Estate agent Google Business Profile: the ranking checklist

Your Google Business Profile is the single highest-return asset in local search for an estate agency, and it is free. It decides whether you appear in the map pack for searches in your town, and it is the first thing most vendors see about you.

Work through this in order. The first four items account for most of the effect.

The essentials

1. 01Claim and verify the profile at your real trading address.
2. 02Set the primary category to Real Estate Agency. Add secondary categories, Property Management, Letting Agency, Estate Appraiser, only where genuinely accurate. This is frequently set wrong and it is one of the strongest signals.
3. 03Business name exactly as you trade. Not "Smith & Co Estate Agents Manchester | Best Agents". Keyword-stuffed names are against policy and are routinely reported by competitors.
4. 04Address and phone identical to your website, character for character, including how the suite or floor is written.

Completing the profile

• ✓Hours, including bank holidays and any Saturday viewing hours
• ✓Description, 750 characters covering what you do, where, and what makes the agency distinct. Written for a person, not stuffed with terms
• ✓Photographs of the office exterior, interior and the actual team. Stock imagery is obvious and it does not help
• ✓Services listing sales, lettings, valuations, property management and anything else you offer
• ✓Attributes, accessibility, appointment requirements, languages spoken
• ✓Products for standout instructions, which surface in the profile and are almost universally unused

Running it

The profiles that outperform are the ones that stay active. Posting weekly is enough: a new instruction, a completion, a market note, something local you are involved in.

• ✓Post weekly. Almost no competing agency does
• ✓Seed and answer the Q&A, fees, areas covered, valuation process, opening hours. If you leave it, someone else will answer for you
• ✓Request reviews as part of the process, and respond to every one
• ✓Check the insights monthly for calls, direction requests and website clicks, which tell you what the profile is actually producing

Multi-branch agencies

One profile per branch, each verified at its own address, each pointing at that branch's page on your website rather than the homepage. Branch pages should carry that branch's team, address, hours and areas covered. Consolidating branches into one profile forfeits local visibility everywhere except head office.

Common mistakes

• ✓Keywords in the business name, against policy, easily reported, and a genuine suspension risk
• ✓A virtual office or accountant's address used for verification, which is a suspension risk if challenged
• ✓The website field pointing at the homepage for every branch
• ✓Hours left wrong after a change, which quietly damages trust
• ✓Reviews left unanswered, which future clients read as indifference

This checklist is one part of the wider local programme covered in local SEO for estate agents, and the consistency it builds is also what makes AI assistants willing to name your agency.