Your Google Business Profile is often the first thing a customer sees, before your website. Most owners know they should keep it active. Almost none do, because it's one more thing on a list that never ends.
Here's the Google Business Profile AI routine I'd give any owner: about 20 minutes a week, with AI doing the drafting and you doing the deciding. Prompts included, plus the rules that keep you out of trouble with Google.
Why a weekly routine beats a big cleanup
Most profiles get one burst of attention. Someone fills everything out, adds photos, posts three times, and then it goes quiet for a year. To a customer, it looks abandoned, and stale information creeps in.
A small weekly routine keeps it alive: new posts, every review answered, fresh photos, and a quick check that nothing is wrong. I covered why the profile matters so much in your Google Business Profile is your new homepage. This post is the how.
The 20-minute Google Business Profile AI routine
Run it the same day every week. Monday morning works for most of the owners I know, because last week's jobs and reviews are fresh.
Illustrative. A week with a lot of reviews takes longer. A quiet week takes less.
Those minutes are your minutes: reading, fixing and approving. The drafting happens before you sit down, in a Claude or ChatGPT project that already knows your business.
Posts: two a week, drafted in one go
Google lets you publish updates, offers and events on your profile, per its posts help page. Updates are the workhorse: a photo, a few sentences and a button. The same page says posts older than six months get archived unless you set a date range, so a steady trickle beats a big batch from last spring.
Two rules trip people up. First, don't type your phone number or email into the post text. Google's posts content policy says it may remove posts with contact information it can't verify, and points you to a Call now button instead. Second, every post should be about something real: a job you just finished, a question a customer asked, a seasonal problem that actually applies.
Prompt: two weekly posts
Write two Google Business Profile update posts for [business name] for the week of [date]. Context: [jobs we did this week, any seasonal issue, any offer with real dates]. Use the voice document and services list in this project.
Each post: 100 to 200 words, one clear point, and a suggested button (Call now, Book or Learn more) with the page it should link to. No phone numbers or emails in the text. Don't invent jobs, customers, results or reviews. If you need a detail you don't have, leave a bracketed placeholder.
Done looks like: two drafts, plus one line on what kind of photo fits each. Don't publish anything.
How should AI reply to Google reviews?
Answer every review. Happy ones get a short, specific thank-you. Unhappy ones get a calm reply that moves the conversation offline. AI is very good at the first kind and needs close supervision on the second.
Google's review management page notes that reviewers are notified when you reply, and that Google may check replies against its content policies before they show. Write every reply like the whole town is reading, because they are.
Prompt: review replies
Draft replies to the reviews pasted below for [business name]. Use the reviewer's first name only if they used it. Mention one specific detail from their review so it doesn't read like a template. Keep positive replies to 2 or 3 sentences.
For any review under 4 stars: acknowledge the problem without arguing or admitting fault, don't mention any job details that aren't already in the review, invite them to reach [owner name] directly, and flag it for me with one line on what you think happened. Never offer refunds, discounts or anything else in exchange for changing a review. Never include personal information about a customer.
Done looks like: each review followed by your draft. I'll approve each one before it's posted.
Once you trust the drafts, the five-star replies can move fast. Anything under four stars, you read every word, every time.
Photo of the week
AI can't take your photos, and it shouldn't fake them either. A stock or AI-made picture of a smiling "technician" is worse than no photo, because customers want to see your trucks, your crew and your actual work.
What AI can do: go through the photos your team took this week, pick the best few, flag the blurry ones, and draft a short post to go with the winner. Before anything goes up, check the frame for customer addresses, license plates and faces of people who didn't agree to be on Google.
Make it someone's job to drop job photos into a shared folder every week. That's the only part of this routine that needs a camera.
The monthly info check
Once a month, use the photo slot for an accuracy check instead: hours, holiday hours, services, service area, website links and your business name. The agent compares your profile against your website and services document and lists every mismatch.
Keep the name honest. Google's guidelines for representing your business say your name should reflect your real-world name and that unnecessary information in it isn't permitted. Adding a city and a keyword to your name is a fast way to get a profile suspended.
Look at customer questions too. Google has been reworking how questions about businesses show up on Maps, moving away from the old public Q&A list, so check what your profile shows right now and answer what you can. Whatever customers keep asking belongs in your posts and on your website anyway.
Prompt: monthly profile audit
I'm signed in to our Google Business Profile in this browser. Goal: a read-only accuracy check. Compare the profile against [website URL] and the services document in this project. Check the business name, categories, hours, holiday hours for [upcoming holiday], phone, website link, service area, services and descriptions, and any customer questions showing.
Done looks like: a table of every mismatch with what the profile says, what it should say, and where you found the right answer. Don't edit anything. Stop and wait for me to approve each change.
What's allowed and what gets you in trouble with Google
AI makes it easy to do things faster. Some of those things you shouldn't do at all.
| Fine | Not fine |
|---|---|
| Asking every customer for a review | Asking only the happy ones, or screening customers first |
| AI drafting your replies to real reviews | AI writing reviews of your business, or any review not based on a real experience |
| Thanking everyone who leaves a review | A discount, gift or drawing entry in exchange for a review |
| Your real business name | Keywords or city names stuffed into the name |
| Real photos of your work | Stock or AI-made photos passed off as your jobs |
| A Call now button on posts | Phone numbers typed into the post text |
The review rules come straight from Google's policy on fake engagement, which bans paid or incentivized reviews and says businesses can't "selectively solicit positive reviews." That's review gating: sending only your happy customers to Google. I go deeper on collecting reviews the right way in how to get more Google reviews.
Can an AI agent do the clicking too?
Yes. With you signed in to your profile in your own browser, an agent like Claude in Chrome can open the profile, paste approved posts, attach the photo and post the replies you've signed off on. Anthropic's help article lists it on paid plans as of this writing. That saves the last few minutes of the routine.
Two conditions. You approve every post and every reply before it goes up. And the agent never gets your password: you sign in, and it works in that session.
Twenty minutes a week, every week, beats a perfect profile you touch once a year. If you'd rather not run it yourself, this routine is part of what I handle for clients every week.
Alex Lamy16 years in marketing, from radio to agencies to running his own shop. Now he runs a team of AI agents that do the marketing for St. Louis small businesses. You talk to him, and he checks every piece.
Want this handled for you?
$499 a month, flat. My AI agents produce it, I check every piece, and we meet weekly. Month-to-month, and you own everything. Want a reference first? I'll connect you with someone I did similar work for.
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