Practitioner listing question

[Oleg Donets]

Hey guys,

We have a client real estate brokerage with several hundred agents and we want to create practitioner listings for all the agents. I have few questions that I need help with:

1) Is this even a good idea to create practitioner listings for individual agents? Won't it heart ranking of the main brokerage listing?
2) If it is a good idea, is there a way to bulk verify multiple practitioner listings?

Thank you!

 

[JoyHawkins]

I generally tell realtors to verify their own listings using their home address. If everyone uses the office address, they will mostly all (other than 1-2) get filtered and won't rank for many generic queries. There's also no telling who will be the unfiltered one. It likely won't be the main brokerage listing.

 

[Oleg Donets]

I generally tell realtors to verify their own listings using their home address. If everyone uses the office address, they will mostly all (other than 1-2) get filtered and won't rank for many generic queries. There's also no telling who will be the unfiltered one. It likely won't be the main brokerage listing.

Thank you for quick reply Joy! So you are saying that for Realtors it is not advisable to create practitioner listings in the same manner how it is usually done for lawyers, doctors, etc where the practitioners use address of the main practice's (not their home address)?

Also, I've just seen that Google separates practitioners into two groups, the "Multiple practitioners at one location" and the "Solo practitioners that belong to branded organizations". For the first group they say that:
1) The organization should create a listing for this location, separate from that of the practitioner.
2) The title of the listing for the practitioner should include only the name of the practitioner, and shouldn’t include the name of the organization.

For the second group they say that:
1) If a practitioner is the only public-facing practitioner at a location and represents a branded organization, it's best for the practitioner to share a listing with the organization.
2) Create a single listing, named using the following format: [brand/company]: [practitioner name].

Until today we have been using this title structure for the listing: "[brand/company]: [practitioner name]" for all our other clients regardless if they have a single public-facing practitioner or multiple practitioners. But according to what Google says in their guide 2018-11-15_1109 this is not correct to use this structure for business that have several public-facing practitioners.

I'll gladly appreciate your insight about this matter.

Thank you!

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Oleg,

I generally tell doctors and lawyers not to create listings period. It generally just complicates things and causes filtering issues. Sometimes, though, it is a good idea if the doctor has a specific specialty and you optimize their listing for a different category/specialty than that of the main practice. I wrote in-depth about best practices for practitioner listings here.

As for your question about naming - I've never seen Google care or enforce this rule whatsoever. For a realtor, I'd say it's beneficial for them (the realtor) to have the brand in the title but it is not beneficial for the actual brokerage. The reason being is that it often causes the practitioner listing to rank when someone searches for the broker office.

Ex:

Susan Smith > would not rank for searches for "ABC Realty" (generally speaking)
ABC Realty: Susan Smith > would be a LOT more likely to rank for searches for "ABC Realty"

 

[Oleg Donets]

I see. Thank you for detailed answer!

So based on what you are saying when a practitioner's listing title contains only the name of the practitioner, then it shouldn't heart the broker office. Did i understand you correctly?

Thank you!

 

[JoyHawkins]

No, it still competes if you're using the office address because of Google's filtering algo which I get into detail here.

If your realtor is using their home address & not including the broker name it shouldn't compete.

To clarify as well, most attorneys & doctors work out of an actual office regularly so they aren't normally allowed to use their home address (practitioners are not service area businesses unless they go to patients' houses). For realtors, on the other hand, they usually have a home office.

 

[Oleg Donets]

Got it. Thanks a lot @JoyHawkins !

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Definitely agree with Joy, had never thought about it that way. Realtors should be using their home office so they can capture multiple ranking spots.

Also agree you shouldn't have them create GMB listings at the business location. Confuses things tremendously.

@JoyHawkins I might recommend this to lawyers etc. who do have a home office. Would you?

Also, would you hide the address? I think I would.