The free Marketing Score Card gives your business a score out of 100. A number on its own is not much use, though. What matters is knowing what was checked, why it matters to a customer, and what to do about it.

This guide walks through every check the Score Card runs on your Google listing and your website, then goes deeper on five issues that come up again and again, and are among the easiest to fix.

How the score works

You enter your business name and city, and your website if you have one. The Score Card then:

1. looks up your public Google Business Profile listing through Google's official Places service
2. loads your website's home page once, the way a browser would, and reads what is actually in it
3. awards marks for each check and adds them up

Your overall score is the marks you earned divided by the marks available, across everything that could be checked. If something could not be checked (say, you have no website yet), it is shown as not checked, rather than quietly counted as a zero or a free pass.

You also get a grade (A+ from 90, A from 80, B from 70, C from 60, D from 45, and F below that), the three fixes worth the most marks, and the score you would have after making them. When Google has enough data, you also see how similar businesses near you compare on rating, reviews and photos.

Nothing is guessed. Every mark comes from data measured during your scan.

The 10 Google listing checks

Some parts of a listing, such as verification status, posts and offers, are only visible to the owner. The Score Card does not pretend to know them.

The 12 website checks

The five most common gaps, and how to fix them

These five matter to customers, show up on a lot of small-business scans, and none of them needs a big budget.

1. Too few recent Google reviews

Reviews carry more marks than any other single check, and they are what customers read first. If you have only a handful, this is usually where your biggest gain is.

Fix it: get your review link from your Business Profile, ask every customer at the moment they are happiest, and make it effortless with a WhatsApp message or a QR code at the counter. Reply to every review, good or bad. Our Google reviews playbook walks through it step by step.

2. A thin Google listing

Opening hours, photos and a linked website are quick wins that many listings skip. Without hours, Google cannot tell customers whether you are open right now. Without photos, people have nothing to judge you by.

Fix it: in your Business Profile, add your regular hours (plus special hours for festivals and holidays), upload at least 10 recent photos of your storefront, interior, team, products or work, check that your primary category describes what you mainly do, and link your website.

3. A missing or weak title and meta description

Your page title and meta description are often what people see in Google's results before they ever visit. With no description, Google picks some text from your page, which may not sell you at all.

Fix it: write a title of roughly 30 to 60 characters that says what you do and where, for example Leaf Dental Care | Dentist in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. Then write a 70 to 160 character description that gives people a reason to click: your speciality, your timings, or what makes you different.

4. No business schema

Schema is a small block of structured data in your page's code. It tells Google, in a format it reads reliably, who you are, where you are and how to reach you. Many small-business websites have none.

Fix it: ask whoever manages your website to add LocalBusiness structured data (JSON-LD) to the home page. A minimal example looks like this:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "LocalBusiness",
  "name": "Leaf Dental Care",
  "telephone": "+91 98765 43210",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "Road No. 12, Banjara Hills",
    "addressLocality": "Hyderabad",
    "postalCode": "500034",
    "addressCountry": "IN"
  },
  "openingHours": "Mo-Sa 10:00-20:00"
}

It goes inside a <script type="application/ld+json"> tag. Use a more specific type if one fits, such as Dentist, Restaurant or Store, and make sure the details match your Google listing exactly. Google's free Rich Results Test will tell you whether it reads correctly.

5. Contact details that are hard to find

Visitors on a phone want to call or message you in one tap. If the home page has no phone number, or the email address is only an image, many of them will simply go back to the search results.

Fix it: put your phone number on the home page as a tap-to-call link (tel:), add a clickable email address (mailto:), and consider a WhatsApp chat link too. Showing your address and opening hours near the bottom of the page helps as well.

Quick fixes for the other website checks

• HTTPS: most hosts offer a free SSL certificate. Switch it on and redirect every http address to https.
• Mobile friendly: the page needs <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> in its head. Any modern theme includes it.
• One H1: make the main headline on your home page the only H1, and say what you do in it.
• Alt text: describe each image in a few words, such as "Dental check-up room at Leaf Dental Care". It helps Google Images and people using screen readers.
• Social links: link the profiles you actually keep up to date, usually from the footer.
• Page weight and speed: keep the home page lean, remove plugins and scripts you no longer use, and choose hosting that answers quickly for visitors in India.

Run your free scan

The quickest way to know which of these apply to you is to check. The free Score Card takes about a minute, needs no signup and never asks for your passwords. You will see your score, your grade, your top three fixes and the score you would have after making them.

Fix those three first, run the scan again, and watch the number move.

First published on The Dr. Marketo Blog.

Ask any shop owner, clinic or salon where new customers come from, and "they found us on Google" will be near the top of the list. When someone searches for a dentist, a bakery or a tyre shop near them, the businesses with plenty of recent, positive reviews look like the safe choice. The one with three reviews from 2021 looks like a gamble.

Google says as much in its own guidance for Business Profiles: review count and review score are part of how it judges a business's prominence in local results. More importantly, reviews are what real people read before they decide to call you.

Getting more reviews is not about luck or tricks. It is a habit, and here is a playbook you can start this week.

Step 1: Get your review link

Every Google Business Profile has a short link that opens the review box directly. Sending that link is far easier for a customer than "search for us on Google Maps and scroll down to the reviews".

To find it, sign in with the Google account that manages your listing, open your Business Profile on Google Search or in Google Maps, and look for the option to ask for reviews. It is usually labelled Ask for reviews or Get more reviews. Copy the link and keep it somewhere you can paste it from quickly, such as a note on your phone.

If you cannot find the option, your listing may not be verified yet, or you may be signed in with a different account. Sort that out first, because you also need access to reply to reviews.

Step 2: Ask at the right moment

The best time to ask is right after a customer has had a good experience, while it is still fresh:

• a restaurant, when the bill is paid and the table is happy
• a salon or spa, when the customer is admiring the result in the mirror
• a clinic, at the follow-up when the patient says they feel better
• a repair or service business, when the job is done and working

Ask in person first, then follow up with the link. A simple spoken request does most of the work: "If you were happy with us today, a Google review would really help a small business like ours." The link just removes the effort.

Step 3: Make it effortless

Most people who say "sure, I'll do it" have forgotten by the time they reach home. Put the link where they already are.

On WhatsApp. Many of your customers already message you there. Send the link in the same chat, with a short, personal note:

Hi Priya, thank you for visiting Leaf Dental Care today!
If you have a minute, a Google review would help other
families find us: <your review link>
Thank you, Dr. Rao

Send it once, not reminder after reminder.

At the counter. Turn the link into a QR code (plenty of free QR code generators will do this) and print it on a small card at the billing counter or reception: "Happy with us? Scan to review us on Google."

On paper you already hand out. Bills, invoices, delivery slips, appointment cards and packaging all have room for the QR code and a one-line request.

In your email signature and on your website. A "Review us on Google" link in the footer catches customers who look you up later.

Step 4: Make it part of the team's routine

If only the owner remembers to ask, reviews arrive in bursts and then stop. Build asking into the routine:

1. Decide who asks: the person who finishes the service, or whoever handles billing.
2. Give them one simple sentence to use, in the languages your customers speak.
3. Keep the QR card where they hand over the bill or the product.
4. Read the new reviews together once a week, and thank the team members customers mention by name.

Step 5: Reply to every review

Replies are public, and future customers read them as closely as the reviews themselves. A thoughtful reply shows that a real person is paying attention.

For positive reviews, thank the customer by name, mention something specific from what they wrote, and keep it short. Avoid pasting the same line under every review.

For negative reviews, take a breath before you reply:

• thank them for the feedback and apologise for their experience, without arguing about the details in public
• explain briefly what you are doing about it, if something needs fixing
• offer a direct way to talk, such as a phone number or WhatsApp, to put it right
• once it is resolved, the customer may choose to update their review, but never pressure them to

A calm, helpful reply to a complaint often does more for your reputation than one more five-star review.

Step 6: Stay within Google's rules

Shortcuts can cost you the reviews you have honestly earned. Google's review policies are clear about what is not allowed. In plain terms:

• No incentives. Do not offer discounts, freebies or cashback in exchange for a review.
• No buying reviews, and no "review exchange" groups.
• No fake reviews, including reviews written by staff, family or friends posing as customers.
• No cherry-picking. Do not ask only the customers you expect to be happy, and do not filter people through a "were you satisfied?" step before showing the review link. Ask everyone.
• No reviewing competitors, and no asking anyone else to.

Google removes reviews that break these rules and can restrict listings that keep breaking them. A steady trickle of honest reviews is worth far more than a sudden pile that disappears.

Step 7: Keep a steady rhythm

Customers look at how recent your reviews are, not just how many you have. A listing with a few new reviews every month looks alive. A listing whose last review is a year old makes people wonder whether you are still open.

Set yourself a simple monthly check:

• How many new reviews did we get this month?
• Did we reply to all of them?
• Is our average rating moving up or down?
• What do customers keep praising, or complaining about?

That last question is gold. Reviews tell you what to say in your posts and ads ("everyone mentions how quick we are") and what to fix.

Step 8: Put your reviews to work

Good reviews are proof you can reuse, with care:

• share a short quote, with the customer's first name, as a social media post
• add a few to your website's home page or a testimonials section
• mention your Google rating on your signboard or menu card, and keep it up to date

Always quote reviews exactly as written, and never edit them to sound better.

A simple 30-day plan

Where do you stand today?

Before you start, it helps to know your starting point. The free Dr. Marketo Score Card looks up your Google listing and shows your rating and review count alongside the rest of your profile: address, phone, opening hours, photos, category and website. Where Google has enough data, it also shows how similar businesses near you compare, so you can see how far you are from the local leaders.

It takes about a minute and needs no signup. Check your free score, then come back to this playbook and start with Step 1.

First published on The Dr. Marketo Blog.