When a new account comes in, there is a specific order I work through before touching anything. It is not random. Each step informs the next, and skipping ahead creates blind spots that show up later as surprises nobody wants.

Here is exactly how I approach it.

Step 1: Account History

Before I look at a single setting, I want to understand what has happened to this account. The history shapes everything that comes after it.

The first thing I am looking for is prior agency involvement. Was someone else managing this account before us? If so, what did they do, and what did they leave behind? A previous agency may have made configuration decisions that are still in effect — service area settings, bidding modes, job type selections — that look fine on the surface but are actively working against the account.

The second thing I check for is double-serving. This is one of the most damaging and most misunderstood issues in LSA account management. Double-serving means you have two LSA profiles that overlap in ways Google does not allow. Specifically: two profiles using the same vertical in the same service area, or two profiles connected to the same Google Business Profile. Either situation creates a problem because Google will not serve both profiles equally. It suppresses one, sometimes both, and the business pays for the confusion.

What is actually permitted: two LSA profiles connected to the same GBP is fine if they cover different verticals. A plumbing profile and an electrical profile can share a GBP without issue. Two profiles in the same vertical are fine if they use separate GBPs and do not have overlapping service areas. The problems start when those lines blur.

The third thing I look at is responsiveness history. Has this account had periods where call answer rates were poor? Where the phone was going to voicemail repeatedly? That kind of signal can leave a mark. How significant that mark is depends on how severe and how prolonged the issue was. A few bad weeks is different from six months of chronic missed calls. Either way, I want to know what we are walking into before making any other decisions.

Step 2: Reviews vs. Competition

Once I understand the account's history, I look at where it stands in the market. Specifically, how its reviews compare to whoever is currently occupying the top positions.

There is no objective right number of reviews. The only number that matters is where you stand relative to your competition. I am looking at three things: recency, volume, and star rating, comparing them against the other listings showing in that market.

If a business is in the bottom third of listings by any of those measures, that is a problem that needs to be addressed before most other optimizations will matter. You can configure the account perfectly and still lose to a competitor who has twice your reviews and posted three of them last week.

Step 3: Lead Intake Operations

This is the step most agencies skip entirely. It should not be skipped.

Before recommending any changes to campaign settings, I want to understand how the business actually handles inbound calls. Do they have a dedicated team answering phones around the clock? Or is it a human team for eight hours and a call center for the other sixteen? Is there a gap in coverage anywhere: evenings, weekends, holidays?

Why does this matter for an account audit? Because responsiveness is a ranking factor, and no amount of dashboard optimization fixes a phone operation that is losing calls. If I expand the service area and increase the budget without knowing the phones are covered, I am generating more leads for a system that is going to miss them. That costs the client money and damages their ranking signal at the same time.

The rule I follow: understand operations before making any spend recommendations. More budget into a broken intake process is not optimization. It is an expensive way to confirm the problem.

Step 4: Profile and Budget Settings

With the context from the first three steps, I move into the dashboard. Here is what I check:

Bidding mode. The default is Maximize Leads, and for most accounts it should stay there. Automated bidding outperforms manual bidding for general lead volume. Google is adjusting bids dynamically to win auctions in ways a manual setup cannot replicate. If an account is on manual bidding, I want to know why, and in most cases I am switching it.

Budget utilization. Is the account spending its full budget, or is it being capped? A budget that is consistently maxing out is leaving leads on the table. For accounts looking to maximize lead volume, I recommend setting the weekly budget 30 to 50 percent higher than the actual target spend. You only pay for valid leads received, so a higher budget ceiling does not mean higher cost.

Messaging and booking. Both should be enabled. Opting into message leads gives Google's users an additional way to reach out, which Google rewards with better ranking. Booking removes friction for high-intent callers who want to schedule immediately. If either is turned off, that is an easy fix with a real impact.

Service area. Is the coverage wide enough? Wider is better for ranking, up to the operational limit of what the business can actually serve. I am also checking how the area was drawn. The method does not matter. What matters is the color coverage on the map.

Step 5: Job Types and Photos

Last in the order, but not unimportant.

Job types function like keywords. The more you select, the more searches you are eligible to appear for. The caveat is the same as service area: only select job types you can actually service. Selecting everything and then delivering poorly on those leads creates a different problem downstream.

On photos, I am looking for one specific thing: does the profile show the user journey? The goal is to show what it looks like when this business shows up at your door. Truck in the driveway. Technician at the door. Technician working. A logo shot can come last, if at all. Blurry photos, stock images, or anything unrelated to the actual service being provided need to go.

Why This Order Matters

The sequence is not arbitrary. Account history tells you what you are dealing with before you touch anything. Reviews tell you whether the foundation is competitive enough for optimization to matter. Operations tell you whether more leads would actually be caught. Profile and budget settings are where most of the controllable levers live. Job types and photos are refinements on top of a working base.

If you start at step four and skip the first three, you are optimizing an account you do not actually understand yet. That is how agencies end up chasing their tail on accounts that should be performing better and cannot figure out why.