This is the free Google Business Profile Audit, read for an accounting firm. Twelve questions about your own listing, then a score out of 100 with your gaps ranked. It grades the listing, not the firm: the category somebody picked when the doors opened, and the reviews that all arrived in one April.
Run the free tool ↓Open your Google Business Profile in a second tab and answer from what is on the screen, not from memory. Twelve questions, two or three minutes, no signup and no email wall, and the score appears below once you answer the last one.
Prefer a full page? Open the Google Business Profile Audit tool here.
Twelve questions, one answer each, then a score with your gaps ranked. Four of them are harder for a firm than for any trade with a truck.
The small items decide close scores. One question covers hours, phone, website and description together, and hours are the field that moves twice a year for a firm keeping Saturday appointments through April. The services list should name situations people search: an S corp election, a bookkeeping cleanup, a notice to answer. Seeded Q and A is where to answer the question that quietly ends visits, are you taking new clients. Messaging is three points, worth switching on only if somebody watches it.
The number is your own answers added up, so read it the way you would read a client's self-prepared figures: useful, and only as good as the inputs. Not sure on verification is a real answer, and for a firm that changed names or spun out of a larger practice it is often the honest one. It costs real points, and nothing under it is worth doing until ownership is settled.
A strong result looks dull: verified, a primary category that names what you sell, every field filled, photos added this year, reviews landing in more than one month of the calendar. A weak one is rarely a broken profile. It is a correct profile nobody has opened since the firm registered, near zero on every item with a cadence, and the recurring items are worth about a third of the score.
Two limits. The list ranks by points given up, not by what fills the appointment book fastest, and it cannot see your competitors, your review text, or your distance from the searcher. The weighting is explained on the main Google Business Profile Audit page. One thing the twelve never ask is whether your address and service area are set correctly, and for a home-office firm that decides whether the listing shows up at all. No accounting benchmark appears here, because there is no honest one to print.
Neither firm below is real. They show the shape of a result, not a forecast.
Say a three-person CPA firm in an office park answers all twelve in October. Verified, every field filled, primary category left on the generic Accountant. Around twenty reviews, the newest from April, replies about half the time. Eight photos, all from the week they moved in. No posts, a thin services list, empty Q and A. The score lands in the fifties, short of the decent band, and the list opens with posts, then photos, then the primary category. Posts follow a calendar the firm already keeps, the category is one decision, and Q and A is what the front desk already says on the phone.
Imagine a solo practitioner two years out of a larger firm, working from home with most clients on video. She answers not sure on verification, because the listing was set up by her old firm's vendor and still carries a stuffed name. Verification tops her fix list, and everything below it is guesswork until that is settled. Find out whose account holds the profile, the way you would check the domain registration. Photos and posts earn nothing on a listing she cannot edit.
Plenty of firms now serve clients three states away and still need the pin. Distance is the one input nobody can edit, so the profile is how you take the part of the market that is genuinely local. It is also where a referral checks you out. Your name gets passed along at a closing or over lunch, and that person looks the firm up before they call. What settles it on a listing is a face and a name attached to a credential, a services list that mentions the situation they are in, and reviews recent enough to show the firm is still operating.
So a good profile answers three things a stranger cannot assume: what the firm is licensed to do, who they will end up talking to, and whether you are taking new work this month. In this category the answer to the last one is sometimes no, and posting it saves everybody the phone tag. Whether the site behind the pin holds up its half is the website report card's question, whether an assistant names your firm is the AI visibility checker's, and the ranking mechanics sit in the map pack guide.
Most of the twelve cost nothing but attention. Verification, categories, the services menu, seeded Q and A and a monitored inbox are one afternoon and a few decisions, and that afternoon does not exist in March. Photos, posts and a trickle of reviews are the other kind of item, a few minutes that has to keep recurring.
Handing it off is the other route. Ongoing local SEO with profile work included runs $1,500 to $3,500/month for most firms, and $3,500 to $7,500/month in competitive metros or multi-office practices, month to month, with the listing and the accounts in your name. The firm version is on the accounting page, the numbers are in the cost answer for accountants, and what should you pay is the budget question in tool form. If reviews are the weak block, the ask has to survive a busy week: we built a one-tap review-request tool for a New Jersey glass and mirror shop for that reason.
No. It never touches Google, never asks for a login, and never reads your listing. You answer twelve questions about a profile you can open in another tab. Nothing about a client is requested, and the tradeoff is that a guess moves the number.
Yes. None of the twelve ask about your address, so the score works the same for a home-office firm, and verification, category, photos, reviews and posts all apply. Separately, hide the address and set the service area the way you intend, because that decides whether the listing appears.
The calendar writes most of it. Quarterly estimated payment dates, the fall extension deadline, the year-end planning window and January information returns are fixed and public, so you can draft them months ahead. Add whether you are accepting new clients.
Ask every client the same way at the same moment, usually when the return or the monthly close is delivered. Do not sort by how the engagement went, do not offer anything in exchange, and check your own conduct rules first. In public, confirm nothing.
Yes, and it usually costs more than one question's worth. A partner leaving, a merger or a rebrand tends to leave the old name in the title field and the profile in somebody else's account. Fix ownership and verification first, because the rest is wasted on a listing you cannot edit.
No, and nothing here says it will. The twelve cover the part of the profile you control. Your distance from the searcher, which firms are established around them, and the seasonal tax offices competing for the same phrase in January are not in the score.
Google Business Profile Audit: full tool page and methodology · Marketing for accountants and CPA firms · SEO cost for accountants and CPA firms · AI Visibility Checker for Accountants · Website Report Card for Accountants · What Should You Pay? for Accountants · Review Response Writer for Accountants · All free tools
Most of these are ten-minute items, and ten minutes does not exist in March, which is why the profile is better scheduled for June or handed off. Kelly WM is Orlando-based, working with local service businesses nationwide since 2008, and if you would rather start with the site your profile links to, we will build a free concept mockup, yours to keep.
Book a free consultation → Or call/text directly: (407) 694-2055Tell us a little about the business and we will come back with an honest read: what we would fix first, what it costs, and whether you need us at all. Prefer to see work before you talk numbers? Get a free homepage mockup, built for your business, yours to keep either way.
Brandon reads every one of these himself. You will hear back shortly with an honest read on what we would do first, what it costs, and whether it is worth it for you.