Somebody turns on a kitchen light at eleven at night, sees one roach, and starts searching before the light goes back off. What comes back is a short map list, and the pick gets made on what each listing shows. Twelve questions here about the parts of your Google Business Profile you control, a score out of 100 when the last one is answered, and a fix list that opens with whatever cost you the most.
Run the free tool ↓Open your profile on a second screen and answer from what is published today, not from how it was set up when the company also mowed lawns. Twelve questions, a few minutes, no signup and no email wall, and the score and the fix list appear right here when the last answer lands.
Prefer a full page? Open the Google Business Profile Audit tool here.
Every trade answers the same twelve questions. Here is what six of them ask a company selling recurring service to people who just saw something move.
Your score lands in one of three bands: needs work under 60, decent with gaps from 60 to 84, strong at 85 and up. The number matters less than which points came off: that tells you which half of the business the listing is failing, the panicked call or the plan that renews.
A strong result is boring. Verified, a primary category that matches the revenue, every field filled, photos from this quarter, a review from this month, posts that go up without a reminder. A weak one usually belongs to a company that is busy rather than careless. The season here rotates instead of ending, so the profile gets touched in whatever gap the rotation leaves.
The gap worth reading first is the recurring plan. It is the part of the book that renews, and the easiest thing on a profile to leave invisible. Somebody shopping a plan they will pay for every quarter reads the same listing as the person with a wasp nest.
The limits are plain. This is self reported and never touches your listing, so it knows nothing about your competitors, where you rank, or how far your pin sits from the searcher. How the weighting and the fix order work is on the general Google Business Profile audit.
Neither company below exists, and the answers are rounded off.
Say a two truck company that sells quarterly plans. Verified, roughly 30 reviews, primary category still the generic one it picked at the start. No secondary categories, no description, a few photos from the year the trucks were wrapped, newest review from earlier this year, replies when somebody remembers, no posts, two services listed, no Q and A, messaging off. That comes back at 46, in the needs work band, and six fixes print in order: post weekly, add ten or more real photos and keep adding monthly, set the most specific primary category, add secondary categories, seed the Q and A, fill every field. Notice what does not print: the services list, the only place a quarterly plan gets written down.
Now imagine the company that added termite and wildlife work two years ago. More than 50 reviews with a fresh one this month, all of them answered, photos monthly, every field filled, the right primary category. It scores 82, and five items print: post more often, seed the Q and A, list the services in detail, turn messaging on, add secondary categories. Every gap sits on the newer, higher ticket half of the business, so the profile still sells the company this one used to be.
The same profile gets used three ways.
The sighting. Decided in minutes on a phone: one tap to call, hours that match whoever actually answers, a recent review near the top. Messaging is the one item that can answer at that hour without anybody picking up, which is why three points understates it here.
The private researcher. Bed bugs and roaches get looked up late and quietly, by someone who would rather not say the word out loud. What the treatment involves, what to move first, whether an unmarked vehicle is an option: all of it has to read without a conversation, which is what the Q and A section is for.
The deadline buyer. Inspection letters for closings, restaurants and multifamily turns come from agents, attorneys and property managers who keep the same inspector for years. They read for how fast you can be out, so the services list has to name the letter separately.
One constraint sits over all three. Everything you publish there is advertising, and pesticide advertising is regulated. Federal and state rules generally prohibit describing a registered product as safe, nontoxic or harmless, and words like green and organic are defined or restricted in some states. Your state department of agriculture sets what binds you, so ask before the copy goes up.
The listing sits under Google Business Profile and local SEO. The site behind the pin is the website report card for pest control companies, and being named by an assistant is the AI visibility checker for pest control companies.
Not one item on your fix list needs an agency. A weekly post, ten real photos, a services menu that names each line and a seeded Q and A come to something like an hour a week. That hour does not exist during a swarm week, and swarm week is the one surge here you can see coming: short window, same stretch of the year, calls starting the same afternoon. Whatever the profile says going in is what it says all the way through.
If you would rather the profile were a standing job on somebody else's desk, ongoing local SEO runs $1,500 to $3,500 per month for most businesses, and $3,500 to $7,500 per month in competitive metros or for multi location operations. Everything is month to month, no long term contract, and the profile and the accounts stay in your name. The breakdown is in what SEO costs, the budget question belongs to what should you pay for pest control companies, and what we build for exterminators is on the pest control page.
Kelly WM works out of Orlando with local service businesses nationwide, and has since 2008. This audit is one of more than 50 free tools at kellywm.com/tools, none behind an email wall.
Whichever matches most of the revenue. Pest control, animal control and lawn care are separate entries, and picking one does not throw the others away, because the rest belong in secondary categories. That is its own question on the audit, worth six points, and answering it with none scores zero. If lawn treatments are a real line rather than a favor, list them there.
Both, and the profile is the side that gets skipped. The audit asks whether your services and products are listed, so a plan that lives only on your website scores nothing here. Name it and say what a visit includes. A plan rarely cancels in anger. It cancels when nobody has seen a bug in a year and the line item stops making sense.
Not in those words. Everything on the profile is advertising, and federal and state pesticide rules generally prohibit describing a registered product as safe, nontoxic or harmless, even when it is applied exactly to label. What you can describe is the work: what gets applied and where, what the label says about re-entry, what to move first. Your state department of agriculture is the authority, so check before the description gets written.
Ask on the quiet visits too. A wasp nest or a rodent job earns a review on its own, because the customer watched the problem leave, while the quarterly visit that pays the bills ends with a door hanger. Put the ask into the routine visit and give every customer the same one. Screening for the pleased ones first is review gating, which platform policies and FTC guidance both treat as a problem.
No. Nothing on this page predicts placement. The twelve questions cover the parts of the listing you control, and the input the score cannot see is distance: a thinner profile with a pin closer to the searcher can still finish above yours. Read the result as a punch list. Fixing the twelve is what makes the listing worth picking once somebody has it in front of them.
Google Business Profile Audit: full tool page and methodology · Marketing for pest control companies · AI Visibility Checker for Pest Control Companies · Website Report Card for Pest Control Companies · What Should You Pay? for Pest Control Companies · Review Response Writer for Pest Control Companies · All free tools
Take the top three items off your list before the season turns, because nobody rewrites a services menu in the middle of a swarm week. Send me your score if you want a second read, and the free concept mockup of your homepage is yours 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.