Optimizing Google Business Profile for real estate agents and real estate businesses helps drive more local search traffic in this highly competitive, hyper-localized industry.
Whether you're setting up Google Business Profile for a real estate brokerage or as an individual realtor, there are some tips and tricks you can follow and use to get the most out of the free platform and ensure your profile shows up in as many local real estate searches as possible.
How To Set up and Optimize Google Business Profile for Real Estate Businesses
Setting up Google Business Profile for real estate businesses typically falls into one of two categories: real estate brokerages/real estate companies or individual realtors/real estate agents (who may work for a larger company).
Either way, it's important to follow best practices to optimize Google Business Profile for your real estate business in order to outrank the competition in local search and attract more local leads.
Setting up Google Business Profile for Real Estate Brokerages and Companies
Setting up Google Business Profile for a real estate brokerage or any other type of real estate business, such as a rental property management company, starts with creating or claiming a GBP listing.
After you do this, you'll have full control over all the information that appears on the company's Google Business Profile and be able to respond to reviews, chat with potential clients, and use all the other features that can help you generate more local leads for your real estate business.
It's very important when setting up your new Google Business Profile to select a primary real estate-related category that best represents your business.
For example, if you're creating a GBP for a real estate agency that only deals in commercial properties, you should select "Commercial real estate agency" as the primary category, instead of just "Real estate agency."
This will ensure your GBP listing aligns with Google's guidelines for representing your business on Google, as well as help it appear in the most relevant searches (i.e., people looking for commercial properties will find it, instead of people looking for residential properties).
Setting up Google Business Profile for Individual Real Estate Agents
Now, if you're setting up Google Business Profile for an independent realtor or a real estate agent who works for a larger agency or brokerage, there are a few additional considerations you should take into account.
The most important consideration has to do with the address. All real estate businesses listed on Google Maps must have an address in order to be verified, but what if you're an individual real estate agent without a private office address?
Well, if you work as part of a larger brokerage or agency, Google allows you to use the main business address of that company as your own. If possible, you should include a suite or office number to help distinguish your listing as a separate entity. You should also use a separate phone number that is different from the main company number and add a personal website link (or a link to your profile page on the main company's site).
Alternatively, realtors can use their home addresses to verify their Google Business Profile listings, and hide the address on the listing after verification. You may want to do this if you either work completely independently or if you work as part of a larger company but want to distinguish yourself more as a separate entity by using a unique address.
Another important consideration when creating a Google Business Profile for individual real estate agents is the business name. The safest route to go here is to make the business name your name, followed by either "realtor" or "real estate agent."
You may also want to include your city name or another geographic identifier in the business name, ending up with something like "John Smith Los Angeles Realtor" or "Jane Smith West Hollywood Real Estate Agent."
However, although this can help your listing show up in highly relevant local searches, keep in mind that adding too much location information to your Google Business Profile's name can also be seen as "spammy" by Google and potentially result in penalties.
To help mitigate these risks, any geo-modifiers you add to your business name should be easily verifiable, such as part of your business address or part of your business name and contact information on your personal website.
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Best Practices for Optimizing Google Business Profile for Real Estate Businesses
After your real estate business profile is claimed and verified on Google and has all the key business information filled out accurately and completely, there are several things you can do to optimize it, which will help it appear in more local searches and allow you to engage more local leads. These include:
- Add relevant secondary categories
- Upload high-quality images
- Select all relevant attributes
- Enable messaging
- Get more reviews
- Track your Google Business Profile ranking
Add relevant secondary categories
In addition to selecting a primary Google Business Profile category that best represents your real estate business, you should also add as many relevant secondary categories as possible to help your listing show up in all relevant local search results.
For example, if your primary category is "Commercial real estate agency," and part of what you do is deal with industrial commercial properties, you should add "Industrial real estate agency" as a secondary category.
Or, if your listing's primary business category is "Real estate agent," but you also offer consulting services, you should choose "Real estate consultant" as a secondary category.
Upload high-quality images
Adding high-quality photos to your real estate business's Google Business Profile not only helps optimize it for local search, but also helps attract potential clients and create a good first impression online.
If you're optimizing Google Business Profile for a real estate agency or another type of real estate industry company, Google recommends adding at least 3 photos each of the exterior and interior of your place of business. You should also upload photos of team members at work, including administrative staff and real estate agents.
If you're adding photos to a real estate agent Google Business Profile, focus on uploading photos of yourself, including professional headshots and photos of you on the job, perhaps interacting with clients or at special events.
Select all relevant attributes
Google Business Profile's attributes are other aspects of your business you can highlight to help people looking for businesses with certain characteristics find you in local search.
By their nature, real estate businesses will probably have less relevant attributes to select than, say, restaurants, since lots of GBP attributes have to do with physical amenities, but you might still select attributes like "Wheelchair accessible entrance" for a property management office or "LGBTQ+ friendly" for a realtor. Selecting these types of attributes can help people looking for more inclusive real estate businesses find your business in local searches.
Enable messaging
Enabling Google Business Profile messages allows you to communicate with clients directly through your GBP listing. This can help you improve your customer service and increase your chances of getting more leads through Google Business Profile. You can even set up automated answers to FAQs through GBP messaging.
Get more reviews
Google Business Profile reviews are an important ranking factor for Google and Google Maps. Google's local search algorithm looks at both your total number of reviews and your average review score when determining where to rank your Business Profile in local search results.
So, both real estate companies and individual realtors should focus on getting as many positive reviews as possible from satisfied customers in order to help their listings outrank competitors and attract more local clients.
In the real estate business, sending follow-up thank-you notes or emails is a pretty standard practice, and these are excellent places to directly ask clients to leave a review on your Google Business Profile after thanking them for their business.
Track your Google Business Profile ranking
Putting time and effort into making your real estate business's GBP listing as strong as possible is great, but you should also be tracking your GBP's ranking in local searches to see how optimizations are helping it and get ideas for additional optimizations that could boost its rank.
Local Falcon is a local rank tracker built specifically for Google Business Profile and Google Maps. It allows you to track your ranking for specific keywords anywhere in the world, down to a hyper-local ranking. You can also compare your rankings side-by-side with competitors, providing insights into how you may be able to outrank them.
You don't have to be local SEO-savvy to benefit from tracking your rankings with Local Falcon, either. The platform integrates powerful, local SEO-trained AI to provide instant analysis of your listing and its competitors, offer actionable suggestions for GBP optimizations, and give you tips on improving your overall local SEO strategy.
Final Words
Setting up and optimizing Google Business Profile for real estate agents and businesses is a crucial step in driving more local search traffic, especially since the real estate industry is one of the most competitive in local search.
Whether you're representing a brokerage or working as an individual realtor, following the best practices outlined above can help ensure your profile stands out and attracts more local leads.
And remember, optimization doesn't stop at setup continuously updating your profile with relevant information, soliciting reviews, and tracking your listing's ranking are ongoing strategies to help you improve visibility and attract more real estate clients in local search.
