Two very different callers land on the same map pin: the one with a trunk on the roof at two in the morning, and the one who has been avoiding a dead oak for years and is finally collecting quotes. Both decide from the same handful of fields whether they want your bucket over their house. This audit scores that profile out of 100 on twelve things you control, then prints the biggest six gaps in the order they cost you points.
Run the free tool ↓Pull the listing up first, ideally on the phone the emergency calls come to, and answer from the screen rather than memory. Twelve questions, about two minutes, no signup and no email wall. Your score and fix list print right here.
Prefer a full page? Open the Google Business Profile Audit tool here.
Twelve questions, the same twelve for every trade. What changes is which one is costing a tree company a removal.
Three bands: strong at 85 and up, decent with gaps from 60 to 84, needs work below that. The number is the least useful thing on the screen; the list under it is the job.
A strong result is dull to look at. Verified, the primary category specific, nothing left half filled, photos off jobs you did this month, a review from this month, services listed past the word tree. A weak result almost never belongs to a bad tree company. It belongs to one whose office is a truck cab, where the profile got built in a busy week and nobody opened it since. The tell: reviews stacked in one storm month, nothing after, a photo set that is all equipment and no yards.
Say the limits out loud. Nothing here reaches your profile. You are scoring your own twelve answers, so competitors, rankings, review text and the distance between your pin and whoever is searching all sit outside it. It does not know your radius either, and drive time decides plenty in this trade. The weight behind each of the twelve, and the way the fix list gets ordered, is set out on the general Google Business Profile audit.
Two tree companies that do not exist, answering with round numbers.
Say a three-person outfit with a chip truck and a rented lift, most of its year built by weather. Verified, primary category still generic, no secondary ones, gaps in hours and description, a handful of photos. Between eleven and fifty reviews, newest this year, none answered. No posts, no services, no Q and A, no messaging. That returns 35, and the six printed fixes come in order: post weekly, fill the empty fields, add photos, reply to reviews, fix the primary category, add secondary categories. Notice what fell just off the six: the services menu and the Q and A, the two that would have said you grind stumps and carry workers compensation.
Now imagine an established company with a crane and a commercial book. Verified, category specific, one or two secondary categories, every field complete, more than fifty reviews with a fresh one this month, plenty of photos but none added lately, replies only sometimes, a few services listed, no posts, no Q and A, messaging off. That scores 69, decent with gaps, posts and Q and A on top. The line worth reading sits further down: with only a few services listed, nothing on the profile mentions the crane, the risk assessment or the grinder, so the property manager who never needs weather to call has no way to know.
What a homeowner is weighing is rarely the tree. It is ruts across the lawn, a fence taken out by a section that swung wrong, and an uninsured climber hurt on their property. The profile can settle all three before the phone rings: coverage named in the description in plain words, the certificate offered rather than waited for, photos of a property left clean, and services entries that say what cleanup includes.
Then the lanes most tree listings leave off. Consulting work, a health assessment or the written report a home sale or a hearing calls for, prices differently from removals and rarely reaches a services menu. Contract work for property managers and municipalities is the other, and it does not wait on weather. Neither shows up unless you list it. What we build for tree companies sits on the tree service page. Two siblings pick up where this one stops: the website report card for tree services takes the site your pin points at, and the AI visibility checker for tree services takes the question of whether an assistant will name you at all.
None of this needs an agency. Post once a week, write the services out, put up ten honest photos off jobs you already did, seed the Q and A: call it an hour a week. The problem is who has the hour. In the week the profile matters most, the owner is scheduling crews, chasing a lift rental and working out which of the calls stacked up since the storm he can reach. Crew and equipment already cap what you catch; the listing should not quietly decide it too.
Handing it off is the other option: 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 Google Business Profile, the site and the accounts. The what SEO costs guide has the detail, and the trade version of the budget question is what should you pay for tree services.
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.
Pick the one that describes what actually pays you and put the other in secondary. If removals and trimming are the business, tree service is the honest answer. If assessments, reports and consulting are, arborist may fit. The audit asks only whether your primary is the most accurate option, not which one you picked.
Count and recency score separately, so one busy month answers the first question and gives away the second. The fix is a routine, not another push: ask every customer, in the same words whether the job went well or badly, and offer nothing in exchange. A storm week is the easiest place to start it.
More than it seems, because the horticultural calendar writes most of it. Dormant-season pruning. Why oaks are left alone in the growing season where oak wilt is a concern. Bare branches in November, when deadwood becomes visible from the driveway. Palm work before storm season, clearance deadlines out west. The question scores cadence, so post ahead of each one.
It is the question they are already asking. Say plainly that you are covered for general liability and workers compensation, and that the certificate is available on request. Then seed what homeowners argue about afterward: is the wood hauled or stacked, are the chips left behind, how deep does the grinder go.
Carefully, and only in general terms. Ordinances differ block by block: some towns set a trunk-diameter threshold, some protect heritage trees outright, and a right-of-way tree is usually not the homeowner's to remove. A short entry naming the department to call, and noting that rules change, is honest. Anything town-specific belongs on your site.
No. A score is not a position, and this page does not pretend otherwise. All twelve questions sit on parts of the profile you fill in yourself. Where the searcher is standing when they type it, which companies sit closer, and the out-of-town listings that flood the map for a week after a storm are outside what the score can reach. Treat it as a punch list.
Google Business Profile Audit: full tool page and methodology · Marketing for tree service companies · AI Visibility Checker for Tree Services · Website Report Card for Tree Services · What Should You Pay? for Tree Services · Review Response Writer for Tree Services · All free tools
Work the top two or three items off your fix list in a slow week, so the listing is finished before the next round of weather. If the site that pin lands on could use an outside read too, we will build you a free concept homepage mockup, yours to keep.
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.