Google Business Profile audit: ten checks to run on your own restaurant

What a Google Business Profile audit scores

Appetier's free website audit reads your Google listing and your public pages, then scores you out of 100. Four of its 20 checks sit on Google. They are scored by weight, so the heavy ones come first when you fix things. When we ran it on five national chains on September 24, 2026, none passed everything. Their scores ran 47 to 70 out of 100.

• The listing links to your own site: 6 points.
• The listing is complete, with hours, phone, website, and price range: 6 points.
• The phone and street number match your site: 4 points.
• Reviews reach 100 or more at 4.2 stars or better: 4 points.

Checks 1 to 4: who you are and when you're open

Open Google Maps on your phone and search your restaurant's name, the way a guest would. Then open the profile as its owner, which shows the edit options. Write down every check that fails. A pen and the back of a ticket work fine.

• 1. Name, address, and phone. Where: the profile card in Maps. Good: all three match your website footer and your receipt exactly.
• 2. Main category. Where: Edit profile, Business information, Business category. Good: one main category that names what you sell, such as Pizza restaurant, plus extra categories for the rest of the menu.
• 3. Hours and holiday hours. Where: Edit profile, Hours, then Special hours. Good: the hours on your door and in your POS, with the next holiday already entered.
• 4. Website link. Where: Edit profile, Contact. Good: it opens a page where a guest can order, on your own domain, not a marketplace store page.

Checks 5 to 8: what a guest sees before deciding

A guest decides in a few seconds, often from a sidewalk or a parked car. Check the profile the way they see it: the buttons, the pictures, and the stars.

• 5. Menu and order links. Where: the Menu and Order buttons on the profile. Good: Menu opens a web page, not a PDF or a photo, and Order opens your own checkout.
• 6. Service options. Where: Edit profile, Business information, Service options. Good: takeout and delivery show if you offer them, and dine in shows only if you seat guests.
• 7. Photos. Where: the Photos tab. Good: recent shots of dishes and the room, with food as the cover. The audit scores photos on your site's menu page (four or more food photos), so this one is yours to eyeball.
• 8. Reviews and replies. Where: the reviews list on the profile. Good: 100 or more at 4.2 stars or better, and a reply under each. Replies don't raise the count, but guests read them.

Checks 9 and 10: your neighbors and your own site

The last two checks look past your own profile. The audit ranks you against the closest restaurants of your kind, because a diner scrolling the map compares you with the next pin. Do the same by hand, then look at what your website tells Google.

• 9. Nearby restaurants. Where: Maps, searching your kind of food near you, then the top three profiles. Good: your review count, rating, and filled fields (hours, phone, website, price range) are not behind theirs, and your listing links to your own site.
• 10. Details Google reads on your site. Where: run your home page through Google's free Rich Results Test. Good: it finds Restaurant data with your name, address, phone, hours, and menu link.

How the audit ranks you against nearby restaurants

In the competition band, the report ranks your restaurant among the closest places of your kind on five dimensions. Each one has a fix attached, or an honest note that it is report only. That is the table the next sections walk through.

• Review count: asked of more guests through review asks.
• Rating: the same lever, and replies to every review.
• Profile completeness, out of four fields: categories and profile fields.
• Site type, your own website or a marketplace page: report only.
• Speed, your site against nearby sites measured on a phone: report only.

What Sous fixes, and how you stay in charge

Sous is Appetier's AI agent. One table maps each audit check and each competition dimension to one fix kind, and the report and the console both read it. On the report, a gap Sous can fix reads "Sous can fix this". For a customer it becomes a proposal in the console, with both values side by side: what Google says, and what it should say. You approve each one, and you can undo it, unless someone edited that field on Google since. The audit reruns every week and checks what Appetier controls: the Google profile, the details Google reads, the menu, and guest signup.

• Google categories, Google service options, and profile fields change the Google profile.
• Structured data changes the data behind your storefront.
• Review asks and guest capture change settings on your storefront.
• Report only means Appetier can't change it, so the report shows manual steps.

Fixes on the Google side: categories, service options, fields

These need your Google account connected to Appetier first. Each maps to a gap from checks 1 to 6.

• Categories: Sous proposes a main category for a profile that has none. A profile that has one gets further categories from the weekly listings check.
• Service options: Sous proposes showing takeout and delivery when a location's ordering modes offer them and the profile doesn't. Dine in isn't an ordering mode on Appetier, so Sous never sets it. That one stays yours.
• Profile fields: the website link points at your storefront, and hours, links, and categories that stopped matching get corrected.

Fixes on your site: structured data, review asks, guest signup

The storefront already prints Restaurant data with your address, hours, phone, and menu link, and the menu page prints an item list. So the gap that remains is missing source data. When a location has no phone or hours, Sous proposes copying them from the linked Google place. It waits for your approval however you set Sous to run, and it never fills the address.

• Review asks: a weak review count or rating proposes turning on the review ask for each location where it is off. Undo restores the old setting. Where asks are already on, Sous proposes nothing and the page says so.
• Guest signup: a passive rewards band on the home page with one link. Never a pop-up, and nothing is asked of a guest before an order.
• Report only: orders on your own site, menu on site, and mobile speed come with manual steps, not an action. So do the plain page checks, such as title and description.

Reviews are earned, so Appetier asks and reports

No tool can write a review for you, and none should try. The review ask goes to guests of a completed direct order who agreed to hear from you, at most once in 90 days. Everyone eligible is asked, no one is picked by rating, and no reward is offered. You can turn it off for any location. Appetier counts asks sent and reviews gained, so you see the result instead of a promise.

A fix we built, measured, and left out

We built a richer menu data node and an order action for the storefront, to close the structured data gap further. Then we measured the menu page on a phone. The shared page shell prints on every route, so whatever it carries is paid for everywhere. We kept the faster build.

• With the menu node and order action: mobile performance read 96, on three runs.
• Without them: 98.
• Our floor: 97.
• The gap now closes with the data behind the markup, which the phone and hours fill supplies.

Fix the profile in this order

Go by weight, not by what feels easy. A link and a complete listing are worth 6 points each, and a quick edit in Google gets you both. Reviews are worth 4 and move slowest, because guests write them.

• Point the website link at a page that takes orders.
• Fill hours, phone, website, and price range.
• Make the phone and street number match your site.
• Pick a main category, then add service options you offer.
• Turn on review asks and answer the reviews you already have.

Google Business Profile audit FAQs

• How long does a Google Business Profile audit take?: About ten minutes for the ten checks above. Appetier's free audit reads the same listing in about a minute.
• Is a Google Business Profile audit free?: Yes. The ten checks cost nothing, and so does Appetier's website audit, which scores your listing beside your site.
• Will Sous change my profile without asking?: No. Sous proposes each fix and you approve it. Undo puts the old value back, unless someone edited the field on Google since.
• Does Sous change my address on Google?: No. It never fills the address. It can copy a missing phone or hours from the linked Google place, after you approve.
• Can Appetier get me more Google reviews?: It asks more guests who ordered direct and reports what came back. It can't add, buy, or remove a review, and replies don't raise the count.

Next steps

Run the ten checks, then run the free audit to see your listing scored beside the same checks on Appetier. See Google Business Profile for how Appetier connects to the listing, and restaurant SEO for what it keeps current each week.