Sample business audit report

• Strongest

  Accessibility. Close to the rivals, and the gaps are quick to fix.

• Most urgent

  23 unanswered reviews and a 6.8-second homepage on phones.

• Fastest win

  15 minutes to turn on DMARC. See fix 4.

1. 1

   Reply to 23 unanswered reviews

   Six of them are one- or two-star reviews from the last three months, and two mention a technician who never showed up. Future customers read the replies as much as the reviews. A short, polite answer from the owner turns a complaint into proof that you care.

   • High impact
   • 1 hour
   • Reviews
2. 2

   Add 4 missing service categories

   The website sells water heaters, drain cleaning, leak detection and AC repair, but the Google profile lists only "Plumber". Google uses categories to decide which map searches you show up in. All three competitors list five or more.

   • High impact
   • 20 min
   • Profile
3. 3

   Cut mobile load time from 6.8 s to under 3 s

   Most of the delay is 4.6 MB of uncompressed photos and a chat widget that loads before the page does. Compress the photos, delay the widget until the page is ready, and turn on caching. Google found that more than half of mobile visitors leave a page that takes over 3 seconds to load.

   • High impact
   • 1 to 2 days
   • Speed
4. 4

   Turn on DMARC so no one can send email as you

   Without it, anyone can send an email that looks like it came from you, for example a fake invoice to a customer. Start with a "reports only" record, then switch to quarantine once the reports look clean.

   • Medium impact
   • 15 min
   • Email
5. 5

   Fix 12 broken links and 31 missing page titles

   Broken links send visitors and Google to dead pages. Pages with no title show up in Google with whatever text it guesses. Most of them are the service-area pages, the ones that should bring in local searches.

   • Medium impact
   • Half a day
   • SEO

• What customers praise

  Fair prices, clear quotes before the work starts, and technicians who clean up after themselves. These are the stories to put on the website.

• What hurts

  Missed appointment windows and no call back about it. Two recent one-star reviews say the same thing, and neither has a reply.

• The gap that matters

  Competitor A gets about 12 new reviews a month. Sample Plumbing & Air gets about 2. At that pace the gap grows every month, and Google says more reviews and better ratings can improve where you show up on the map. An automatic review request after each job closes it.

• Profile problem

  The profile lists only "Plumber". Someone searching "AC repair near me" or "water heater installation" may not see the business at all, even though it does both. Its Saturday hours on Google also don't match the hours on its website. Google trusts businesses whose details match everywhere.

In your report: ratings, review counts, reply rates, categories and photos from Google's business listings, with the date we checked. Review themes come from the reviews Google shows first.

• Within reach

  The business sits at #11 to #14, the top of page 2, for "water heater installation", "drain cleaning" and "leak detection". A dedicated page for each, with a title Google can read, could move them onto page 1.

• Why AI skips it

  AI tools build their answers from reviews, listings and pages that describe your services clearly. Fixes 1, 2 and 5 feed all three. Google's AI answers and Perplexity named the business in 0 and 1 of 5 questions.

In your report: keyword data from Semrush, map results from Google searches with your city in them, and AI answers from fresh chats with personalization off. Search results and AI answers change over time.

• Accessibility

  Three problems cover most of the score: 27 images with no description, 4 quote-form fields with no label (screen readers announce them as "edit text"), and light-grey button text that's hard to read in sunlight. U.S. Justice Department guidance says businesses open to the public should make their websites accessible to people with disabilities.

In your report: measured with Google Lighthouse (mobile, simulated slow 4G), with the date of each run.

• What this costs

  A burst pipe at 9 PM can't wait until morning. Competitor A answers in minutes, day or night, and offers a time slot in the first reply. The first company to answer usually gets the job. Sample Plumbing & Air's reply was polite but asked the customer to call, which is one more step before a booking.

In your report: we contact you the way a customer would, through your website form and by email, and time the first reply. Security checks read only what your site and domain already make public. Nothing is attacked or tested for break-ins.

• Competitor A

  4.7 stars, 312 reviews, the fastest site and the fastest replies. Wins most map searches and AI answers. The main threat.

• Competitor B

  4.5 stars, 190 reviews. Strong on AC searches, slower to reply. The easiest one to pass on Google.

• Competitor C

  4.1 stars, 64 reviews, no replies to inquiries. Sample Plumbing & Air already beats it on most checks in this report.

• Who we compare you with

  The three businesses that compete with you most closely on Google Maps, in your area and for the services you sell. We leave out national chains unless they're the ones winning your customers.

• How we score

  Each area gets 0 to 10 based on the measurements shown, where 10 means best in your area. Your overall score is the average of the scored areas, times ten.

A person reviews every report before it goes out. Scores are a snapshot: search results and AI answers change over time, so your report shows the date of every check.