For a law firm the profile is often the first thing a prospective client sees: the pin, the stars, the hours, the photos, loading before your website gets a chance. This free audit asks twelve questions about yours and returns a score out of 100 plus a list of what to fix first. The notes below read it the way a firm has to.
Run the free tool ↓Answer each question about the profile you actually have, not the one you meant to set up. It takes a couple of minutes and runs in your browser, no email wall: your score and fix list appear right here.
Prefer a full page? Open the Google Business Profile Audit tool here.
Twelve questions, all of them about parts of the profile you control, scored out of 100, with the six biggest gaps printed in the order they cost you points. The generic tool page explains the weighting. Two of the twelve land differently on a firm than on any other business with a pin.
The first is the primary category. A practice handling injury, family and estate matters runs three separate markets from one address, and Google gives you one primary category to point at them. Choosing a specific one decides which market the pin competes in and leaves secondaries to carry the rest. Staying neutral with the generic law firm option is also a decision, and the audit scores it as the weaker one.
The second is the services list, the closest thing to a practice-area menu inside Google. Leave it empty and callers guess from your category, which is how a defense line fills up with landlord questions.
The tool bands your number: strong, decent with gaps, or needs work. A strong result is rarely clever: verified, a specific category, every field filled, ten or more photographs with new ones added monthly, reviews arriving steadily and answered. A weak one is usually a listing built when the names on the door last changed and never opened since.
Then read the part the score cannot see. Your client picks by jurisdiction: the county the matter is heard in, the courts your attorneys are admitted to. Google is weighing other things, and one of them is how far your pin sits from the person searching, which no answer here moves. A firm can answer all twelve well and still sit under one with a closer address. Treat the number as a punch list of what is inside your control, not a forecast. The map pack guide covers the wider picture.
Imagine a three-attorney family and estate firm in a mid-size county. Verified, every field filled in, secondary categories set, a dozen reviews and all of them answered. But the primary sits on the generic law firm option, the ten photos went up the week they moved in, the newest review is from last spring, the services list names three of the five things they do, there are no Posts, and Q and A is empty. The score lands in the middle band, and the fix list opens with posting, since an item scored at zero costs more than one half-answered, then the category, then the empty Q and A.
Most of that is an afternoon. The category is a decision rather than a task: point the pin at family law and let estate planning ride in the secondaries. Photos means an afternoon in your own building, because there is very little else in this trade you may photograph. Recency means building the request into how a matter closes, and accepting that few clients review a divorce in public. What to write back is its own job.
Now say a criminal defense solo has hung his own shingle. The listing still carries the old suite number and nobody re-verified after the move, so the honest answer to the first question is not sure. One category, three reviews, no posts, messaging left on because it was free. He lands in the bottom band with verification at the top of the list, which is right: an unsettled listing makes the rest decoration. Messaging is the trap. On and unwatched, it collects the facts of an arrest at one in the morning from a man who believes he has reached a lawyer. The question asks whether messaging is on and monitored, so answer that one honestly.
The first is on a phone at an hour when nobody answers, deciding whether the number is worth tapping. The second has your name from someone she trusts and is confirming three things before the appointment: real, still practicing, takes this kind of matter.
The twelve questions map onto that. Photos answer who am I going to be talking to, which is why headshots and your own office beat the stock gavel every competing firm bought. The services list answers do you handle this. Recent reviews and Posts answer whether anyone still works here, which the referred visitor checks hardest. The public Q and A answers whatever a stranger decides to answer if you leave it empty.
Readers grade the profile and the website as one thing. The site half has its own tool, and whether assistants name your firm is a separate check. Keeping it current is local SEO; what we do for firms sits on the law firm page.
Most of the list costs attention rather than money: a category decision, an hour with a camera, a short note posted each week that says nothing a bar rule would object to. Legal is also among the most expensive paid search in local marketing, so an afternoon on the free listing beside those ads is cheap.
Money enters when the profile is maintained alongside the practice-area pages and the review flow. Ongoing local SEO runs $1,500 to $3,500/month for most businesses, and $3,500 to $7,500/month in competitive metros or for multi-location firms, month to month, with the profile and accounts in your name. What SEO costs a law firm has the detail; what you should pay owns the budget question. There are more than 50 free tools here, no email wall.
The audit does not choose for you. It asks only whether your primary is specific and accurate or generic. The choice is a business call: point the pin at the practice you most want the phone ringing about, then add the others as secondaries.
Everything that is yours. The building from the street so a first visitor finds the door, the entrance, reception, the room where first meetings happen, and the attorneys, photographed properly. Skip the gavel and the law books: every competing firm bought the same image. The audit's top answer there is ten or more, with new ones going up monthly.
Assume yes. Bar rules govern what a firm publishes about itself, and a profile is published. The specifics vary by state: what you may say about specialization, whether case results can appear, how testimonials are handled. That call sits with your firm, not a vendor, and we build with those constraints in mind. The audit only scores completeness, so a high score is not a compliance opinion.
Three of the twelve questions touch reviews: how many, how recent, and whether you reply. A firm whose clients would rather not be seen hiring a lawyer loses points on all three. The fix is not pressure. Make the request part of how every matter closes, word it the same way for everyone, and give nothing for it. Some practice areas stay thin here, and the other nine questions are where you make it up.
No. It is a self-assessment: twelve questions, answered by you, scored in your browser. It never connects to Google, never asks for a login, and never fetches your profile, so it cannot see your competitors, your review text, or where you rank today.
Plain notes about the firm, not offers. An attorney joining, a practice area added, changed hours, what to bring to a first meeting, how to reach you over a long weekend. Stay off results and superlatives, and run anything uncertain past whoever handles your bar compliance.
Google Business Profile Audit: full tool page and methodology · Marketing for law firms and attorneys · SEO cost for law firms and attorneys · AI Visibility Checker for Law Firms · Website Report Card for Law Firms · What Should You Pay? for Law Firms · Review Response Writer for Law Firms · All free tools
Work the list, then look at where the profile sends people: a strong pin pointed at a thin practice-area page wastes the tap. Call or text <a href="tel:4076942055">(407) 694-2055</a>, or <a href="/free-mockup">get a free homepage mockup</a>, yours to keep either way.
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.