Two kinds of patient end up on the same Google listing: the one holding a physician referral who still looks you up before calling, and the one who never sees a referring doctor and is picking a clinic off the map. Neither has met you. This audit scores the profile they both read.
Run the free tool ↓Open your Google Business Profile in another tab, then pick the honest answer to each of the twelve questions below. It takes about two minutes, the score appears when the last question is answered, and there is no email wall.
Prefer a full page? Open the Google Business Profile Audit tool here.
Twelve questions about one profile, a score out of 100, and a fix list ordered by what each gap costs you. Four of them decide most of what a searching patient sees.
The other eight cover verification, review count, recency, replies, Google Posts, your services list, a seeded Q and A section, and whether messaging is on and watched. How each answer is weighted is on the main audit page.
Results land in one of three bands: strong, decent with gaps, or needs work. The set-once fields usually hold up, because hours, phone, website, description and services get filled in when the clinic opens and then stay filled. Points go missing on the fed items: a photo added this month, a review dated this month, a post from this week, a Q and A section somebody seeded. A weak result is rarely a missing profile. It is a profile that was finished the week the clinic opened and then left alone while the treatment schedule took over.
Two things before you read your number. Verification carries more weight than any other single item, so an unverified listing drags the score down no matter how good the rest looks. And if you run more than one clinic, score each profile separately: different pins carry different photos, hours and reviews.
Say a two-therapist clinic has been open four years. Verified, every field filled, somewhere between eleven and fifty reviews, but the newest is from last spring. The primary category is a general medical one, there are five photos left over from the buildout, replies happen when someone remembers, and nobody has ever published a post or seeded a question. That lands in the fifties, the needs-work band, and the fix list comes back in this order: start posting, get to ten or more photos and keep adding, set a specific primary category, seed the Q and A, get fresh reviews, reply to every one. None of it needs a vendor. It needs a recurring slot on somebody's calendar.
Now imagine that practice opens a second clinic across town. New pin, no reviews, no photos, hours partly filled, verification still pending. The score lands in the teens and verification tops the fix list. That order is right: photos and posts on an unverified listing are work you may do twice.
On a phone, the three clinics in the map fill the screen and one of them gets the call. So a good profile answers the deciding questions on the listing itself, before anyone has to pick up and ask. The services list should name conditions the way patients say them, not the way they appear on a billing sheet. The Q and A section should hold the boring ones: which plans you take, whether a referral is needed to start, where to park, how long a first visit runs. Patients are counting covered visits, and burning one on a misunderstanding costs them something real.
Reviews are the other half, and the timing is particular to therapy. The obvious moment to ask is the last visit, but people stop coming once the pain fades and progress feels slow, so asking only at discharge means never asking the ones who quietly got better. Put the ask at a point every plan of care passes through, a few visits in, and send the same one to every patient rather than saving it for the ones who sound pleased. What you write back is a separate job, handled by the review response writer.
Everything the fix list prints is free to do. It costs attention: an hour to get categories, services and the description right, then a standing slot each week for photos, a post and review asks. For a single-location clinic with a front desk person who will own it, doing it yourself is a real option.
If you want it to be somebody's job, this work lives inside local SEO, which runs $1,500 to $3,500/month for most businesses and $3,500 to $7,500/month in competitive metros or for multi-location practices. Month-to-month, and the profile, reviews and accounts stay yours. For clinic-specific numbers, read what SEO costs a physical therapy clinic or run what should you pay; the service itself sits on the physical therapy page, and the site your pin points to is graded by the website report card.
We are Orlando-based, working with local service businesses nationwide since 2008. This is one of more than 50 free tools published at kellywm.com/tools, no email wall.
The most specific one that describes what you are, not the broadest one you qualify for. A listing parked under a general medical or wellness category is competing where patients are not searching. Put physical therapy in the primary field. Secondary categories are for a second line of work the clinic genuinely runs and Google offers a category for; specialties like pelvic health and vestibular rehab go in the services list instead, and only if a licensed clinician on staff treats them.
Yes. A referred patient is handed a name and then looks it up before calling, so the pin, the hours, the photos and the reviews are still what they judge you on. And the patients who never get referred, the ones searching for a clinic themselves, have nothing else to go on. One profile serves both, and the audit scores it the same way either way.
The conditions and treatments patients search by name, written the way they say them rather than the way they appear on a billing sheet. The audit asks whether services are listed and detailed, so a handful of vague entries scores below a full list written in patient language. List only what your clinic treats. Done properly it answers questions people would otherwise call the front desk to ask.
What a patient wants to see before walking in: the entrance and the parking, the front desk, the treatment rooms, the gym floor and the equipment, and the therapists. Keep patients out of the frame unless you have written permission. Ten photos is roughly where a profile stops looking empty, and the audit gives full marks only when you are at ten or more and still adding every month.
It is the lightest of the twelve questions, so it will not sink a score. Google has changed what messaging does on business profiles more than once, so answer for what your profile actually offers today. If it is on, somebody has to watch it: a channel nobody answers is worse than no channel. Keep replies logistical, and send anything about a specific condition or history to a phone call or a form built with privacy rules in mind.
No, and the tool does not claim it. The twelve questions cover the part of the profile you control. How far your clinic sits from the person searching, how many other clinics are in range, and how strong they are all matter, and none of that is in the score. Read the result as a punch list of gaps you can close, not a forecast.
Google Business Profile Audit: full tool page and methodology · Marketing for physical therapy clinics · SEO cost for physical therapy clinics · AI Visibility Checker for Physical Therapists · Website Report Card for Physical Therapists · What Should You Pay? for Physical Therapists · Review Response Writer for Physical Therapists · All free tools
Work the fix list yourself, because none of it needs us. If you would rather have the pin, the reviews and the site behind them handled as one job while you keep treating patients, start with a <a href="/free-mockup">free homepage mockup</a> for your clinic, or call or text <a href="tel:4076942055">(407) 694-2055</a>.
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.