A homeowner with a burst supply line is holding a phone, not a laptop. They open the map, tap a listing that looks close and open, and keep tapping down the list until somebody picks up. This audit scores your profile out of 100 on twelve things you control, then sorts the fix list by the points you gave up.
Run the free tool ↓Open your profile on another screen and answer from what is on it, not from memory, especially the hours. Twelve questions, a couple of minutes, no signup and no email wall. Your score and fix list appear right here.
Prefer a full page? Open the Google Business Profile Audit tool here.
The twelve questions do not change by trade. Which answers cost you work does.
Three bands come back: strong at 85 and up, decent with gaps from 60 to 84, needs work below that. Which points came off tells you more than the number.
A weak result rarely belongs to a bad plumber. It usually belongs to a busy one: emergency demand arrives on its own and does not care whether the listing is current.
The limits bite hard here. The audit is self-reported and never touches your profile, so it cannot see competitors, rankings, review text, or how far your pin sits from the searcher. You may cover four counties, but Google ranks you from one point on a map, and the edge of that radius is where a better kept listing loses to a closer one. The weights and the fix order are explained on the general Google Business Profile audit.
Both companies below are invented and the answers are round.
Say a two truck residential shop. Verified, primary category Plumber, roughly 30 reviews. Description empty, website field pointing at a page they replaced, six photos from the week the trucks were wrapped, newest review two winters old, no replies, no posts, no services. That comes back at 37, well inside needs work, and the fixes print in order: post weekly, fill every field, fresh reviews, photos monthly, reply to every review, secondary categories.
Now imagine the drain and sewer company across town. More than 50 reviews with one from this month, every one answered, photos monthly, posts weekly, services detailed, every field filled. It scores 83, with three items off. First on the fix list is the primary category: they sit under Plumber while the money comes from jetting, lining, and sewer replacement. Then the missing secondary categories, then the empty Q and A. All that work, and the best searches given away on one dropdown.
Two people use the same listing and want opposite things from it.
The midnight visitor never reaches your website. Everything they decide on is on the map card: open now, a call button, the town names, a photo of a real truck, recent reviews.
The other visitor is three weeks into deciding whether to repipe. There the listing needs services that name the actual work, a Q and A that settles the fee and the permit and the drywall, and reviews about the crew you have now. Then comes the site, graded by the website report card for plumbers. If that homeowner puts the same question to an assistant instead, whether you get named is what the AI visibility checker for plumbers looks at.
Under both sits the steady half of the business: service plans, property managers, the contractor who calls four times a year. Nobody saves a plumber's number, so a current listing is how last year's customer finds you again. The profile itself is Google Business Profile, the ongoing work is local SEO, and what we build for plumbing companies is on the plumbing page.
Nothing on the fix list needs an agency. A weekly post, ten photos off a phone, a services menu written once, five common questions answered. In a plumbing company the person who can do that is usually driving.
The one item worth doing carefully is reviews. Screening the list first, so the ask only goes to the jobs that ended well, is gating: it is against platform policy and FTC guidance, and it does not even help. Ask every customer the same way, and reply in public to the rough ones alongside the easy ones. Keeping that going month after month is reputation management.
If you would rather it were somebody's job, 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 multi location companies. Month to month, no long term contract, and you own the profile, the site, and the accounts. What moves that number is in how much SEO costs; the budget question belongs to what should you pay, for plumbers.
Kelly WM is Orlando-based, working with local service businesses nationwide since 2008, and this audit is one of more than 50 free tools published at kellywm.com/tools, with no email wall.
No. The audit asks whether the profile is verified, not how it is configured, and hiding the address is correct for a service area business. What costs you is a street address left showing on a listing that only dispatches trucks. Distance is measured from your pin, which the score never sees.
Only if it is not true. Hours sit inside the completeness question, so the score treats filled in as filled in. The damage happens off the audit: somebody taps you at one in the morning because the open now filter surfaced you, gets voicemail, and calls the next company.
Shoot the parts anyone can see. The old tank beside the new one, the label plate, the yard raked back over the line, the crew at the truck. Take them on the job rather than saving the task for a slow week. Photos are one question covering two things, how many you have and how often you add them, so a batch posted once and never repeated does not score like a habit.
Because nobody asks. In plumbing the handoff comes at the worst moment, with a wet floor and a homeowner who wants their evening back. Recency is scored separately from count, so a wall of old reviews still gives points away. Pick one trigger, usually the invoice, and ask everyone.
No, and nothing here promises that. The twelve questions cover what you control on the profile. Distance from the searcher is a real input the audit cannot see, competitors are not in it, and where you rank today sits outside what it reads. It is a punch list, not a forecast.
Google Business Profile Audit: full tool page and methodology · Marketing for plumbing companies · AI Visibility Checker for Plumbers · Website Report Card for Plumbers · What Should You Pay? for Plumbers · Review Response Writer for Plumbers · All free tools
Take the top three items off your fix list before the next freeze week, then decide whether the rest is worth handing over. If you want a second read on the profile and the site behind it, we will build a free concept mockup of your homepage.
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.