The 5-Minute Google Business Profile Check
Updated: Sep 23
You've probably had this happen: you look someone up before a meeting, see their photo on Google, and then they walk in looking like a different person — a decade older, different hair, nothing quite matching the picture you had in your head. It's a small thing, but it's disorienting. For a split second, before anyone's said a word, something feels slightly off.
Now flip that around. That's what's happening to prospective clients, referral sources, and opposing counsel every time they search your name and your Google Business Profile hands them a photo from ten years — or two firms — ago.
Most attorneys have never actually searched their own name in a private browser window to see what comes up. You know your website exists. You assume your Google Business Profile is fine because nobody's complained about it. But "nobody's complained" and "accurate" are two very different things — and that profile is often the very first thing someone sees, long before they ever open your website.
Here's a five-minute version of the audit I walk attorneys through, focused on exactly one thing: your Google Business Profile. Grab a coffee, open that incognito window, and follow along.
Step 1: Search your name alone — no city
Type your firm's name into Google with nothing else added, in a private or incognito window (this matters — your regular browser knows too much about you and will skew the results).
Your Google Business Profile should show up, and it should be complete and correct: current address, working phone number, accurate hours, the right category, and real photos. If it's missing something, that's not a technicality — it's the first impression someone forms before they've read a word you've written.
Step 2: Still not showing up? Try it with your city added
If your firm's name alone didn't surface your profile, search again with your city added. If you needed the city to find yourself, that's worth noting on its own — it's a sign your profile isn't as established as it should be, and it's worth spending real time claiming and building it out rather than treating it as a box you checked once.
Step 3: Check for duplicate or outdated listings
This is the one that catches people off guard. Search around a little and see if there's more than one listing for your firm — an old one from before you moved offices, or one still carrying a previous firm's name and phone number if you've switched firms since it was created. Google doesn't clean these up on its own, and duplicate or outdated listings actively work against you: they split your reviews, confuse people trying to reach you, and sometimes outrank the profile you actually maintain.
Step 4: Image-search yourself, too — this is the one that surprises people most
Here's the check I'd put at the top of this list if I could only pick one: reverse-image-search your own name, or just look closely at the photo sitting on your Google Business Profile right now.
This is where the mismatch I described at the start shows up constantly. The photo attached to a profile is very often the one that got uploaded when the listing was first created — sometimes years before the website ever got a refresh, sometimes carried over from a previous firm entirely. So a prospective client pulls up your profile, sees that photo, forms an impression... and then either your website shows someone who looks noticeably different, or they meet you in person and there's that same small moment of "oh — that's not quite who I expected." It's not dishonest, and nobody thinks you did it on purpose. But it's a tiny, avoidable crack in the consistency that makes people trust what they're looking at.
Old headshots, outdated media photos, and award-announcement pictures have a way of sticking around online long after they stop looking like you. This is worth checking no matter where you are in your career, and a refreshed headshot doesn't have to be a big expense to fix it.
While you're in there: answer what's already public
Two more things take thirty seconds each and are easy to forget: check the Q&A section of your profile for open questions nobody's answered, and glance at your most recent reviews to make sure none are sitting there unaddressed. Both are public — anyone researching you can see an unanswered question or an ignored review just as easily as they can see your practice areas.
What to do with what you find
None of this requires hiring anyone. Claim your profile if you haven't, fix whatever's wrong or outdated, and get in the habit of checking again every few months — anytime you move, change your hours, or update your team. It's an audit, not a project.
If this five-minute version turned up more than you expected, that's normal — Google Business Profile is the piece of a firm's digital presence that gets set up once and then forgotten. It's also just one part of a bigger picture: what your website, LinkedIn, and social profiles say about you matters too, and whether someone can actually reach you once they've found you matters even more.
[👇Download the full Digital Presence Self-Audit — a free, printable checklist covering Google Business Profile, cross-platform consistency, and contact-path]
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