Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency, joins Neil Mathweg to break down why the Google Business Profile is the free tool that decides whether AI recommends you — plus the exact platforms feeding ChatGPT, the five-part "Holy Grail" review, how to get out of Google jail, and how brand-new agents are outranking 25-year veterans.
Agent Rise Podcast · Hosted by Neil Mathweg — featuring Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency
Transcript cleaned from the episode recording. Speakers are Neil Mathweg (host, Agent Rise) and Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency (guest).
Neil Mathweg: The free tool that decides whether you get found. In this episode, I sit down with Bobby, the Google guy, and I'm telling you, you guys are in for a treat. Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency, is a certified Google Business Profile expert, and he specializes in working with us real estate agents, so he gets us. In this episode, I get so many of my questions answered. He also gives us a checklist, a Google Business Profile checklist, and it's also an AI checklist — the things that you should be doing for AI to be able to find you, which you're gonna learn in this episode. It all begins with Google Business Profile. So get that checklist. All you gotta do is text the word Google to 833-500-1135. Again, text the word Google to 833-500-1135. And without further ado, here is my interview with Bobby, the Google guy.
Neil Mathweg: Welcome, Risers. It's that time once again for the "Agent Rise" podcast. I'm your host, Neil Mathweg, joined by Bobby, the Google guy. Bobby, welcome my friend. How are you today?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: I'm great, Neil. Man, thanks so much for having me. This is a true pleasure. I'm really excited.
Neil Mathweg: Likewise, man. I'm excited to do this. We had an awesome lunch just last week and connected, and I'm like, "Man, we should've been recording that lunch," because it was so good. I'm like, "We need to bring this to the podcast." So, you know, Bobby, I'm fired up about this because I see a lot of agents forgetting about their Google Business Profile. And now I think even with AI emerging and AEO and all of that, I feel like some are thinking that the Google Business Profile should kinda be pushed off to the side, and that's just not true, right? Like, so what engines are running, like ChatGPT and Gemini? Like, where are they getting their answers about realtors?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Well, first of all, I'm gonna address something you just said. Agents are saying maybe that's something I should kinda put on the back burner. It is the most important thing and should be at the forefront of every agent's mind right now — is the Google Business Profile. And I'll kinda answer your question in a roundabout way and then more directly, but you know, websites for the last 20 years were the first step in a consumer's journey, and everyone thought that websites are how you got leads and how you got a funnel built and clients. Now, in 2026, the Google Business Profile a lot of times is the first step in a consumer's journey, okay?
Whether it's real estate or whether it's someone looking for a restaurant, we've all used Google Maps, which is what powers Google Business Profile, to just quickly look up a business, to look at reviews, look at what they're posting, look at photos to decide whether or not we're gonna give our hard-earned dollars to that business. For real estate agents, it's the same concept, except for not only are human beings looking at our Google Business Profiles, they're actually getting recommended to look at our Google Business Profiles by AI models. So to answer your question — is ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, are they all going straight to an agent's Google Business Profile to choose whether or not to recommend them? No, but in a roundabout way, yes, and I'll elaborate a little bit.
So specifically, you mentioned ChatGPT. ChatGPT does not specifically go right to Google Business Profile to decide to make a recommendation. However, they are going to places — ChatGPT in particular — they're going to places like Yelp. So if you're a realtor and you don't have a Yelp page, you're missing out on a massive opportunity right there, because there is a true connection between Yelp and ChatGPT and OpenAI. If you do not have a Better Business Bureau page, which is one of the world's most trusted platforms for all types of businesses, you don't have to pay money for the accredited five-star accreditation from Better Business Bureau, but you can have a free profile. So ChatGPT is directly pulling from that. ChatGPT, OpenAI, right? That's who owns ChatGPT, has an official partnership with Microsoft. A lot of us in the industry have probably known that or heard that in the news — that there was like a $15 billion partnership that Microsoft invested in OpenAI. So where do you think ChatGPT is gonna go look when they're trying to recommend businesses? They're going to Microsoft's version of Google Business Profile, which is called Bing Places.
Remember, everyone's heard of Bing — Bing the search engine, right? It came out 15, 20 years ago and nobody adopted it. I don't know anyone that really uses Bing. However, Bing has its own version of Google Business Profile called Bing Places, and if you've got a well-built, well-oiled Google Business Profile, you can do something as simple as going to bingplaces.com, and they've got a little sexy button that says "Sync with my Google Business Profile." And so all of a sudden now you'll have a platform on Bing Places, which is absolutely directly feeding ChatGPT and OpenAI. So right away, there's a three-banger on for real estate agents where they need to be if they're not. It's Better Business Bureau, it's Yelp, and it's Bing Places.
Neil Mathweg: Dude, hit it up in the comments right now and let me know if you knew about Bing Places. I had no clue, no idea. I didn't even know it existed. I knew about Bing, but didn't even know, and what a great… So do you feel like SEO, like traditional SEO, do you feel like that's dead? Or do you feel like it's just changed and evolved?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: It's definitely not dead. A lot of the principles for SEO from 1995 through 2025 — those principles are the same. You still need a really structured, hyperlocal website that's got evergreen content, okay? You can't have templated stuff that you see everywhere else, which for real estate agents — we could talk about websites, because most real estate agent websites out there, all 100,000 of them, they're just digital mirrors of all of your competitors, right? So is SEO dead? Absolutely not. We still need to be building our websites with hyperlocal content, with schema that all the search engines trust, okay? And I don't wanna make this a real nerdy podcast about the specifics of SEO, but the principles are the same. However, what is changing with AEO and GEO and SEO and all the EOs, right? E-I-E-I-O. What's changing is that these AI models are not just looking at your website, okay? We're in an age of obviously being visible, but now being trusted by AI models. And how do AI models in a millisecond make a decision to recommend those one, two, or three people in a result, right? ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude. They're not Google's AI Overviews. They're no longer giving, you know, 10 pages of blue links like traditional Google searches do, right? These AI models jump in. They say, "Hey Neil, you're looking for a great real estate agent in Fort Myers, Florida that specializes in gulf access canals that has sailboat access," right? Like those are very, very specific questions that people are asking AI models and Google itself.
And so when it comes to SEO, we're trying to proactively answer those people's questions, no matter the platform. So you've got to be creating hyperlocal content on your website, on your Google Business Profile, on your Facebook, on your Instagram, on YouTube. We wanna proactively answer people's questions. So to answer your question — is SEO dead or has it just changed? It's absolutely just changed, but more than anything, it's about hyperlocal content that sets you apart from all of your competitors. Because everyone knows the agents. We've seen them all out there. Everyone's content looks the same. It's a post that says, "Seven spring cleaning tips." It's a post that says, "Just listed." Like that's all generic slop, okay? Sure, it's about an individual property, like just listed, but in terms of the content, Google looks at you and says — and all the other search engines and AI models — they say, "Is this person, is this business putting out hyper-local, non-commoditized content, or is this commoditized, meaning I can find it anywhere, 10,000 other places?" And if Google thinks you're commoditized and you're a commodity, they're gonna basically suppress everything that you do, and they're gonna say, "Why would we promote this business or this real estate agent in search results when there's nothing different about them? There's nothing hyper-local. There's nothing that sets them apart. There's nothing that makes them a community expert as opposed to being like everybody else." So that is what's winning in terms of AEO today — is answering people's questions, creating educational opportunities.
Neil Mathweg: What does some of that content look like, the content that's winning?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Number one, question and answer format is winning, because we can actually find out — if you're working with us at LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency, or you're working with yourself with your AI tool, you can figure out pretty easily what search terms people are actually looking for, right? Like what search terms people are using, whether it's on Google or AI tools, and find out those questions. Also, go to Reddit. Look at what people are talking about in sub-threads for your particular community or service area. So question and answer format, and when you figure out those questions that people are asking, drill down and dial it down to as specific and local as possible. So that's really what's winning in terms of posts.
And so you could just post something like — I'll use our Southwest Florida as a reference again, right? You could say, "What are the closing costs on a Naples, Florida home that's priced over one million dollars?" Right? That's a very, very hyperlocal specific question, right? It's got geographical anchors, specificity, and then you're gonna answer that question in the post. "Well, closing costs you should approximate to estimate between a half percent and two percent of the total, overall purchase price. This much is gonna go to title insurance. This much is gonna go to home inspections. This much is gonna go to commissions." And when you get really, really specific and hyperlocal, that's the kind of stuff that's moving the needle, because that is what makes us look like community experts.
And I say that — I'm gonna say it again at some point — Google doesn't want to promote a business just because you're out there saying, "I'm great. Look at me. I've sold this many houses. Look at me. I do videos that I spend hundreds of dollars on at every property." But do you really do any business? Like, do you actually promote things in the community that people are looking for? And so we've got to create this opportunity for ourselves as local, hyperlocal agents, which most people are — that you are creating educational opportunities for the people in your area. Because if it just looks like you're a billboard for yourself, then all the tools, they basically say, "I can't trust this person," A, because the business owner is the only person talking about the business.
So there are — like Google calls them trust signals. And so every trust signal that you can put out there with hyperlocal content, local photographs, local videos promoting other local businesses — those are trust signals that Google says, "I'm willing to risk our reputation and promote this business in search results or AI overviews." And when Google starts to trust you and promote you, then AI models start to trust you and promote you more as well.
Neil Mathweg: Okay. So like, you know, going to a new coffee shop that just opens — you go in, you have a coffee, you have a pastry, you take a photo of it, you write a review, you post the photos in your Google Business Profile, right? And is that the kind of activity that we're looking to add to your profile?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Absolutely. And this is the hardest thing to kind of change the mindset of a real estate agent today, because it's so different than what it was. Like even just two or three years ago, I never saw any agents promoting other local businesses, which ipso facto promoted themselves, right? It's all about just listed. I did this many, this much volume, this many transactions. Look at me, look at me, look at me. Now, the value of creating wonderful, helpful content is actually promoting the community. Okay? So yes, in your example, if you're a real estate agent and you go to a local coffee shop, number one, talk to them and tell them you're gonna take a picture and you're gonna give them a five-star review, so that they in turn can do the same thing for you as a local community expert real estate agent. They don't have to have bought or sold a home with you, right? If they know you in some capacity, they know you, like you, trust you, and if you built a relationship with them, even at that five minutes that you interacted with them, and they think you're communicative, professional, ethical, why wouldn't they also leave you a five-star review, right?
So when you do that — and heck, you can even, in the review that you leave for the coffee shop, you can add a little plug for yourself in there. Okay? So what people don't understand, Neil, and this is why I love talking about this stuff, and this is why we're the real estate experts when it comes to Google Business Profiles — is that Google and AI tools don't read the star rating on your review only. They're reading the words in every review on planet Earth. So the verbiage is just as important as the star rating itself. A four-star rating out of five — a four-star rating with tons of great keywords talking about you specifically, your business, geographical anchors, talking about the specificity of the problems that you helped solve during a real estate transaction. All of those on a four-star review is more valuable than a five-star review with no words that accompanied it. Okay? So the verbiage in the review… And this, by the way, I think it's important to say that none of this is my theory. Like, as a certified Google expert — like, this is what Google tells us. So it's really important for people as they're hearing this, they don't say, "Oh, this guy, he's just telling us to add special words to our reviews." That's what's moving the needle.
So every review — and I'm sure we're probably gonna dig more into reviews a little bit later at some point — but every review is an opportunity. It's an SEO opportunity. It's an AEO opportunity. But everything, everything, everything that you put online from now on, whether it's a review or a post or a video, everything has to have geographical anchors. Okay? You can't just have a review that says, "Neil was a great agent. I loved working with him. Five stars." That doesn't help Google rank your business. It needs to say specifically, "I loved working with Neil Mathweg because he was the most communicative professional, great at negotiation. He's the best agent I've ever had in Fort Myers, Florida. He sold my house and got it under contract in less than five days over asking price, and we were closed in 30 days. I'll never work with another agent in Fort Myers or Southwest Florida again." Boom. So that kind of keyword review is actually what basically wakes up Google and AI tools to look at your business and say, "That is a business worth promoting," versus a business that has 100 five-star reviews from 2025 and before, and there's nothing recent. That's also a thing. Like, we gotta talk about that — recency bias.
Google has a massive recency bias, and so do the AI tools. If you're not getting three to five reviews every single month full of those keywords that we just talked about, Google thinks your business is dying or dead. I mean, I'll say that again for the people in the back. Three to five minimum reviews every single month. That's just Google, okay? Google's not the only game in town. It's the most important game in town, but it profiles on Zillow. We mentioned Better Business Bureau. We mentioned Yelp, okay? Real estate-specific citations or platforms are important. Zillow, Realtor.com, Homes.com. Homes.com features your stats, your transaction count, your volume count, right? They show that stuff, and that's an anchor. That's a trust signal that Google looks at, the AI tools look at. So this is really a holistic look, you know, 30,000 feet at everything that we're talking about. But reviews are probably the most important part of making our business visible as real estate professionals — and Google number one, of course, right? But then also real estate-specific platforms.
Zillow reviews are still important. That's a question we get asked all the time. "Should I stop focusing on getting Zillow reviews? Should I stop focusing on getting Facebook recommendations and reviews?" And the answer is no, you should not stop. You basically need reviews across every platform. It doesn't have to be a lot. Focus the most on Google, okay? For instance, LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency, our company, we've got like 260 five-star reviews on Google. That's amazing, right? We get a bunch every single week, every single month. On Facebook, I think we've got 10. On Better Business Bureau, I think we've got five. On Yelp, we've got six or seven. So we can see the disparity in the volume of reviews, right? Google's the focus 'cause that's the most important, but we still have some reviews. So you don't have to look at this as if, "Oh my God, I gotta get 200 reviews on 10 different platforms." You don't have to do that, but you do want some reviews on as many platforms as possible.
Neil Mathweg: Another question about reviews, and this might be so outdated, but the difference between a solicited review and an unsolicited review — where, you know, like if I'm saying, "Scan this QR code," and they scan that to leave me a review, versus somebody googling my name and leaving a review. Does Google still weight that, or does that not matter anymore?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Doesn't matter on Google. It does matter on Yelp.
Neil Mathweg: Okay.
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: So Yelp — Yelp has a policy that says you literally cannot solicit reviews. And here's an example, okay? So I mean, everyone still does it. Yelp — yeah, everyone thinks of Yelp as like a food and beverage review place, right? That's where everyone used it for a decade, and now it's open for all businesses. And if you do create a free account on Yelp, just prepare yourself. They're gonna call you 10 times a day for 60 days trying to get you to pay for their ad program of $300 to $600 a month. You don't have to do that. You can tell them to stop calling you, but I do want everyone to be prepared. It is important to have a profile there, so go get one today if you don't, okay? But you don't have to do the paid version. But if you get reviews that you've solicited, they've got — I don't know how, but they've got a system built in with Yelp specifically that they know when the reviews have been driven for traffic to leave a review. And so they will actually not show those reviews publicly. I think they call them invisible reviews or something like that. So you still have them on your profile, but they're not necessarily publicly visible. So on Google specifically, no. Like you can use QR codes, put a QR code on your car, do it at closings, you know.
And speaking specifically about reviews — and honestly when we talk about things like this, that's what people are mostly focused on, is reviews, and so I'm happy to talk about it. But as real estate agents, number one, you gotta have your systems dialed in. You've gotta have a campaign built in post-close or post clear-to-close that's automatically requesting reviews from people, because you have to get reviews when your clients are the happiest. Okay? That — I mean, the game's over if you don't do that. If you wait two weeks or a week or three days after they've closed, they've forgotten about you. I mean, they haven't forgotten the relationship and everything you did for them, but the last thing they care about is spending three minutes to go leave you a Google review or a review on Zillow or Yelp or Facebook. So we've got to do it as real estate professionals.
Number one, either have it dialed in with a text and an email request at clear-to-close, okay? Just know there's some risk, right? If something goes sideways in the transaction, they're probably gonna blame you, and then you risk a bad review. Or right at the closing table. So if you're a real estate agent that's still going to closings, which of course we recommend — I think anybody would recommend still going to closings because that's that final touch of when your clients are the happiest, so they're gonna remember that day. So if that's the case — you know, I don't have an example here, but you can get like a clear acrylic glass block. It's acrylic, so like plastic, and it looks really clean and fresh. Have your QR code directly to your Google review link printed on that acrylic block. Have it there at the closing table and say at the very end — they've signed everything, they've got the keys — "Hey, would you mind scanning this code and leaving a review?" Have another piece of paper, or have something there printed maybe on the block that says, "Please mention us by name." There's five steps to the holy grail of a review, Neil.
Neil Mathweg: Okay? Let's hear it.
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Yeah. Number one, five stars. Number two, they need to mention you by name, okay? Number three, they need to mention the city, the state, and even the neighborhood or street name is helpful in the review. So for real estate agents, this is super easy because we're literally dealing with the specific property during the transaction. That city, state, neighborhood, subdivision, or street name is gonna be really important. Number four, they need to mention specific keywords that signify your excellence or talk about the problem that you solved as the real estate agent. I gave the example of you, right? "Neil sold my house in less than five days, over asking price, 30-day close." Et cetera, et cetera. That is signifying your excellence. And number five of the holy grail of a review is if they can add a photograph to their review. So when you do this at the closing table, it's so easy to accomplish this because you're right there with them. So you can — you're not telling them what to say, but you're giving them guardrails. You know, name, five stars, city, state, geographical location, problem I solved, and a photograph. Let them come up with the other words to say, but just give them the schema so that they don't wander off too far, right?
So my point is, have that QR code, use it, get driven reviews. That's for people right in with you in person. But then most of us have a vast database. Like, go back to the well. Even if you forgot — if you're an agent that just hasn't done a very good job of connecting with your database over the years, it's okay. Go back to them and say, "Hey, Neil, remember when we worked together four years ago? I know we haven't talked a lot since then. However, I'm on a mission to really show the rest of the world how great our business is. Can you help me?" First of all, when you use marketing psychology language like that and you say, "Can you help me?" or "Can you help us?" it just triggers something in people that says, "Okay, yes, I'm gonna be willing to help him." As opposed to, "Hey, here's a link. Go leave us a review." Like that's not gonna move the needle, right? So in your review template language, "Can you help us? I'm on a mission to get to 50 reviews, 20 reviews, 200 reviews, whatever it is" — this is what helps. Name, star rating, geographical anchors, problem I solved, and if you can add a photograph too, that would be really helpful. Text, email — and by the way, folks, you can't do this just once. You have to ask multiple times. You can't just send one email and hope that people are gonna do it.
The numbers — the stats are most people, I think it's 10%. So if you ask 100 people for a review, 10 people might do it, okay? That's not a lot to begin with. So if you're making those requests via email, the number goes down even more. It's gonna be like 2 or 3%. If you follow up the email with a text message, the odds go straight up. If you then have a built-in campaign that there's multiple steps — okay, we always teach hit them hard and hit them often. Like you need to have five or six requests built into your campaigns. And for the people that are sitting there listening saying, "Uh, I'm sorry, what Bobby? You want me to ask my clients for a review six times? That's crazy talk. I'm gonna annoy them." For those people — and anyone that's heard me on other podcasts or other shows, I say the same thing — for those people that are questioning that theory, questioning that method, those are probably the people that don't have very many Google reviews, right? So you can continue saying, "Oh, I don't wanna be pushy," or you can be a real estate agent with 100 recent reviews over the last 12 months, and your business gets more visible and more promoted, and therefore you're helping more people, you're serving your community. Oh, and by the way, your business is succeeding so that you can help more people and do the thing you love for longer.
Neil Mathweg: Stick to that. Like a Google review a week, one or two a week, right? Kind of the…
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Yeah, it's three to five a month, so if you can spread it out one to two a week, that would be the sweet spot.
Neil Mathweg: Just focus on it and it'll happen, right? And I love that — I love your example at the coffee shop too, 'cause it's like, you know, you're leaving them a review, and why don't they reciprocate? And there's multiple employees there working that probably can leave you a review as well, so you can kind of multiply that. What's… You know, everything feels like it's always changing, right? Like, Google — well, see, it's already changed. We, we Google My Business, right?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: It's already changed.
Neil Mathweg: Google Business Profile. Like, how do you proof it so that it's good for the future?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Well, number one, it's a living, breathing tool. So let's make it really, really clear that the Google Business Profile is not a set-it-and-forget-it thing. And I think that's why a company like ours has been so successful — is because most agents set it up years ago and then never touched it again or got reviews on it, and they thought that they were doing okay, right? So number one, how to future-proof the success of your business online is to treat your Google Business Profile as a living, breathing social media platform. We've all known over the years — we've all learned from the algorithms that if you don't post on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or LinkedIn, if you never post, they're not gonna show your content when you do randomly post, right? It's gotta be consistent. Every platform's a little bit different, but Google's the same way. So if they're going to allow us to promote our businesses for free on the world's largest platform, they want to know that we're utilizing their tools.
And so again, that recency bias kicks in. If you're only posting a random photo, or you're posting a just-sold graphic once a month, they're looking at your profile saying, "This business is not really thriving." So future-proof, number one, is just make sure it's active. It's getting the three to five reviews a month. It's adding photographs to the profile or videos to the profile directly, just like you would Instagram or Facebook. Okay? You can just take a picture in your local community, throw it up on your Google Business Profile. That's a trust signal, that's a ranking signal that Google sees that the business is actually moving. Okay? Moving forward, so then they will look at your business and help promote you in search results more. So adding photos, adding videos, posting just as if it was a Facebook or a LinkedIn thread. You can actually add posts, add a photograph, add copy. You can even link that post to an external thing. You can link it to your website, link it to a funnel, link it to a YouTube video that you've got. So there's lots of opportunities here.
But back to your question, like how do you future-proof? It's number one, just stay active on the profile. Number two, get reviews, 'cause again, that's gonna be one of the biggest ranking factors on your profile. A lot has changed with it. As you said, it used to be called Google My Business. It was a standalone application on your phone that you go on and you can manage your business, and a couple of years ago, they changed it, rebranded to Google Business Profile, and now it's powered by Google Maps. So if you wanna manage your Google profile on your phone, it's all through Google Maps, the app on your cell phone. It doesn't matter if it's iPhone or Android. So you've gotta log into your email address that manages that particular Google Business Profile, log into that email address through Maps, and then you can do everything digitally. So you take a picture out in the wild of that coffee shop, and then load it up into Google Maps, and that goes straight to your business profile.
So these are all the things that we can be doing to make sure that we're future-proofing our business, but number one, just make sure it does not go stale, 'cause that recency bias is really real. And if you optimize your Google Business Profile and you've got great services and products and posts and events and offers — which, by the way, those are all tools on the Google Business Profile, okay? These are all separate tools. If you're utilizing all those things and you do it once, or for 30 days, and you think, "Okay, cool, I optimized my profile," and then you stop posting for three months, Google thinks you're dead.
And here's the other cool thing, okay? We talked about reviews and going back to the well of your past database. If that person that you worked with 10 years ago leaves you a review today, Google thinks of that as a brand new customer. So it doesn't matter. Don't be afraid to go back to your clients that you've worked with over the years, 'cause if they leave you a review on any platform, that's a brand new customer in those companies' eyes. So therefore, they don't care if you worked with them 10 years ago or 10 days ago. If they're leaving a review today, that's a brand new customer, and Google's saying, "Hey, look at this business. It's thriving." And if you can do it enough, consistently, then they're like, "Hey, this is a business that's worth our trust, therefore worth our promotion in search results."
Neil Mathweg: Another question that just popped in my head — I think this is a challenge that I've seen agents run into. Not all agents have an office. A lot of virtual brokerages, and you work from home, you work from your car. Google is all about the place that you're at, right? And the address. And is it getting easier or harder to get that approval, to get your account set up?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: That's a great question. It's hard as hell. So yeah, it is not getting any easier. If you want a physical address with a client-facing address, whether it's your home or your office, it's gonna be difficult. And I say difficult because once you create your profile or you add an address to an existing profile, they're gonna make you jump through a lot of verification hoops. So you have to do basically a verification video, and on the surface that sounds fine. Like, "Okay, cool, I'll video my office, and then they think I'm real." It's not the case. There's so much fraudulent behavior with Google Business Profiles that they've made it really, really stringent. So can I give you a preview of what it looks like to do a video verification?
Neil Mathweg: Yeah.
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Okay. First of all, it's all one continuous video. You would log into your Google Maps account, go to the Start Video Verification process. You'd hit Record. You're gonna start outside in the exterior. Make sure, number one, that you've got your car keys in your pocket, 'cause it's gonna come into play. Make sure that you've got your house keys or office keys in your pocket, 'cause that's gonna come into play. Make sure that there's some kind of signage, whether it's homemade or real, on the front door or on the front of the building, okay? So you're gonna start your video out on the street at the nearest street intersection. You start your video and you start recording the actual street signs that are the closest intersection, showcasing where your business is located. Because what powers Google Business Profile? Google Maps, right? So everything's geographically anchored. So you start recording the street signs. You start walking towards your house or towards your building. You show the street number, the house number on the outside of the facade of the house or the building. You need to show yourself unlocking your car at that location. Unlock your car, get in your car, start your car, turn your car off, get out of your car, lock your doors. All one video, recording yourself doing this, walking towards the front of your building or your house, show the house number, show yourself using a key to get into the house or a keypad. You have to show management access. Okay? I know this is getting nerdy, but this is what it takes. Then once you get in your house — as an example for cloud-based brokerages — you then need to go to your office space, whether it's your kitchen table or a dedicated office space in your house, and show that you have access to that door. If it's a locked door, show that you can get in with a key. And then in that room, to wrap up the video, you need the legal proof that you're the legal business owner. So have your LLC paperwork laid out, have your DBA — if you've got a separate DBA — have that laid out, have your website pulled up on your computer. If you're an agent, obviously on this podcast you are, have a yard sign, have some other marketing materials, business cards, flyers, your yard sign handy, and get all of that in the video. This is all in one continuous two-to-three-minute max video. That's what it takes to get verified these days.
Neil Mathweg: Oh my God.
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: So, I know. So the flip side to that is a lot of agents that are cloud-based are saying like, "First of all, I don't have an office, and I don't want my home address on Google Business Profile for the world to see, so I'll call myself a service area business." So Google is getting — I'm not saying getting easier, but for real estate agents, what we've seen in the last several weeks is that it actually has gotten a little easier to get those profiles approved, like right away, and they're not requiring any video verification or any legal entity verification. So you can just create a Google profile that says, you know, Bobby Kerr, or whatever my LLC paperwork is. That's important. So if you are Bobby Kerr, the realtor, but my business LLC is Bob Jovi Realty — okay, a little plug there for my Bon Jovi tribute band, Bob Jovi — but if my real estate company's called Bob Jovi Realty LLC, and my Google profile needs to match my LLC or match my legal personal name, okay? So it can't be like "Bobby Kerr, Cape Coral's Best Canal Home Realtor." Google won't allow keyword stuffing or location word stuffing into names anymore. We used to be able to do that. Like, you could say, "Neil Mathweg, Fort Myers' best agent in the world, call me today." That could be your business name, right? You can't do that anymore. It's gotta be a legal entity.
So again, back to the service area business — if you don't have a physical address, then yes, you can just say, "I serve these up to 20 service areas. I service these 20 cities." Make sure it's all within 90 minutes' drive time, okay? If you're in Kansas City, Missouri, don't put that you do business in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That's four hours away, okay? Make sure it's about 90 minutes' drive time of where you say your service areas are. Otherwise, Google will call foul and probably suspend your profile.
Neil Mathweg: Okay. Talking about a suspended profile, what are some other things? The Google jail — what keeps you out of the Google jail?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Google jail sucks. And sometimes there's no rhyme or reason. Like, you could post something, and they'll say that it goes against their company policy, their posting policy, and you're like, "What the hell?" Right? So, they don't allow adding phone numbers inside of posts. So if you try to put your phone number, like, "Call me today, text me today at my phone number," they're gonna automatically take down the post, send you an email, and sometimes they'll just suspend the profile for stupid stuff like that, okay? That's pretty rare, but my point is, Google is kind of quick to do crazy things. And so again, it's very important to always be monitoring your profile, because if you don't touch it for a couple of weeks and you think that things are going well, you're sending people your review link, but Google's pulled down your profile — you're not visible. Like, you're invisible. And the second you go off Google, then the AI models trust your business less as well.
So some other things that might get you suspended: obviously, if they think you're soliciting reviews. By soliciting, I mean like running a contest to get more reviews. You know, "Get a $500 gift card or be entered to win if you leave me a review." You know, you tell your clients, "Hey, leave me a review and I'll give you a $20 coffee shop gift card." Don't do anything like that. Don't purchase reviews — never do that. It's unethical, number one. Number two, Google's gonna know it. What else could get you suspended today? Getting too many reviews too quickly. That's a big one. So the people that are listening to this show and you're like, "Oh my God, I gotta get my reviews," and you go out and you send a blast email to a thousand of your past clients, and if you get 100 reviews in the next 48 hours or the next week, most likely Google's gonna suspend your profile. Okay? Because they're gonna say something's up. They did something to go from zero to 100, right? So this really is — whether you're starting or whether you're getting back in the game, or whether you're maintaining your profile — this is like tortoise and the hare type of race. We've got to just be kind of slow and consistent to make sure that we're showing Google that this is a trustworthy long-term business and not just a flash in the pan.
Neil Mathweg: Yeah. How long does it take to kind of get results and you start to see it work?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Yeah. I mean, we've taken over profiles and started managing profiles that within 30 days, people are getting real-life calls. Like, I get a call like, "Oh my gosh, Bobby, I got two listings this week," and when I ask where they found me, "I got them from Google." And then of course, I'm ecstatic, because that's not — that's the exception, not the rule. So you asked the question, how long does it take. Sometimes we get a little lucky. That just depends on your market. Are your competitors leveraging Google as much as you? How many real estate agents? Like, if you're in a place like Chicago, where there's 40,000 realtors within a 10-square-mile radius, the competition is higher, so you've got more people leveraging Google. They're running Google ads. They're getting a ton of reviews. But if you're in a place — I mean, even Southwest Florida's pretty crowded, right? But if you're in a more rural area and the population's less dense and you have fewer competition, then the odds are, if you start leveraging this tool better than your competitors, Google's gonna start to recognize you.
So I'm answering in a roundabout way. In a direct way — most of the time you start to see impressions. Google starts showing your profile more to people in search results within 60 days. You can look at a performance report of your profile as an owner, and you'll see the numbers start to go up month by month. Of course, it's always gonna dip. Like right now — July, August, September — when people are getting ready to go back to school, people are just naturally looking at fewer houses. So Google Business Profile performance tends to go down this time of year, especially for real estate. But then you get back into the heavy buying season in the spring and things start to skyrocket. So 30 to 60 days for initial impressions, and usually 60 to 120 days you start seeing calls, clicks, website visits directly from your Google Business Profile pick up.
Neil Mathweg: What — and like if you're listening to this and you're a new agent, and you're looking at somebody that already has 100 reviews out there, maybe they've been a veteran for 20 years selling real estate — how does the new agent compete against that?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Great, that's a great question. So number one, you don't have a past database to go back to, right? Unless you're coming from another industry and you can lean on that a little bit, to say, "Hey, Neil, I know we worked together in the casino business a couple of years ago, but I'm a realtor now. You know how professional I was, ethical, communicative in my position at the casino. Would you mind leaving me a review talking about my professionalism and how I am a great agent to people and a professional?" Like, you can do that if you've got some sphere of influence contacts, but make sure they don't lie. Like, don't ask people to say, "Hey, I know we worked together at a casino business and you've never bought a house with me, but can you tell everyone I was a great realtor to work with when I sold your house when I never really sold your house?" Like, don't do that, right?
But for the newer agents that are looking at the uphill battle, I would say this is kind of what we talk about and we teach in our workshops and webinars — is character reviews. Okay? So new agents, it's tough, 'cause your book of business, your book of referral partners is less. So lean on some co-oping agents that you work with, other agents in your office. They know how you're doing business. They know that you've got a desire for mastery. You're going to classes, you're doing coaching, right? You're doing all these things, so you can lean on those people. But always — and I didn't come up with it, actually I think one of our clients came up with this verbiage a long time ago — and they called them character reviews. So instead of asking for a review that doesn't make much sense, you could say, "Hey, Mr. Home Inspector, would you mind leaving me a character review? And I'll do the same for you. You know how we've interacted together in front of clients. Can you just talk about my professionalism, my ethical behavior?"
Hey, lender friend, lender partner — we've done deals together. Title insurance, electricians, all these different people. There's 60 different referral partners or some type of vendor that you work with during a real estate transaction. Those people are great opportunities to go to, to say, "Hey, can we leave each other character reviews to talk about professionalism, ethical behavior, communication, et cetera." So that would be a good place to start, naturally, on top of your built-in SOI.
Neil Mathweg: I love this. I think most new agents kind of put this all on the back burner and they wait for business to start flourishing, and I love this — that they can start today, right? It can get going today, no matter how new you are.
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Yeah, and real quick, Neil, just to piggyback on that — you know, a lot of new agents, they think, "Okay, I'm just gonna lean heavily onto social media videos. I'm just gonna do a lot of TikTok and a lot of Facebook and Instagram." And I don't want people to stop doing that, but that is not the number one source for AI tools nor Google to look at when trying to decide who to recommend, right? We're in the world now where these AI tools we talked about in the beginning, they're recommending one, two, or three results. So if you're not in those one, two, or three results, we need to be looking at the places that those AI tools are pulling from to determine whether or not you're a trustworthy business. So doing another TikTok video doesn't necessarily move the needle.
So continue doing those things to make yourself visible on multiple platforms, but also be paying attention to the tried-and-true things. Google Business Profile — it's been tried and true for 15 years, and it's more important now than ever, because all these tools are leaning on the review count, the profile's activity. Are you a local expert? Local videos, local photos. So don't take your focus away from doing trendy social media videos, but also lean into the stuff that is the foundation for SEO and AEO, and that's Google Business Profile, that's Zillow reviews, that is a Better Business Bureau account. It's these things that are looked at as trustworthy, because the way that they work it, they look at EEAT: experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. That's what Google calls it, EEAT. So if you are not appearing as if you're experienced, as if you're an expert in your field, you're not authoritative or trustworthy by all the things that we've just talked about — right? Hyperlocal content, reviews, different citations where you've got a profile on 30 different platforms. If you're not on all these different things doing these things, then you are lacking EEAT, therefore you're less trustworthy, therefore you're going to be recommended fewer times. So I didn't wanna interrupt you, but I think it's important for everyone to understand that this is not a one-size-fits-all approach. You've gotta do a little bit — you gotta do new school, you gotta do old school.
Neil Mathweg: Yeah, and you get in the rhythm of it, get it in your day blocker, and away we go, right?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Absolutely.
Neil Mathweg: And what's the — if you're listening to this and you wanna get started with this, what's something that you can do this next week? I wanna get people into action here. What's something they can do?
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: Besides going to loc8mybusiness.com for help creating a Google Business Profile? Now, if you are a person that's like, "Yep, I'm ready to go. I need to start doing something," you know, if you're a DIY-er, you can just go and create a Google Business Profile on your own. Get verified. If you don't want your address or don't have one, you can do a service area business. Just get your profile approved, number one, okay? And then number two, I'd start focusing on getting a few reviews. 'Cause you could have 40 years in this business, and you could have had $200 million in lifetime transactional volume and done X amount of transactions and have a really, really sexy-looking website, and you think you're hot stuff. But we're seeing real estate agents with two years of experience or six months of experience populate higher in search results than their predecessors who have been in the business for 20, 30 years.
I'll give you an example. We're working with some agents right now — I won't mention the brokerage — but we're working with a mother and son, where the mother's like the team lead. It's her brokerage. So she's got her own profile, and the son just got his license. The way that they worded it, they said 14 minutes ago. That's how green he is, okay? This has just happened in a conversation yesterday I had. So we worked with the son two weeks ago. Built his profile. He's brand new. He doesn't have any — like one or two transactions — but he's got a kickass Google Business Profile, and his mom has been in the business for 25 years. He's been in the business for 14 minutes, and she called me yesterday and said, "Okay, I need to have a meeting with you, Bobby, because my son is showing higher in Google search results than I am, and I've got 300 transactions under my belt in 25 years."
So if you're somebody who's just getting started, the opportunity is really, really good right now, because 93% — this is a real stat, and I forget the source, but I've got videos on it, so somebody can find it on my website — but 93% of real estate professionals are not optimized, number one, on their Google Business Profile, and number two, on any social profile. So if you're listening to this and you're like, "Man, I'm brand new. What am I gonna do?" You've got a leg up on the competition just by listening to things like this and listening to the Agent Rise podcast, and listening to Neil and all the coaches, and listening to people like us, because the opportunity is here. We're in the fourth industrial revolution with AI, right? You have such an opportunity to be able to streamline a lot of this stuff. A lot of us that are in our mid-40s have had to learn and adapt over the last 25 years with the internet. Now you can get going and hit the ground running and really, really kick some butt by making yourself more visible, starting tomorrow. So just creating a Google profile and getting a few reviews will actually start moving the needle quicker than you might think.
Neil Mathweg: Bobby, this is so awesome, man. So much gold. We could keep going all day, man. We got more, but this is great.
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: I'm here for you, man.
Neil Mathweg: This is great. How does everybody find you? This is a great question to ask a guy named Bobby the Google Guy.
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: That's right. Well, they can, first of all, just go to our website. That's for our real estate marketing agency — this is all we do. We are loc8mybusiness.com. That's L-O-C-8. I know that's really cheeky — LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency. You can find our website, schedule 30 free minutes with me directly to kinda talk about your online visibility strategy, what's working, what's not working, what are your goals. Watch a ton of countless how-to videos and helpful videos. Go to YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, or everywhere you can find me personally @ the, T-H-E, Bobby Kerr, K-E-R-R. I'm on all the platforms as well. So you know, we're just like you, Neil. We're trying to just create value, give people as much free content as possible so that you do feel like you can do it yourself. But if you are an agent who's focused on doing money-making activities, building relationships, serving your community, serving home buyers and home sellers and investors in your cities — just give us a call, check us out, go to our website, loc8mybusiness.com. Let us be the experts for marketing and Google Business Profiles for you, so that you're not spinning your wheels for days or weeks or months trying to figure out how to get out of Google jail, or how to set up a profile the right way, or come up with a review strategy — when we've already got everything set in place, and we can let you hit the ground running really fast.
Neil Mathweg: You rock, Bobby. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks so much for being on the show. Man, you're awesome.
Bobby Kerr, Founder of LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency: My pleasure. Thank you, Neil.
Neil Mathweg: Guys, hit us up in the comments. Let us know what you think. Any questions you have, I'm sure Bobby will be happy to answer them, and thank you again for listening to The Agent Rise podcast. And like always, remember to be the reason somebody smiles today.
LOC8 My Business - Real Estate Marketing Agency builds the hyperlocal Google Business Profiles, review systems, and citations that get you found on Google and cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
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