The Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About

Here's the thing about being a good real estate agent: it doesn't matter if nobody can find you.

Sarah (name changed, client confidentiality) had been selling homes in the Raleigh-Durham market for four years. She was sharp, responsive, and genuinely good at her job. Her clients loved her. Her closing rate was solid. But her pipeline? Inconsistent at best. Feast-or-famine at worst.

When she came to us, she said something that stuck: "I feel like I'm the best-kept secret in Wake County, and not in a good way."

We ran a quick audit. Her Google Business Profile was technically "set up" — meaning she'd claimed it two years ago, uploaded a logo, and never touched it again. When you searched "real estate agent near me" from downtown Raleigh, she showed up on page three of the local results. Page three. That's the digital equivalent of having your business card at the bottom of a junk drawer.

Her profile had 4 reviews (all from 2022), zero Google posts, a generic business description that could have belonged to any agent in any city, and photos that were just her headshot and a stock image of a house.

She was invisible. And she was paying for it — literally — by spending $800/month on Facebook ads to generate leads that Google should have been sending her for free.

What We Actually Did (No Fluff, Just the Playbook)

We didn't overhaul her entire marketing. We didn't redesign her website. We didn't tell her to start a podcast or dance on social media. We focused on one thing: making Google understand that Sarah is a real, active, credible real estate professional serving the Raleigh market.

Here's the exact six-week breakdown.

Week 1: The Foundation Fix

NAP Consistency Audit. We checked her Name, Address, and Phone number across 47 directories and citation sources. She had three different phone numbers floating around the internet and her business name was listed differently on Yelp, Zillow, and Realtor.com. Google sees inconsistency and thinks: "I'm not sure this business is legit." We fixed every single one.

Profile Optimization. We rewrote her GBP description from scratch. Gone was the generic "I help buyers and sellers achieve their real estate dreams" copy. In its place: a keyword-rich, personality-driven description that mentioned Raleigh, Wake County, North Hills, ITB (Inside the Beltline), and the specific neighborhoods she works. We added her service areas, updated her business hours, selected the right primary and secondary categories (Real Estate Agent + Real Estate Consultant), and filled out every single attribute Google offers.

Photo Upload Sprint. We uploaded 25 new photos in the first week alone. Not stock photos. Real photos: her at closings, neighborhood shots of North Hills and Cameron Village, her office, team photos, and property exteriors. Google rewards profiles with 10+ recent, high-quality photos with significantly more engagement.

Week 2-3: The Review Engine

This is where most agents stall. They know reviews matter but they feel awkward asking. We built Sarah a simple system she could actually use.

The "Two-Tap" Review Request. We created a short, personalized text message template she sends after every closing and every positive client interaction. Not a generic "please leave a review" email that gets buried. A direct text with her review link that takes two taps to complete. We also drafted a follow-up for clients who said they would but hadn't yet — warm, not pushy, with a specific prompt like "Would you mind mentioning how the [North Hills] search process went?"

In three weeks, she went from 4 reviews to 19. More importantly, the new reviews mentioned specific neighborhoods, specific services, and specific outcomes. That's not just social proof — that's keyword-rich content Google indexes and uses for relevance matching.

Week 3-4: The Content Cadence

Weekly GBP Posts. We set up a posting schedule: two Google Business Profile posts per week. Not random motivational quotes. Strategic posts that signal activity and relevance to Google's algorithm:

• Market update posts referencing Raleigh-specific data ("Median home price in 27609 hit $485K this month — here's what that means for sellers")

• Just-sold celebration posts with neighborhood tags

• Educational posts answering questions people actually search ("How long does it take to close on a house in Wake County?")

• Event/community posts tied to local happenings

Each post included a call-to-action, a relevant photo, and was written to include natural local keywords without sounding like a robot.

Q&A Section. We pre-populated her GBP Q&A with 10 questions real buyers and sellers ask — and answered them ourselves (this is allowed and encouraged by Google). Questions like "Do you work with first-time buyers in Raleigh?" and "What areas of the Triangle do you cover?" This gave Google even more context about what Sarah does and where she does it.

Week 5-6: The Authority Layer

Local Backlink Outreach. We got Sarah listed on three local Raleigh business directories she wasn't on, secured a guest mention on a local real estate blog, and made sure her profile was linked from her Squarespace website with proper local schema markup.

Website-GBP Connection. We added LocalBusiness schema (JSON-LD structured data) to her website, embedded a Google Map on her contact page, and ensured her website's NAP matched her GBP exactly. We also created a dedicated "Raleigh Real Estate" landing page on her site that linked back to her GBP — giving Google a clear signal that this website and this profile are the same business.

The Results (The Part You Actually Care About)

Six weeks. That's it. Here's what changed:

She cut her ad spend by 75% and tripled her inbound leads. Not because Facebook stopped working, but because Google started working for her instead of against her.

The best part? These results compound. Every new review, every new post, every new photo adds to the momentum. Three months after our initial engagement, she was consistently in the top 3 for her target keywords and generating 15+ organic leads per month.

The Three Things Most Agents Get Wrong

After working with dozens of agents across Raleigh and Lake Norman, here's what I see over and over:

1. They treat GBP as a "set it and forget it" tool. Your Google Business Profile is not a business card. It's a living, breathing marketing channel. Google rewards activity. If you haven't posted in 90 days, you're telling Google you might not even be in business anymore.

2. They don't ask for reviews strategically. Five generic reviews that say "Great agent!" do almost nothing. Five detailed reviews that mention your city, your specialty, and specific outcomes? That's SEO gold. The content of your reviews matters as much as the quantity.

3. They ignore the basics. Inconsistent NAP information, wrong business categories, missing service areas, no photos from the last six months. These aren't advanced tactics. They're table stakes. And most agents are leaving them on the table.

Your Move

If you're reading this and thinking "that sounds like me," you're not alone. Most agents we work with are in the same boat — talented, hardworking, and completely invisible on Google.

The good news? This isn't rocket science. It's a system. And systems can be learned, implemented, and repeated.

If you're a Growth Plan or All Access member, check out our "GBP Optimization Guides" in the content library for the exact templates, checklists, and posting schedules we used with Sarah. Everything is ready to deploy — no guesswork required.

And if you want hands-on help? That's literally what Real Estate Concierge Services exists for. We're the visibility layer that compounds.

— Emily Wyatt, Founder, Real Estate Concierge Services Company LLC