Google My Business For Real Estate Agents: 4 Ways To Maximize Your Profile

If I were to go on Google and search for real estate agents in your city, would I find you?

As a local business owner, you know it is crucial to stay ahead of the curve, keep your pipeline full of leads, and generate consistent traffic to your website. 

As with every year, in the Spring, there will be a new wave of people in your area searching for a real estate agent to help them buy or sell their homes. 

Are you ready?

One of the most powerful tools you can leverage for your brand and top-of-funnel lead generation is a “Google My Business” profile. 

And the best part? It’s free!

Why Every Agent Needs A Google My Business Profile

If you’re an agent and don’t have a Google My Business profile set up, you are doing your brand and team a disservice.

Here’s why.

Google is giving you a free portal that the big property portals can never take away from you.

As the property portals become less of a partner and more of a competitor, it’s going to be essential for you and your team to nurture your database and take control of your leads.  

Since you start to build trust with the buyer or seller the second they see your face, see your reviews, products, and content – having a free tool that helps you break down the “trust barrier” so early on is valuable in and of itself. 

Want to know what the icing on the cake is? 

Through your Google My Business profile, prospects are only one click away from getting on the phone with you or one of your agents. 

While this sounds too good to be true, Google has some specific rules and following their rules is the difference between seeing a lot of success with your Google My Business profile or no success at all.

Google changes its algorithm frequently and is strict with personal and business information. These restrictions make it vital that you partner with a team who knows the ins and outs of Google, like Ylopo, who can effectively manage your profile for you. 

This way, you don’t risk your Google ranking and reputation. 

Here are a few ways you can leverage a Google My Business profile to: 

• Gain visibility 
• Increase your brand authority
• And boost your call rates. 

1. Claim Your Business And Fix Your Name, Address, & Phone Number (N.A.P.)

You first need to “put your flag in the ground” and claim your business. 

Ylopo’s Head of Growth and SEO expert, Aaron “Kiwi” Franklin, dives deep into how you can do this step by step in a 1-hour long Google My Business profile training with a top real estate agent – Barry Jenkins. 

You can click here to check it out.

Before Barry partnered with Ylopo to optimize his Google My Business profile,  he wasn’t having much success with his Google ranking. 

The problem was Barry had too many different phone numbers from numerous lead sources, and Google was giving him a poor ranking because they assumed multiple phone numbers indicated a non-reputable business.

Ylopo helped Barry discover the importance of keeping what Kiwi calls “N.A.P” – your name, address, and phone number – consistent on Google and across all other lead sources.

This change alone boosted Barry’s Google ranking significantly.

2. Build Up Verified Business Reviews

The next problem they had to tackle was building Barry’s online credibility and visibility with verified reviews.

The key word here is “verified.” 

Google’s priority is to provide their users with value. Every real estate business that has a profile must become verified by Google – which means Google puts their seal of approval on it and states to consumers that the business is reputable when compared to their standards. 

This is a big deal. 

For Google to feel comfortable saying your business is verified, they want to make sure it really is. Part of how they do this is by double checking that the reviews you get on your profile are legitimate. 

Every review coming into your Google Business profile is individually reviewed and approved by Google. 

Keep in mind the time it takes for Google to approve your reviews varies. 

It can happen immediately or take as long as  5 to 7 days. 

To help speed this process along, you want to ensure all the reviews you collect are from actual clients AND the keywords used in reviews match with the keywords you are using to rank on Google.

Over time, the Google algorithm will see a pattern and say, “Wow, this agent must know what they are doing because they generate great results for their clients in this area.” 

Here is a perfect example of the type of review Google looks for: 

3. Engage And Interact On Your Google Business Page

It’s one thing to get reviews, but are you answering them? 

With your business on Google, it’s critical to protect your reputation. 

When you ask a business a question on Google, isn’t it AMAZING when you get a real response from a company representative? Doesn’t it instantly give you a sense of value and satisfaction? 

Google wants you to do this for every review, question, or comment that comes into your business profile.

Always have someone available to monitor and engage with prospects and clients, whether it is you, your admin, or your virtual assistant. 

It makes a difference in your online ranking that Google sees you are actively engaging with clients and prospects consistently.

It’s great to have conversations, but how does that get your more business? 

You already know that the name of the game in real estate is “adding value.” 

To help you optimize your value-add, we want to share a little bonus. 

Kiwi launched a new video with two other Google My Business experts at Ylopo, Janna Hartfield and Bill McCarver, who help manage 1,000+ Google My Business Profiles and Google Local Service Ad accounts at Ylopo.

In this short video, Kiwi, Janna, and Bill reveal 3 simple conversion hacks to generate more calls, walk-ins, and site traffic on Google. 

You can check out this great freebie here. 

4. Take Time To Post Relevant Content

We’re not going to sugarcoat it. 

Publishing content takes time and brain power. 

With everything happening on the internet, posting content is one of the only ways you can ensure your business is visible to consumers. Because of this, you have to carve out a lot of time to focus on doing it.    

So, what’s “a lot of time”? 

As for the volume of content, Kiwi recommends you publish a minimum of 3 posts every week – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. 

Based on our research, this will be enough for Google to reward you and bump up your ranking.

Not sure what kind of content you should be posting?

Content can be anything from sharing new listings, community news, market trends, pieces of advice when buying and selling a home, agent spotlights, and don’t forget to share non-related real estate content! 

Posts are also great tools for generating inbound calls. Google makes it easy to capture leads visiting your ads using their pre-built “Call Now” prompt.

A fantastic example of a piece of content that includes a “Call Now” prompt looks like this:

Your posts should not focus on length but more on intent and message. You also want to try and maintain that 3x per week posting consistency we discussed. 

Try to update your content weekly and keep your products and listings up to date. 

If you’re posting about products (your properties), you have more than one call to action available through Google ads to use. 

The buyer or seller has the option to call you directly or learn more on your search site.

Here’s an example of a product on Barry Jenkin’s profile: 

So, what happens next? 

Ideally, someone will see your post, click on one of your product listings, and land on your search site. 

If you’re outsourcing with a digital marketing company like Ylopo that can do advanced lead capture and follow up with automated AI technology, you would immediately capture the prospect’s data, have a lead profile built, and register them as a new lead. Finally, the lead would be qualified and nurtured – without you lifting a finger. 

We Covered A Lot – What Should You Remember?

There are many reasons why a Google My Business profile is a powerful tool for local businesses. The primary reason is that it acts as a lead magnet to move buyers and sellers to the next stage of your conversion funnel and then effortlessly qualifies them as leads. 

Not only will Google rank you for the highest competitive keywords in your market, but you will generate higher call flow and walk-ins, which will boost your credibility and reputation.

The only investment Google requires from you to optimize your Google My Business profile is time and consistency. If you stay consistent and keep your profile optimized, you will be way ahead of 90% of agents in your market and reap the long-term benefits other agents are overlooking. 

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t forget that Ylopo can help manage all of this for you! 

 If you want to see how Ylopo can help you manage and optimize your Google My Business profile, click below to book a free demo with someone from Ylopo’s dedicated team of experts. 

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