Google Business Profile audit for painters

Score the listing that gets you invited to the walk-through

Open your profile on your phone and pick the answer that matches for each of the twelve questions. The score and fix list appear right here once the last one is answered. No email wall, no Google login.

Prefer a full page? Open the Google Business Profile Audit tool here.

Which of these twelve checks decide whether a repaint call reaches you

Painting is filed as one trade and sold as five. Interior repaints, exteriors, cabinet kitchens, decks, and commercial turns are different buyers with different questions, and a listing that just says painting answers one. Several of these twelve questions ask whether your profile admits what you sell.

• Primary and secondary categories. Google's category list runs finer than the word painter, and the options on it change over time. The audit asks whether your primary is the most specific one available today and whether you added the secondaries you qualify for. A cabinet shop and an apartment-repaint crew should not share a primary.
• Services on the profile. Where interior and exterior repaints, cabinet refinishing, staining, wallpaper removal, popcorn ceiling removal, and drywall and rot repair get named. Pull up three painters near you and count how many name any of it.
• Photos and how often you add them. The audit counts quantity and cadence, never subject. That gap is wider here than in most trades, because a well painted wall is invisible.
• Review count and recency, asked separately. People repaint on a cycle of years, so your review flow is slow and lumpy. Recency catches a busy season where nobody got asked.
• Hours, phone, website, description. One question, four fields. It asks whether the website field is filled in, not whether the page behind it can price a repaint. That is the website report card for painters.

How the scoring works is covered on the generic Google Business Profile audit.

Reading the result when the walk-through still sells the job

The score arrives in one of three bands, but the band matters less than the order of the list underneath it, and in painting that order is predictable. Reviews accumulate job by job whether you think about them or not, while the category and the description sit where somebody left them the day the profile was made.

A strong result names every arm you sell, carries photos from this month's jobs, and shows a post from the season you are in. A middle result is reviews without vocabulary. A weak one is usually verification and the primary category, and both are an afternoon rather than a project.

Two limits. The number reflects the answers you gave, so a guess moves it for no reason. And it is a punch list, not a ranking report: it says nothing about where you sit today for house painters near me. The Map Pack guide covers what a local result weighs.

Two made-up painting companies, two different fix lists

Both are invented, to show how the order changes.

Say a two-crew residential painter runs it. Verified, yes. Primary category, the generic one picked years ago. No secondaries. Hours, phone, and website in, description thin. A dozen photos from an old job and nothing since. Reviews somewhere in the teens, newest from earlier this year, none answered. No posts, two services listed, no Q and A, messaging off. That comes back at 45, needs-work band, and the list opens with posts, replies, and both category questions. Replies are the cheapest to start on: the review response writer for painters drafts them.

Now imagine a cabinet refinishing shop with reputation handled. Verified, every field complete, more than fifty reviews with a fresh one this month, always replies, ten or more photos with new ones monthly, messaging on and watched. But the primary still says painter, no secondaries, no services listed, no seeded Q and A, no posts. That comes back at 67, decent with gaps, and posts aside, three of the four remaining items are one failure restated: the profile never says the shop refinishes cabinets. That is usually the best margin in the shop, and a buyer comparing you against a kitchen remodel rather than another painter.

Keeping it current through two seasons that trade off

Exteriors are bound by temperature and rain, and the window is regional: late spring into early fall up north, the drier shoulder months along the Gulf, where high summer is poor for exteriors. Interiors run on a different calendar: before holiday guests, before a listing goes live, right after a closing while the house is empty. Cabinets fill the winter weeks when a family will give up the kitchen. A current profile follows that calendar, not a posting schedule.

So: posts about exteriors while the window is open and interiors while it is shut, photos off last week's job, and a Q and A section seeded with what you answer in every driveway. How many days the kitchen is out of service. How many coats. Whether you are lead-safe certified for homes built before 1978. Those decide jobs, and Q and A answers them before the phone rings.

There is a quieter reason. Repaint cycles are long, so referrals surface years later: a neighbor gets your name, searches it, and finds the profile, not your homepage. The service side sits on our painting page. Whether assistants name you at all is a different question, for the AI visibility checker for painters.

Do it between coats, or hand it off

Every item on your fix list is something you can do yourself tonight for nothing. More than 50 free tools are published at kellywm.com/tools with no email wall, and this is one of them.

What slides is not the fix, it is staying current through both seasons: the months the profile most needs posts and photos are the months you are shorthanded. Handed off, ongoing Google Business Profile and local SEO work runs $1,500 to $3,500/month for most businesses, and $3,500 to $7,500/month in competitive metros or multi-location operations. Month to month, and the profile and accounts stay yours. How much SEO costs breaks that down, and what should you pay for painters owns the budget question. Kelly WM is Orlando-based, working with local service businesses nationwide since 2008.