Google Business Profile for realtors: set it up right, and keep it when you move

Why your Google Business Profile matters more than you think

Here's how most of your clients find you. Someone hears your name from a friend, then types it into Google. In the National Association of REALTORS® 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 74% of buyers interviewed only one agent, and 80% of sellers contacted only one. Nobody's comparing ten agents. They're checking you.

What comes up first on that name search, on a phone, is usually your Google Business Profile: the box with your photo, your stars, your phone number and a button to your website. If there's no box, or it's a stale one with three reviews from 2019, that's the interview.

Reviews are the part people read. A February 2026 survey of 1,002 US consumers by a local search software company found 97% read reviews when picking a local business and 71% read them on Google. 68% want at least four stars, and 74% want reviews from the last three months.

Agents on forums describe the same path over and over: a client sees them on Instagram, checks Google for reviews, then looks at the website before calling. Your Google profile sits right in the middle of that.

It's free. It takes an afternoon to set up properly. And it's the one listing you control that shows up on your own name search. Worth doing right.

Can a real estate agent have a Google Business Profile?

Yes. Google's guidelines name real estate agents as an example of an individual practitioner, which means you can have a profile of your own, separate from your brokerage's.

Two conditions come with it, both from Google's rules:

• You meet clients in person during the hours you list. Google only gives profiles to businesses that make in-person contact with customers. Showings, listing appointments and closings count.
• You're public-facing and reachable. Google says practitioners have to be in a public-facing role and contactable during their stated hours. Your transaction coordinator doesn't get one. You do.

What doesn't qualify: a profile for a listing (Google bans profiles for homes for sale and rentals), a "homes for sale in [city]" lead-capture profile (lead generation companies are on Google's ineligible list), or a profile at an address where you don't work.

Storefront or service area: which one are you?

This is the setting that gets the most agents suspended, so start here.

Service-area business (most agents). You meet clients at their homes, at listings, at coffee shops. You don't have an office with your sign on it where clients walk in during your hours. Set it up as a service-area business and hide your address. If you work from home, Google says to clear your home address from the profile.

Storefront (some agents). You work from an office, clients can meet you there during your stated hours, and the office has permanent signage. Then you can show that address. Google says a business without permanent on-site signage doesn't qualify as a storefront.

Hybrid. You see clients at the office and also go to them. You can show the address and add a service area.

The trap: listing your brokerage's office when you're there twice a month. Local search forums and Google's own Business Profile community are full of agents whose profiles were suspended for exactly that. If you're not there, don't list it.

Service area rules

• Up to 20 service areas, set by city, ZIP code or neighborhood, not by a radius.
• Google says the whole area shouldn't stretch farther than about two hours' drive from where you're based.
• List where you sell. Ten towns you've closed in beats twenty you'd like to.

What to put in the name field (and what gets you flagged)

Your real name. That's it.

Google's name rules ban marketing taglines, location words, service descriptions, phone numbers, URLs and all-caps words in the business name. So these all break the rules:

• "Jane Smith | Best Realtor in Austin"
• "Jane Smith Homes for Sale Round Rock"
• "JANE SMITH REALTOR® 512-555-0100"

For practitioners at an office with several agents, Google says the name should include only the practitioner's name, not the organization's. If you're the only public-facing agent at a branded location, Google's example format is "Brand: Your Name."

If you've legally done business under a name for years (on your signs, your cards, your site), that name is fine. The rule is: match the real world, don't write a search phrase.

Your brokerage name and license: Google's rules vs. advertising rules

Here's a tension nobody explains well. Google wants your name alone in the name field. Advertising rules want your brokerage visible.

• NAR Code of Ethics (2026), Standard of Practice 12-5: REALTORS® can't advertise "in any medium" without disclosing the firm's name "in a reasonable and readily apparent manner." For electronic ads, that disclosure can be "via a link to a display with all required disclosures."
• NAR Standard of Practice 12-9: agent websites have to show the firm's name and the agent's state or states of licensure.
• State rules go further. In Texas, for example, TREC Rule 535.155 says the broker's name has to appear at least half the size of the largest agent contact information in an ad. For social media, the required information can sit on a separate page reachable by a direct link.

How most agents square it:

1. Name field: your name, per Google.
2. Description: say who you're licensed with, in plain words. "Licensed with [Brokerage], [State]."
3. Website button: link to your own site, where the brokerage name, license and Fair Housing details are on every page.

Check your state's rules and your broker's policy before you publish. Some brokerages have their own rules on agent profiles, and a 10-minute conversation now beats a compliance email later.

Google Business Profile categories for realtors

Google says to pick the most specific category that describes your main business, use as few as you need, and never use categories as keywords.

You can't invent a category. You pick from Google's list. "Luxury real estate agent" isn't on it, and adding unrelated categories to rank for more searches is what Google means by using categories as keywords.

Individual vs. team vs. brokerage profiles

Google doesn't write a rule just for real estate teams. Its general rules still decide it: one profile per business per location, practitioners get their own, and a separate unit at the same address only gets a profile if it runs as a distinct business.

Our advice for teams: every agent keeps their own individual profile under their own name. The team gets one only if it has a real, separate operation. That way an agent who leaves takes their own reviews and the team keeps the team's. Nobody fights over stars.

How to verify your Google Business Profile

Google picks the verification method for you, based on your business type and location. You can't choose. The options it may offer:

• Phone call or text with a code
• Email
• A recorded video or a live video call
• A postcard (Google says most codes arrive within 14 days)

Video is common now, and service-area businesses get it a lot. Google asks you to show three things: where you are (street signs, nearby businesses), that the business is yours (branded materials, the tools you use to serve clients), and that you run it (access only the owner has). For an agent that usually means your car or street, your yard signs, business cards, your license, and you opening up your CRM or lockbox app. Record it in one take. Google says reviews can take up to five business days.

Don't change your name, address or category while a postcard is on its way. Google says the code won't work.

Fill in everything else

Hours. Google says to list your customer-facing hours. Put the hours you pick up the phone. "Open 24 hours" when you don't answer at 2 a.m. is a false listing.

Phone. A number that rings you. Google doesn't allow numbers that forward to call centers or someone else's line.

Website. Link to a page that's yours. Google bans links that redirect to someone else's page, and that includes social profiles. More on why your own site matters below.

Description. Who you help, where, and how. "I help first-time buyers and move-up families in East Austin, Mueller and Windsor Park" gives Google and people something real. Skip "your trusted partner."

Services. Add what you do: buyer representation, listing your home, relocation, first-time buyers, investment properties. Write a sentence for each.

Photos. A real headshot, your logo if you have one, and photos of your market. Only use photos you have the rights to. Listing photos usually belong to the photographer or the listing brokerage, so ask before you post them.

Posts. Updates, offers and events. Google archives posts older than six months unless they have a date range, so a profile whose last post was in March looks closed. Just listed, just sold, an open house, a market note, a neighborhood photo you took. Two a month is plenty.

Questions. Google retired the old public Q&A section in late 2025. Maps now answers people's questions with AI that reads your profile, your reviews and your website (reported widely in the local search trade press). So the more your profile and your site actually say, the better those answers get.

How to get Google reviews as a realtor

Reviews are the part of your profile people trust most, and the part you have the most control over.

How to ask

1. Copy your review link from the profile ("Get more reviews" or "Share review form"). Google also gives you a QR code.
2. Ask in the week of closing, while the keys are still exciting. A personal text with the link beats a mass email every time.
3. Ask past clients from the last few years. One message each.
4. Make it easy to say something specific: "If you have a minute, it'd help a lot if you mentioned the neighborhood and what we did on the offer." Specific reviews help the next client decide.
5. Ask everyone. Not just the happy ones.

What Google bans

• Incentives. Google says offering payment, discounts, or free goods or services in exchange for a review is prohibited. That includes a gift card "as a thank you" tied to the review, or a discount on your next deal.
• Gating. Google bans "selectively" asking happy clients for reviews and discouraging unhappy ones. So no "rate us 1 to 5 first, and if it's a 5 we send you to Google."
• Pressure on the spot. Google says you shouldn't require or pressure people to review you while they're with you. Asking at the closing table is fine. Holding out the phone until they do it isn't.
• Reviews from your own people. Your team, your partner, your lender buddy, your title rep. Google's policy covers conflicts of interest, including current or former employment and other professional or personal ties.

How to reply

Reply to every review, good and bad. 89% of consumers expect the business to respond, and half see generic replies as a negative (same 2026 survey).

• Good review: thank them by name, mention one real detail from the deal. Two lines.
• Bad review: stay calm, don't argue in public, apologize where it's fair, and take it offline. Google's own tips: keep it short, be personal, don't be promotional, protect privacy.
• Never share client details in a reply. No sale prices, no addresses, nothing from the transaction they didn't post themselves.

Google checks replies before they post. Most go live in minutes.

Link your own website, not a brokerage page

Your profile has one website button. Where it points matters more than people think.

If it points at your brokerage bio page, three things happen. The visitor lands on a page with your broker's other agents a click away. You don't control what it says. And when you leave, that page disappears, so your profile's best button goes to a 404 or your old broker's homepage.

If it points at your own site, you control the page, it can carry the brokerage and license details your state requires, it can say exactly who you help and where, and it stays put when you move. Your profile and your site also back each other up: the same name, phone and service area in both places tells Google they're the same person.

Don't have your own site yet? Link the brokerage page for now. A working link beats no link. Just know it's a rental. Our guide on whether real estate agents need a website walks through when a brokerage page is enough.

What to do when you switch brokerages

Update the profile. Don't delete it.

Your individual profile belongs to you, not your broker, as long as you're the owner. Your reviews stay attached to it. Deleting it and starting fresh throws those reviews away.

1. Before you announce the move, check you're an owner, not a manager someone else added. If your brokerage's marketing team created it, ask them to transfer ownership while you're still on good terms. Google says authorized representatives have to transfer ownership when asked.
2. Update the description with your new brokerage.
3. Update the website link to your own site, or the new brokerage page.
4. Change the address only if you moved where you meet clients. Google says moving to a new address after verification means you'll need to verify again. Service-area agents usually don't have to touch the address at all.
5. Update your photos if your old brokerage logo is in them.
6. Fix everything else that lists you so it all matches: your site, social bios, email signature, your association profile.

If your old brokerage created a profile at its office with your name on it, ask them to remove it or ask Google to mark it as moved to yours. Two profiles for one agent split your reviews and confuse Google. Our guide on leaving your brokerage website covers the rest of the move.

Common reasons agent profiles get suspended (and how to avoid them)

Google doesn't publish a list of suspension reasons, but its guidelines and the help forums point at the same handful.

If you do get suspended, don't create a new profile. Fix whatever broke the rules, then appeal through Google's reinstatement form with proof: your license, business cards, something that shows the name and area you serve.

A simple monthly routine for your Google profile

About 30 minutes a month.

1. Text your review link to everyone who closed this month.
2. Reply to every new review, in your own words.
3. Post twice: one listing or sale, one about the neighborhood or market.
4. Add a few real photos you took this month.
5. Check the details: hours, phone, website link, service area. Fix anything that changed.
6. Check the performance screen: how many people called, asked for directions or clicked your website. Watch the trend, not the day.
7. Google your own name in a private window on your phone. Your profile should be at the top, and it should look current.

For the bigger picture (your site, neighborhood pages, AI tools like ChatGPT), see our guide to real estate SEO for agents.

Step-by-step setup checklist

1. Search your name on Google Maps first. If a profile already exists, claim it instead of making a new one.
2. Go to business.google.com and sign in with a Google account you'll keep forever. Not your brokerage email.
3. Business name: your name, as it appears on your license and signs.
4. Primary category: Real estate agent.
5. Location: hide the address unless clients meet you at a staffed office with your signage.
6. Service area: up to 20 cities, ZIPs or neighborhoods, within about two hours' drive.
7. Phone: a number that rings you.
8. Website: your own site if you have one.
9. Verify, using whatever method Google offers. Have your license, cards and signs ready for a video.
10. Hours: when you answer.
11. Description: who you help, where, and "Licensed with [Brokerage], [State]."
12. Services: three to six, each with a sentence.
13. Photos: headshot, logo, five or more real photos of your market.
14. First post: introduce yourself or share a recent sale.
15. Copy your review link and send it to your last ten clients.