Google Business Profile for mortgage brokers

For a broker working a defined patch, the profile that appears beside the map when somebody searches for a mortgage adviser near them is often the single most valuable piece of free online property the firm owns. It is also the one most likely to have been set up in ten minutes in 2019 and never touched since.

This is a practical run-through of the parts that matter for a mortgage brokerage specifically, including the ones that get firms suspended.

Decide whether you qualify for one

The profile is for businesses with either a physical location customers can visit or a defined area they travel to serve. A brokerage with an office on a high street qualifies comfortably. A sole adviser working from a spare room and seeing every client on video is a harder case, and setting up a profile with a fake office address is the fastest route to losing the listing permanently.

If you genuinely visit clients at home across a district, you can list as a service-area business, hide the address, and specify the areas you cover. If you never meet anyone anywhere, the profile is weaker and you may be better off putting the effort into your website.

Name and categories

Use your registered trading name exactly as it appears on your signage, your website and your letterhead. Adding keywords to it, so that the name becomes something like "Bridge Mortgage Advice - Best Mortgage Broker Leeds", is against the rules, is reported by competitors constantly, and risks the listing.

Categories do a lot of the work in deciding which searches you show up for. The primary one is the important one; for most firms that is mortgage broker. Add secondary categories only where they are true, such as mortgage lender if you are one, or insurance agency if protection is a real part of what you do. A long list of loosely relevant categories dilutes rather than broadens.

Address, service area and working from home

If you have an office, the address on the profile must match what appears on your website, your directory profiles and your correspondence, character for character where possible. Inconsistent address formats across the web are a real drag on local visibility and cost nothing to fix.

If you work from home, hide the address and set service areas. Keep those areas honest and reasonably tight; listing forty towns because you would technically take a case from any of them does not extend your reach and can look like manipulation.

Hours, phone number and messaging

Set hours you actually keep, including any evening or Saturday availability, and update them for bank holidays. A profile showing you as open when the phone rings out is a small broken promise at the exact moment somebody chose you.

Use a number that reaches a person. If you use a tracking number, make sure the same number appears on your website so the two agree.

The messaging feature turns the profile into an inbox. Only switch it on if somebody is genuinely watching it, and treat the messages that arrive as enquiries with the same ownership and response expectations as anything else. Remember that anything you say there about your services is a promotion of a regulated business, so it needs to be accurate and not create an impression you cannot stand behind.

Photographs

Photographs of an office exterior, the door people should walk through, the reception area and, most importantly, the advisers, do more than any description. Faces are what a person choosing a broker is looking for.

Take them on a decent phone in daylight. Avoid stock imagery entirely; readers spot it, and it makes a small firm look like a shell.

Posts, services and the questions section

The posting feature lets you publish short updates that appear on the profile. It is worth a modest, sustainable habit: an occasional note about something genuinely useful, such as a change worth knowing about for local buyers, or a reminder about how far ahead a remortgage can be started. Do not post rate claims or anything promising savings.

Fill in the services list with the work you actually do, described in the words clients use: first-time buyer mortgages, remortgages, buy to let, protection reviews.

The questions section is public and anyone can post to it. Check it, because a competitor or a confused member of the public can leave a question that sits there unanswered for a year. You are allowed to ask and answer common questions yourself, which is a reasonable way to make sure the fee question and the "do you cover X" question have visible answers.

Reviews, briefly

Reviews on this profile are visible at the exact moment of choosing, which makes them disproportionately valuable. Respond to all of them. Never disclose in a reply that somebody was a client or reference their circumstances, however tempting it is to correct an unfair account.

Suspensions

Profiles get suspended, usually for a keyword-stuffed name, an address that cannot be verified, a virtual office, or multiple listings at the same address. Reinstatement is slow and often requires documentary evidence: a utility bill, a lease, signage photographs, registration details.

Keep that evidence somewhere you can find it, keep the profile boring and truthful, and you will probably never need it.

What actually improves your position

Three things, none of them clever. Relevance: complete, accurate categories and services. Distance: you cannot change where you are, which is why service-area honesty matters. Prominence: a consistent presence elsewhere on the web, a website that clearly serves the same area, and a steady flow of genuine reviews.

Ignore anyone offering to place you at the top of the map results for a monthly fee. What they usually sell is the appearance of activity, and occasionally something that gets the listing removed.

Give the profile an owner in the firm, review it properly twice a year against the sections above, and check monthly that nobody has suggested an edit to your hours or address. Suggested edits from the public go live without asking you, and firms lose enquiries for months without noticing.