, see that guide. The audit output feeds directly into generating and pushing optimization suggestions from the audit data. For a comparison of the best GBP audit tools for agencies beyond the F! Insights scanner, see the roundup. For a full checklist-style walkthrough, see a full GBP checklist audit.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I run an audit on a business I do not manage?
- Yes. The F! Insights scan runs from publicly available GBP data and the Google Places API. You do not need to be a manager on the GBP profile to audit it. You do need to be a manager to push optimization changes directly to the profile.
- How does F! Insights score the categories?
- Each category is scored on a 0 to 100 scale based on a combination of completeness metrics, competitive metrics, and activity metrics. The weighting reflects the factors Google’s local algorithm treats as most significant for ranking.
- Which of the 8 audit categories has the highest impact on local ranking?
- Primary category selection and business description completeness tend to have the highest immediate impact. If the primary category is wrong or too broad, Google cannot match the profile to specific service searches, and no amount of optimization in other categories compensates for that mismatch. After category and description, review count and velocity is the second-highest-impact category for businesses with fewer than twenty-five reviews.
- How often should a full 8-category audit be run for an active client?
- Once per month for new clients in the first three months, then once per quarter once the profile is fully optimized. The initial monthly cadence captures how quickly Google re-indexes changes and shows which categories respond fastest to your interventions. Quarterly audits for stable clients are sufficient to catch profile degradation from unauthorized edits or category drift.
- What counts as a passing score across the 8 audit categories?
- F! Insights scores each category on a 0-to-100 scale based on completeness benchmarks for the business’s primary GBP category. A score of 70 or above in each category is generally sufficient for competitive local markets. Scores below 50 in any category represent a structural gap that is likely suppressing rankings. For highly competitive markets, you typically need 85 or above across all eight categories to rank consistently in the Map Pack.