Google Business Profile Strategies for Loan Officers in 2026

Transcript cleaned from the episode recording. Host is David Lykken; guest is Bobby Kerr of LOC8 My Business.

[0:01] David Lykken: Welcome to Lykken on Lending, the podcast that dives deep into the heart of the mortgage industry. Your host, David Lykken, bringing you the latest insights, trends, and updates from the world of mortgages. Whether you're a seasoned industry veteran or just getting started, this show is your go-to source for all things mortgage. Let's get started.

[0:29] David Lykken: Listeners, no one would argue with the fact that this is a tough market and there are therefore skills you need to be more effective. One of which is — are you being discovered when someone does a Google search? Well, we have an expert with us today, Bobby Kerr, who is the Google Guy. I met him through Ben, my producer's efforts of going searching for good guests, because we're here about helping you listeners. So we found this guy and I've got to tell you, I'm so impressed. I now have him working on my business, Google Business Profile. Bobby Kerr is the Google Guy. Good to have you here, Google Guy.

[1:09] Bobby Kerr: Thanks, David. I appreciate it, man. I'm really excited to share with your listeners all the best practices for Google and AI visibility.

David Lykken: Yeah. Well, there's a lot to this as you and I have talked, spent some time visiting, getting to know each other, and I've really enjoyed it. First of all, I just enjoy someone who knows and is really passionate about what they do, but is also just a good human being that really cares about people doing well — you've combined those two things and look at what you've done. I really want to get into that. Before we do, tell us a little bit about yourself for those that don't know you, how you got to where you're at.

[1:42] Bobby Kerr: Sure. Well, I've been in real estate for about 10, 12 years. I started my first real estate based business, which was a home inspection company. I grew up around the construction business — my grandfather owned a custom home building business in the Kansas City area. So I was around it a lot, around homes and systems. I was getting my real estate license to become a licensed real estate agent, and of course you learn all facets of the business during that time. And I got to the home inspection component and I said, you know what? I've already bought and sold 15 homes by now. And every home inspector I ever had was older, was overweight, did everything analog. So I'm going to do everything digital, and I'm going to turn this into a marketing company who does phenomenal home inspections.

So we did that. We started leveraging relationships with real estate agents and really just took off the business. And from there, I leveraged that relationship, sold the business, moved on to the mortgage space, was a vice president at a mortgage brokerage in Kansas City. Then we started a property and casualty insurance business. Then got into real estate teams and sales, and then marketing. And here we are today helping mortgage professionals and real estate agents across this great country be more visible on Google search and AI search.

[2:48] David Lykken: And let's talk about the importance of being visible on a Google Business search. A lot of people say, "Aren't we moving past that with AI and it's SEO? Now it is GEO." And talk a little bit about why it is so important that you have a good Google Business Profile.

[3:03] Bobby Kerr: Well, number one, David, a Google Business Profile is the foundation for all online visibility. So you might have a ton of opportunity. You might have a ton of experience in this business. You might have been a mortgage loan officer for 20 or 30 years, had a ton of transactions, great relationships. But if all you're doing is leveraging your reputation through person-to-person and not leveraging your reputation online, then essentially you're not going to get found. You're forgotten.

So the Google Business Profile is the foundation for all online visibility. Every AI tool and some component is pulling directly from Google Business Profile, or indirectly — but it's looking there no matter what. So whether it's your reviews, your business profile settings, the data that you've incorporated onto it, your website — your Google Business Profile is the foundational piece for all online visibility. So if you want to be found on ChatGPT, or on Google Gemini, or Perplexity, or Claude, or Copilot, or pick your poison — Grok — if you want to be found there, and you don't have a highly optimized Google Business Profile, you're missing out on a massive opportunity.

So that's why it's so important for mortgage loan officers to be paying attention to this podcast today, because this is the start of everything for online visibility — foundation. That's a key word there.

David Lykken: And that's — I love the name of your business, as your hat suggests, LOC8. And you are the founder of LOC8 My Business, and it is a real estate marketing [agency] that specializes in Google profiles. I'm really impressed with what you've done as I've started the process to really work on my own. I had my eyes opened to mistakes that I had made. And I would like to have you explain to our listeners: what is the number one mistake that you see loan officers or anyone in the production business and sales side making on their business profile that costs them leads and visibility?

[4:48] Bobby Kerr: Yeah. The first one — basically, mortgage loan officers are notoriously bad at this. Real estate agents are bad; mortgage loan officers are even worse when it comes to paying any attention to their Google Business Profile. So the number one mistake that we see every day is that loan officers and brokers and lenders across the country just don't leverage this tool at all. Or they've set it and they've forgotten it. Maybe they've got a few reviews, but they've never touched it in months or years.

And mortgage folks just don't quite understand that this is a living, breathing tool to promote your business on the world's biggest platform for free every single day. So the number one mistake is setting it and forgetting it and not coming back to it, because it is truly a living, breathing tool. Google wants us to use this tool. This is the world's largest platform for business data sets, which is Google Business Profile. All the AI tools are pulling from it directly, especially Gemini.

So if you don't touch it — essentially the way that it works is Google's got a massive recency bias. So if you're not leveraging this tool, if you're not getting consistent reviews, you're not responding to reviews, you're not adding photographs or videos of you and your business on your business profile — Google basically looks at your business as dead or dying. Because what are they saying? They're looking at David's business and they're saying, "Okay, David doesn't have any recent reviews. He hasn't added any photographs or any videos of his business that are promoting his business to his business profile. He's not adding any posts. He hasn't added any hyper-local services to the back end of his profile. I don't even know what to do with David or his business. Why would we trust this mortgage business to promote it enough in search results if David doesn't even trust his business enough to get new customers and show them through reviews and all those things?"

So I think that's what people just need to focus on — this is a living, breathing tool that we've got to work on every single day.

[6:42] David Lykken: Great points. You know what actually separates a loan officer Google Business Profile that ranks and converts from one that just sits out there looking finished?

Bobby Kerr: Well, I think we just touched it on the surface — it's one that actually gets leveraged. It gets used.

David Lykken: When you say leverage, explain leverage in this case.

[7:00] Bobby Kerr: Sure, that's a great question. So leverage is meaning using it — using it as an actual tool. Again, mortgage loan officers, they're notorious. Somebody in the funnel of their business set up a business profile — either a marketing contractor, or somebody on their team, or themselves when they first got started — and then they just leave it alone and they don't understand that this is the tool to, quote unquote, leverage or to utilize every single day.

Loan officers are great at LinkedIn, they're great at Facebook videos, some are even great at YouTube videos or Instagram, etc. But if you want to be found online with the world's biggest search crawlers right now — which is AI visibility. And let me back up a little bit, David: AI search. AI search tools — ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. In January of 2024, less than 1% of all internet search traffic was going to AI tools. Less than 1%, two and a half years ago. By June of 2024, that had risen to 2.5%. So a one-and-a-half percent rise in six months. Fast forward to this summer, where over 15% of all internet search traffic is going to AI search tools instead of traditional search tools. So instead of someone going straight to Google or Yahoo or Bing, they're going to an AI search tool. That's a thousand-plus percent increase in two and a half years.

So for the folks that are saying, "Well, I'm a referral-based business. I get all my business from agents. Why do I need to work on my online visibility if referrals are my primary form of business coming in?" It's because the statistics are wild. When someone does refer someone to your business, what's the first thing they do? They verify you, to make sure that it's a good referral, and they go straight to Google. They look at the reviews from other clients and customers to make sure that you are aligned with their needs and what they need as a homebuyer.

So what separates the loan officer profile that ranks and converts? Number one, it's one that's getting reviews on a consistent basis. The ones that are not performing are the ones that pay somebody like us to build their profile, or they do it themselves, and then they never touch it again. It's got to be loved on on a weekly basis. The recency bias is real.

And I did just touch on reviews and I want to go a little bit deeper on that, because it's the most important component for a loan officer. You've got to be getting three to five keyword-rich, hyper-local, geographically tagged Google reviews every single month, minimum. I'm going to say that again for the people in the back: three to five keyword-rich, geographically anchored, five-star reviews on Google every single month. That's the hot spot. That's the magic number that Google essentially says this business is worth promoting in search results. If you're getting one or two reviews a month, they basically kind of view you as — this is a small fish. This is not somebody that we trust enough to promote in search results at a higher clip.

David Lykken: And when we're talking about reviews, we see so many people — what you put in a Google review, are there some dos and don'ts that I'm imagining about this process that Google sees through? Is that a way to say it?

[10:09] Bobby Kerr: Yeah, that's a great question. So AI has created a lot of shortcuts for a lot of people, and number one for the loan officer side of things on the reviews: if you get a review from a real client — and we'll expand on this topic because this is what people can move forward with as a call to action today — but when it comes to reviews specifically, if a client leaves you a review, they've taken the time to leave you a nice real custom review, you need to reply to the review within 24 hours.

Number one, you're giving the client one more touch after the transaction, so they appreciate it. Number two, Google recognizes when you respond to reviews, and they look at that business that responds to reviews as a valuable business, because you're communicating publicly with your clientele.

So you've got to respond. And don't respond with AI. This is the point. I'm coming full circle here. AI has made a lot of shortcuts for people. It's really easy to copy and paste. If I'm a mortgage loan officer, I copy and paste my client's review and I throw it into ChatGPT and I say, "Hey, respond to this review with keywords and make it sexy," and then I paste it back into my Google response. Google knows that that's coming as an AI response.

David Lykken: How do they know?

Bobby Kerr: I don't know. Why is the sky blue? Their algorithms, their tools understand when tools are being used to create content for the most part. So just take the time to write a real review. Address the reviewer by name. Reinforce what they mentioned. If they mention the specific problems, that signifies your excellence as a mortgage loan officer — kind of echo that back to them.

David Lykken: Is it wrong to use AI? We're all using AI to kind of massage a little bit, but where does that work to our disadvantage? Or should we not even touch AI for this?

[12:02] Bobby Kerr: No, I — that would be a mistake. If you're not touching AI, you're going to be left behind. I get asked this question a lot. I think the best way to look at AI for mortgage loan officers is to say: if you're going to use it to create content — because you're not really utilizing it to do the job, per se, you're having a lot of human touch on that — but when it comes to creating content, it's okay to use AI. Just make sure it's getting a human touch at some point.

David Lykken: Okay. All right. Hey, if you're going straight from your copy-paste AI created content and you're just pasting it and not looking at it because you want a shortcut, that's going to get you in some hot water.

David Lykken: What are some other things that MLOs — mortgage loan originators — are doing wrong in the way they ask for reviews?

Bobby Kerr: They don't ask enough. They're not asking at the opportune time. So this is where our mortgage brokerage really took off — we went from like 13 reviews to almost 500 in just a couple of years as a local independent brokerage.

You've got to ask when your clients are the happiest. You cannot ask a week or two after they've moved into their house. They've already forgotten about you, in terms of — they're worried about getting their kids in school. They're worried about finding the local restaurants to order pizza from when there's boxes everywhere. They're trying to get the appliances installed. They're trying to get the furniture. You've got to ask them when they're the happiest, which is usually at clear to close or at the closing table.

Hopefully you're a mortgage loan officer who still goes to closings, that still meets with your clients in person. If that's the case, there's no better time to be doing it than at the closing table. Have something — a business card with a QR code. You need to have something there at the closing table with the QR code for your clients to scan that goes straight to your Google review link, and they need to be mentioning some key words.

There's five things to the holy grail of a Google five-star review for a mortgage loan officer. Number one, they need to leave five stars. Number two, they need to mention you by name in the review. If they can mention the name that matches the Google Business Profile — so if your business is David Lykken Mortgage Loan Officer, and they mention David Lykken, then that suffices. But if the name of the company is Lykken Lending and they just say "David was awesome," then there's a disconnect, because they're saying David but the name of the business doesn't have anything about David. So we want the reviewer to mention the business by name as it appears on the business profile. That's number two.

Number three, they've got to mention geographic anchors. Google Business Profile is powered by Google Maps. This is all a geography play. Google wants to promote businesses on a local level that are active and that serve as community experts. So if none of your reviews have geographic keyword anchors — which is easy for a mortgage loan officer, because you're actually doing business for a specific property — mentioning the city, the state, and if they can even mention the subdivision or the street name, then it ties into Google and it sends another trust signal to Google that yes, this is a person doing business in this specific service area where they say they do business on their Google Business Profile.

So: five stars, mention you by name, mention the geographical anchors with city and state at a minimum. Number four, they need to mention some things that signifies your excellence. "David got my house closed in less than 30 days. David worked with my title company and my home inspector and my realtor. Communication was great," etc.

And lastly, number five for the holy grail, David, is if they can leave a photograph on their review, then it sends the biggest trust signal to Google saying that was a real-life client that left this review. The review was not purchased. It wasn't spam. So if you're getting those five things in your Google reviews — or your other reviews, if you're on another platform like the Zillow lender platform, or if you're on NerdWallet or LendingTree — you've got profiles on those platforms and you get reviews. All of those anchors, if you start getting reviews with those things, your online visibility is going to do much better.