How to Make Your GMB Account Work for Property Management Company

In the last decade, the importance of Google My Business (GMB) has increased dramatically. It has become an invaluable feature for any real estate business.

GMB provides lots of benefits such as the followings:

Increased visibility.
Direct call button from the search.
Direct directions from the search
Direct link to website (if any).
Business address in Google search.
Zero costs – it’s completely free.
Increased credibility, letting clients to leave reviews.
Lead to new clients.
Listing of properties for sale or rent directly on GMB account.
Photos of the business are shown on search directly.
And the most important one: Reviews.

So, how to make your Google Maps page work for your real estate business?

How to be on Google Maps: GMB account creation and optimization.

Nowadays, anyone who searches for property managers, goes online. And Google Maps is the first spot Google shows on the search results.

Generally, people find what they need in Google 3 Pack and don’t search further. Thus, for your property management agency not being on Google Maps basically means being invisible on Google.

Appearing in Google Maps gives more credibility than anything else on the internet, as it’s the most trusted business listing so far over the internet. And being on the 3 pack means to get more than 50% of the calls, clicks, etc..

Here is a step by step guide on how to open and verify a GMB page.

After creating a GMB page, it’s super important to optimize it.

Brand name & logo: Bear in mind that logo and name are the 1st things customers generally associate your company with. Write your business real-world name. If you want you can also add your main keyword at the end of the name.

For example: [Brand Name] + [real estate]

Then select a high quality PNG logo minimum size of 250 x 250 pixels.

Shorten URL: Get a shorten URL to your Google Maps account. It should be your brand name.

This link is a short link which you can send to your potential clients or interested people.

One good thing is that by just adding /Review you can send the link to your customers and they can directly do a review about you and your business.

Example: https://g.page/[yourbrandme]/review (find more info below).

Contact number and working hours: You should provide a working phone number, so customers can contact you. In addition, it’s considered to put proper working hours of your business, so customers will know when to contact or visit you.

Exact location: Write the business address to be properly shown in Google Maps.

Important: When you create citations in other pages like yelp, bing places, etc., make sure to be consistent with your address.

Tip: Here you can find which citations can make some impact on your listing.

Working website and social media accounts: You should put the URLs of a working website with proper content and design. Also, share only social media active accounts’ links.

Continuous updates and management: Besides optimizing, it’s another essential integral to have an active living GMB page. For this purpose, you are required to constantly update your GMB account & keep it up to date. It means uploading different photos and videos, posting new content, and answering to reviews, etc.

Share professional & attractive images.

An important fact to remember: Images are one of two most considerable things clients watch out before contacting or visiting your real estate business.

So, it’s required to have clean, professionally taken photos (size – 200 KB to 5 MB, and format – JPG or PNG) of real estate assets, from inside and outside. You can share videos as well, which should be less than 30 second and maximum 100 MB.

As Google stats show, companies with shared images get 35% more visits to their company website & 42% more requests for driving directions than companies which don’t share images.

Encourage your satisfied clients to leave reviews.

The second of two most important things that clients keep an eye on are reviews. Prior to deciding which business to trust, people who don’t know your property management agency will first try to explore what your previous clients have to share about your services.

As some stats show, 91% of clients consistently check online feedback. In addition, 84% of them trust the feedback as much as if someone recommends them to the agency.

Consequently, the more good feedback you have on your GMB page, the more new clients you can attract. Good feedback will have a beneficial impact on your rankings in Google Maps, pushing it up, subsequently, increasing your business visibility on Maps.

In simple words, more positive reviews, higher visibility, more clients.

To ask for GMB reviews, you just need to send your short URL + /Review and the client will be able to write the review on your GMB page.

Example: https://g.page/[yourbrandme]/review

GMB Category Optimization for GMB.

Having a well optimized Google My Business account with positive reviews still can’t guarantee you high positions on Google Maps. In order to be shown in Google maps you need to select primary, secondary categories with the most relevant ways.

That means you have to go to the competition and search for your target keyword and see what your competition has placed on their GMB profile.

Using this tool will help you understand the related GMB categories you can se;ect secondary categories to get most of the Maps exposure.

Secondary Categories you can use on the picture.

To improve your positions, you need a GMB on-page SEO implementation.

GMB page SEO optimization starts with deep keyword research. Unlike standard keyword research, for GMB you need to go for local areas such as cities or neighbours.

This means you need to find keywords setting the location specific cities. For instance, your property management company is operating its business in Los Angeles and you want to find the GMB keywords to optimize your account for them.

First step is to look at some obvious keywords such as “property management” and search for it on Google to check if Google Maps 3 Pack appears in searches or not.

Here we have found some keywords that will help you:

Property Management
Property Services
Real Estate Management
Estate Management
Apartment Management
Real Estate Management Companies
Home Property Management
Rental Management Company
Realty Property Management
Apartment Management Companies
Real Property Management
Rental Property Management
Property Company
Property Management Services
Real Estate Property Management

Important factor is to keep an eye on the search volume: “property management + mid or large city name or Near me” has most of the search volume: on average 2,200 monthly volume.

GMB SEO Optimization: Next Steps.

After implementing a keyword research, next comes the creation of an SEO strategy.

Depending on the company needs, resources and objectives, we can use different strategies of local SEO for real estate industry.

strategies to achieve the desired results.

An effective GMB optimization strategy example includes the following steps:

Proximity Optimization: This step makes Google believe that you are the most relevant result in searches, which allows your real estate company to be shown in the 3 Pack.
Making Your Business an Authority in Your Niche: This includes the creation of positive reviews, authority content with an intention to grow the brand authority.
Setup of Primary, Secondary, Custom and Hybrid Categories: This is the deep research of Google categories and subcategories, also creation of the new ones.
Structured Data and Citations: The optimization of the Structured data to get the knowledge panel optimized and trust citations creation.

GMB Internal Optimization: The last step is the internal optimization of the Google My Business account (which we have already discussed above).

Tips for Property Management Companies to Get Maximum from GMB.

Use the “Welcome Offer” tool to create an offer: You can set up discounts on commissions, exclusive offers with this simple tool, which will appear in your GMB page. Learn how to use the Welcome Offer in detail here.

Share Google Maps reviews & Google Maps on Your website: Have you heard yet that you can share your company’s Google Maps feedback on your business site? To do that, different tools and widgets such as Embed Social are available in the market. To share the maps, simply go to your GMB page, get the embed code and add it to your website.

Property Management FAQs on GMB: Have you already heard of GMB FAQ tool? This is an awesome tool that enables the clients to post questions about a company on the Google page. People can reply to them and the answers get prominently displayed.

It’s also possible to create your own FAQ with all the questions regarding your company. Here you can give answers to issues that clients often face in the property management industry as well.

Learn more here.

Enable users to follow your property management company on Google Maps: Clients can follow your company on Google Maps. In this way they will get notified about your new offerings.

As soon as a user follows your GMB page, he/she will be notified every time you post a new listing.

Check out a more comprehensive article on how to use this feature here.

Conclusion

Having a Google Maps account is essential for any real estate company. A well optimized GMB account can be a valuable source of lead generation for your property management company.

You can create it easily, have it optimized and keep it fresh with new property listings, photos & videos, by replying to different clients’ reviews.

However, if Google Maps account creation and internal optimization can be implemented by property management companies, GMB pages external optimization can be quite complicated, requiring a professional approach. Here is where we can help you achieve your SEO goals.

Hayk Espina Galstyan

Hi, I am Hayk. I am passionate about everything related to online business, SEO, SEM, Digital Marketing and Financial Markets, having successfully passed Google Analytics & AdWords certifications. I am also certified as an SEO professional, knowing exactly how to improve and meet the Search Engine and Marketing goals. I also have a vast experience in coaching and trading in financial markets, including foreign exchanges, commodity markets, etc. In short, a target orientated person who possesses excellent interpersonal skills, concisely and articulately communicating with clients and colleagues alike.

How to Make Your GMB Account Work for Property Management Company