BrightFire logo
Schedule a Call
0 Minute Marketing Webinar: Google Business Profile Tune‑Up for Insurance Agents

Webinar: Google Business Profile Tune-Up for Insurance Agencies

Is your agency’s Google Business Profile (GBP) working as hard as you are? 

In our recent “20-Minute Marketing” webinar, Google Business Profile Tune‑Up for  Independent Agencies,  we broke down exactly how to make your profile a powerful local marketing asset.

For local insurance agencies, your GBP is often the very first impression potential clients get. It’s where they find your hours, your website link, and your reputation. But simply having a profile isn’t enough—it needs to be optimized to help you show up in local search results.

Play the recording to get practical, step-by-step advice of what every insurance agency should be doing to get the most out of your profile, including:

  • Why keeping your business details (phone number, website URL, and hours) accurate and stable is non-negotiable for search engines.
  • Why “once and done” doesn’t apply to the internet, and how regular updates signal relevance to Google.
  • A clear understanding of what it takes to stay visible, and where professional listing management services can save you time.

Grab the insights you need to attract more local clients. Replay the webinar or read the transcript for specifics on how to tune-up your Google Business Profile.  

Watch the Webinar

Click the image below to access the webinar recording.

Webinar Transcript

Read the full transcript, or use the links to jump to a section, and see what’s possible for your agency.

Google Certified Steven Casey

I’d like to start today by introducing Steven Casey, a customer success manager at BrightFire. Steven has been with BrightFire for three and a half years. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Florida International University and is certified in Google Ad Search, Google Ads Display, and Google Analytics.

2026 Whitespark Report

In a recent report by Whitespark, they analyzed eight key factors that drive local search rankings across the local pack, local organic and AI search. So if you take a look at this graph, you can see that these factors are not equally weighted across each of these three categories. However, Google Business Profile signals, on-page signals, and review signals, consistently emerge as some of the most heavily weighted across the board. In today’s conversation, we’re going to focus on how you can maximize your Google business profile to influence these categories.

The Strategic Value

All right, as a local business, one of your primary goals should be to increase your rank in the Google Local pack, which is the map section, sandwiched in between the sponsored results and the organic results. So having an optimized Google Business Profile is the most critical factor used to influence this.  Now, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s not the only factor, right? Google’s local algorithm relies on three core pillars to determine ranking. First is relevance. How well does your profile match a customer’s search query? The next is distance. What is your proximity to that consumer? Because Google categorizes the insurance industry as local business, meaning people want to meet face to face with an agent, proximity is a key ranking factor.  When Google shows results to a searcher, they take into account where the searcher is searching from and the proximity to a business. This is even the case for service area business listings, which is a categorization for agents working from home but want to hide their residential address.  And finally, prominence, or how well known the business is. And this is greatly impacted by the quantity and recency of reviews.

Steven, if someone wants to rank in a completely different area or state, would a new Google Business Profile need to be created in that area?

Yeah, it’s a good question. And we get it from time to time. And the answer is only if you have a legitimate business location in that area, right, that qualifies for its own Google Business profile. Google has a pretty strict verification process, so you’ll need to prove that your office or business is truly located in that area. But if you do, it can definitely help with showing in that area.

Okay, great. And while I have you talking, can you just share with us, with the evolution of AI search, will the Google Business Profile continue to be as important as it was?

Yeah, great question and definitely a hot topic these days, right? And the answer is absolutely because Google Business Profiles are arguably more important now, actually, because AI search results often pull directly from information in your profile, like your address, hours, reviews, of course, and other business details that are on that profile. AI wants to pull information from the most trusted sources, and Google Business Profiles are often seen as that gold standard for business information.

All right, thank you.

Rank Higher by Improving Your Google Business Profile

Now, let’s get into some of the tips about how you can rank higher and improve your Google Business Profile. So the first essential step to improving your results may seem obvious, but you must claim and verify your business profile. You’ll also want to eliminate any duplicate listings because they can confuse both search engine algorithms and potential clients. Maintaining nap consistency is equally viable, so your agency’s name, address, and phone number should be identical across your profile, your website, and every other online directory your business is listed. Research indicates that achieving 95% or better NAP accuracy across leading citations can boost your local PAC ranking by an average of 3.2 positions compared to agencies with only 85% accuracy.

Stephen, do you have any tips on how local agencies can ensure that their NAP is consistent across listings?

Yeah, so first things first, everyone needs to start with the main listings out there and then go from there, right? That’s the Google business profile, of course, Bing, Apple Maps, your Facebook and Yelp is another big one out there. Many smaller directories do pull their information from those main ones so that could trickle down and solve some others out there for you. The way to be 100% sure that everything is consistent is to have a listings management service that consistently pushes your information out to directories on a consistent basis. And whether you have that type of service with BrightFire or with another provider, it’s always definitely in your best interest.

And also, I know we’ve talked about the importance of having the name on your profile match what your business is listed as within your state county. Can you just talk about that?

Yeah, definitely, yeah. So it’s also important. So in all these different sites to have the same abbreviations if you abbreviate some of your address, right? So street, if it’s spelled out street, make sure it’s the same way on your Google business profile and your website, or if it’s just ST, same exact thing there. So you want even that level of consistency in as many places as possible.

All right, great. Thank you.

7 Steps to Improve Your GBP

Let’s talk about seven steps that you can take to improve your Google Business Profile

So number one, you want to audit your business basics. You want to regularly update business hours, website links, and contact information.

The second thing that you can do to improve your Google Business Profile is enhance visual content. This means uploading high quality real photos of your office, staff, the outside of your building. You want to avoid using stock photography as this doesn’t come across as authentic

Second, you’ll want to utilize predefined services. So add specific services to your profile to improve the implicit and explicit keyword rankings. And this is a feature that you can see in this screenshot there, it shows the service aspect to the Google Business Profile.

Take advantage of Google Posts. Share updates, share blog links and product pages directly on your profile.

You’ll also want to take advantage of the attributes. So you’ll add details like wheelchair accessible or walk-ins welcome or online appointments preferred. Tell prospects exactly what they should expect when they are looking for your agency.

Next is review management. You want to proactively generate and respond to all reviews. Reviews are, as I said at the beginning of this, when I shared that report by white paper, reviews are one of the most important signals for both the local PAC and AI search visibility. So having a review management strategy is very important for your business.

And lastly, social proof.  It helps to have a Google business profile that shares links with your Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube channels. So definitely make sure that you’re filling that out according to your agency’s specific social ecosystem.

Steven, I want to ask, how can service area businesses optimize their profile since customers can’t visit a physical location?

Yeah, so let’s compare the two, right? So for brick and mortar businesses, Google already has a geographic bubble, if you will, around the business because there’s a physical address tied to that profile. With the service area business, it’s a little bit different because you don’t have that same built-in location because there’s no address on the profile, right? So it’s especially important to clearly define the areas you serve in those settings of the Google Business Profile. So within a Google Business Profile for those service area businesses, it’ll say area served. So you just need to make sure that you set that.

Wonderful tips. Are there any considerations that people with virtual office addresses or shared spaces need to be mindful of?  Inputting the correct information in there, so Google knows what searches to show you for and where.

Yeah, it mainly comes down to Google’s verification process, right? And making sure the location, the profile there meets their eligibility requirements. Virtual offices generally don’t qualify and shared spaces typically need to be a legitimate staff location.

You need to clarify where your business operates in the hours you specify on the profile. Because one of Google’s guidelines is that if customers come to visit you during the hours that you say you’re open on the profile, that Google expects you to be there and people will as well. So it’s about meeting those types of requirements that Google specifies.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Now that we’ve covered the essentials for your Google Business Profile, let’s talk about some common mistakes that can hinder your visibility. And the first of these being keyword stuffing your agency name. So any attempt to manipulate rankings by adding terms like best local insurance agent to your Google Business name

Lead to penalties. Stick to your agency’s legal name to remain compliant with Google’s guidelines. And when we say legal name, we’re talking about how your business is registered with your state.

The second is using tracking phone numbers. While useful for ads, these numbers disrupt your nap, right? That name, address, phone number consistency that we’ve been talking about. So you always want to use your primary business line for citations and reserve tracking phone numbers for your website or paid search campaigns.

Next, you want to be careful that you’re not treating optimization as once and done. Local SEO requires ongoing attention because data aggregators can frequently overwrite your information. We recommend auditing your primary citations at least every 90 days to ensure accuracy.

Prioritizing quantity over quality. Low quality links or mass directory submissions can negatively impact your authority. You want to focus on high authority citations rather than chasing volume on unreliable platforms.

And lastly, inconsistent review generation strategies. So failing to consistently request reviews can signal to search algorithms both SEO and AI that your business isn’t active, which may lead to stagnation or decline in your local search rankings.

So, Steven, as we look at this list of things not to do, can you tell us how has Google’s ranking algorithm become more sophisticated over the years?

Yeah, a loaded question, but definitely a good one, right? Google’s algorithm has become much more sophisticated, especially in the last few years for AI searches because it’s no longer just looking for the right keywords or text on a web page right before you could do what they called keyword stuffing, which is basically just putting a bunch of keywords on a page, whether it sounded natural or not. Now, Google puts a huge emphasis on what you could call trust signals, things like consistent business information, like we’re talking about reviews on all the different profiles out there that allow for them, right? Google, Facebook, Yelp, all those review sites Google takes into consideration website engagement. If you have a lot of website visitors, that signals trust as well. So there’s a lot of those signals these days that help validate that your business is legitimate and relevant.

Thank you. 

A Managed Profile is An Asset

At this point, we’re going to talk about how a managed profile really works for you. So number one, traffic, increased traffic, right? We want to know that businesses that appear in Google’s local pack typically see at least 100 more clicks than those that don’t.

They have a higher conversion. More customers are likely to visit a business or consider purchasing from them.

Those behavior signals, active profiles drive more actions, like clicks or calls than those that don’t have those signals. And the AI search prominence, right? A complete profile is that structured data that these AI search engines are looking for.

BrightFire’s Local Listings Management

Okay, so how does BrightFire help agents get found online? Well, today’s presentation has centered around Google Business Profile. Your profile is part of your overall local listings management strategy. As I mentioned earlier, every verified listing is a signal used by search engines to validate your business. But it’s no secret that many agencies don’t have the bandwidth to run a business and manage multiple listings across different networks

Monitoring multiple networks for duplicate listings, necessary updates, or messages from customers is challenging and time consuming. And that’s why BrightFire created our local listings management service to take the burden off of you and help your agency give search engines, and consumers, the accurate and consistent information they’re looking for.

Our team of digital marketing experts handle the setup, maintenance, and monitoring of your listings so you don’t have to.

Our local listings management service consists of several features to boost your local SEO and AI efforts, including:

  • Managing over 50 local listening networks, ensuring your agency name is formatted correctly.
  • Updating your existing local listings to contain accurate and consistent business information, removing duplicate listings that can negatively impact your SEO and AI search efforts.
  • Claiming your unclaimed listings.
  • Access to a unified messaging inbox, so you can easily review and respond to customer inquiries.
  • We provide a user-friendly dashboard, so you can view all of your listings in one place.
  • And we update your listings at no additional cost. So if your business information ever changes, we got you. Don’t worry about that.

And our guidance doesn’t end at our boarding. Our friendly support team is readily available to answer any questions you may have about your listings, so you can rest assured knowing that your listings are accurate, updated, and compliant with each network’s guidelines.

Steven, one of the most valuable features of BrightFire’s local listing management service is our unified messaging inbox. Can you just elaborate on how powerful a tool that is for agencies?

Yeah, it’s a management tool, right? So we’ll link the relevant listings that allow for messages in that dashboard, and then those messages will be in one place for you. So instead of going on Google to respond to reviews and then separately going to Facebook and responding to those in there and so on and so forth

All the messages relevant to those listings are in one place. So you can think of it as a management tool and a way to kind of streamline your processes and seeing messages that are coming through.

Get Listed on High Authority Directories

As we shared throughout this presentation, regular review generation is also an important component of your online strategy.

And to help you with that, we also offer a review and reputation management service. So in addition to our local listings management service, which claims the foundational citations that you need, as shown on your screen here.

Implement a Local SEO & AI Strategy

We also have our ultimate SEO bundle. Everything we’ve designed at BrightFire can stand alone, but they’re meant to build on each other, helping you establish a well-rounded digital marketing strategy for your agency. So you can purchase any of our services independently, or you can maximize your investment with our SEO bundle, because this bundle includes our Local Listing management, Reviews and reputation management, and insurance agency website service in one easy package.

So we’re really giving you everything you need to rank in Google to strengthen relationships with your policyholders and connect with new prospects with this bundle.

Just a reminder, every website we make is optimized to rank in search engines and to be scanned by AI search engines so that you can attract and convert more insurance buyers online.

The best part is when you sign up for the Ultimate SEO bundle, you’ll actually save on the standalone prices of each of those three services that I mentioned

Our digital marketing services don’t have any setup fees, contracts, or user fees, and we also include a 30-day money back guarantee. 

To get started with BrightFire, visit https://www.brightfire.com/contact-sales to book your one-on-one consultation.

Thank You & Questions

If you have any questions about our Local Listings Management service, or what we discussed in the webinar, schedule a call with a BrightFire Sales Advisor.

Share this post

We're here to help!

Schedule a Call