Our Google Business Page Workshop is hands-on, so you need a live, verified profile to walk in with. Here is the whole setup, start to finish. Plan on about 30 minutes of actual work.
Verification usually takes a few days but can run up to two weeks, and a failed attempt means starting that part over. That is the only reason for the September 11 date. Everything else is quick.
Before you start · 5 minutes
The setup · eight steps
Google your full name plus "real estate." If a profile already exists with your name on it, claim it instead of building a new one. Duplicate profiles get suppressed, and untangling them later is a real headache.
If nothing comes up, go to business.google.com, sign in, and choose to add your business.
Google treats agents as individual practitioners, which means your profile name should be your real, licensed name. Because multiple agents work out of the same office, Google's guidelines say the brokerage name belongs on the office's own profile, not on yours.
Stuffing cities or keywords into the name is the single fastest way to get your profile suspended. Do not do it, no matter what a coach on YouTube says.
That is your primary category. If you run a team, use "Real Estate Agency" as primary and add "Real Estate Agent" as secondary. Keep total categories to three or four that genuinely describe what you do. More is not better here.
When Google asks whether you want to add a location customers can visit, most of you should say no. Choose the option that says you serve customers at their location, then hide your address.
Then list the specific places you actually work: Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Stafford, Spotsylvania, Culpeper, whatever is true for you. Name cities and neighborhoods, not "Northern Virginia." Keep it to places within about a two hour drive.
Use a number you answer. For the website, use your agent page on c21nm.com or your own site. A profile with no website link converts worse and ranks worse.
This is the step that trips people up, so read it twice. Google will ask you to record a single continuous video inside their verification flow. You cannot upload something you shot earlier and you cannot pause or edit it. Aim for 60 to 90 seconds.
Show all three of these in one take:
Keep bank statements, tax documents, and other people's faces out of the frame. If your documents show one address and your profile shows another, you will get rejected, so make them match before you hit record.
You get 750 characters. Write like a person, not a listing description. Say who you work with, where, and what you are known for.
Virginia requires your advertising to carry your licensed name, the firm's licensed name, the city and state where your license is assigned, and the states you are licensed in. Your description is the natural place for that.
Hours, headshot, cover photo, and your photo set. Use real photos of you, your signage, and your market. Stock images and MLS photos you did not shoot do not belong here.
Then stop. The rest of it, posts, reviews, Q&A, and the strategy behind all of it, is what we are covering on the 22nd.
Five ways people blow this up
"Best Realtor Alexandria" in your profile name is the number one cause of suspension. Your name, and that is it.
Building a new profile when one already exists gets both of them suppressed. Search first, claim what is there.
If you are working from home, hide the address and use service areas. Otherwise your house shows up on the map.
Name, phone, and address should read identically here, on c21nm.com, and on your social profiles. Google cross-checks.
Unverified profiles cannot do most of what we will practice. Start now and you will have room to fix a rejection.
Before you walk in on the 22nd