GEO courseModule 4 of 10: Who You AreLesson 4.1
One Name, One Set of Facts: Naming, NAP and Your Agency Fact Sheet
Being known by one clear name, with the same address, phone, hours, services, fees and areas everywhere you appear, and one dated page on your own site (a fact sheet) that states them all. AI tools compare what different pages say about you. When they agree, the facts look reliable. When they don't, the AI guesses.
Why it matters
When your details disagree across the web, AI may give out an old phone number, merge you with a namesake, or leave you out because it can't be sure.
The evidence
Evidence: Practitioner view
Practitioner view, backed by Google's and Microsoft's advice to keep business details consistent and current. No study measures name confusion for UK agents.
Do this first
Ask three AI assistants "Tell me about [your agency] in [town]" and tick every detail against what's true today.
01What it is
Two kids in different classes are both called Sam Jones. If one list says “Sam J.” and another says “Samuel Jones, 3 May” and a third says “Sam Jones, 5 March”, nobody knows who’s who or which birthday is right. One full name, one set of facts, used every time, stops the mix-up.
Think of it like
The ID card in your wallet. When anyone asks who you are, you take out the same card, rather than describing yourself slightly differently each time.
02Why it matters
To the people searching
People act on what AI tells them. A wrong phone number is worse than no mention at all: the landlord rings, nobody answers, and they call the next agency on the list without ever knowing it was you they missed.
buyers
Want to know the agent on the board, the portal and the AI answer is the same firm.
tenants
Ring the number and visit the address AI gives them.
sellers
Shortlist from AI answers. A muddled name can lose a valuation before you knew it was requested.
landlords
Look for fees, memberships and areas covered in one place before they call.
To Google, Bing and AI
Evidence: Practitioner viewGoogle documents its Organization markup as a way to tell organisations apart, and says to keep the name consistent with your site name. Microsoft says text, images and video should be consistent about the same business, and recommends Bing Places to keep address, hours and contact details current. Google's AI guidance says Business Profile data helps you appear in AI answers. No assistant publishes how it decides which "Abbey Lettings" you are, so the only lever you have is making the evidence agree everywhere it might look.
An agent example
A lettings agency called "Abbey Lettings" shares most of its name with "Abbey Lettings & Sales" two counties away. An AI answer to "Tell me about Abbey Lettings" quotes the other firm's opening hours and fees. The agency adds its town to its name wherever it appears, puts its legal name and company number on its About page, publishes a dated fact sheet, and corrects eleven old profiles from it.
03Your turn
Check yours, then fix it
- 1In a private window, ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and Claude: "Tell me about [your agency] in [town]."
- 2Then ask: "What is the address, phone number and opening hours of [agency] in [town]?"
- 3Mark each detail as yours, someone else's, out of date, or missing. Save screenshots.
- 1Make a table: one row per fact (name, address, phone, hours, services, fees link, areas), one column per place.
- 2Places: your website header, footer and contact page; Companies House; Google Business Profile; Bing Places; Apple Business; Rightmove; Zoopla; OnTheMarket; Facebook; LinkedIn; your redress scheme listing.
- 3Fill it in from the live pages, not from memory. Highlight every difference.
- 1Search "[your name]" and "[your name] [town]" in Google. Look for other businesses with the same or similar name in the first two pages.
- 2Search your phone number and your old address in quotes, and look for stale directory entries.
- 1Look for one page that states your name, address, phone, areas, services, fees summary and memberships together.
- 2If there isn't one, that's your first fix.
Here is a table of my agency's name, address, phone, hours and services as they appear on different websites. Which cells disagree, and which source is probably the original of each error? Recommend one exact format for my name and branch name.
- 1Decide your exact public name and branch format, for example "Abbey Lettings, Northgate".
- 2Don't stuff keywords into it ("Abbey Lettings Best Letting Agent Hallowford").
- 3Put your legal name, company number and registered office on your About page and footer, so the website can be matched to the public register.
- 4If you've rebranded, add a short "formerly known as" line and keep redirects from old domains.
- 1Who we are: trading name, legal name, company number, years trading.
- 2Where we are: each branch's address, phone, email and opening hours.
- 3What we do (and don't do): sales, lettings, management, valuations.
- 4Areas we cover, by town, postcode and neighbourhood.
- 5Fees: a short summary and a link to the full fees page (lesson 6.5).
- 6Memberships and registrations (lesson 4.3), team (with links), where to read reviews, how to complain.
- 7"Last reviewed" with a real date and the name of who checked it.
- 8Keep it as plain text on a web page, not a PDF, and link it from your footer and About page.
- 1Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business, the three portals, Facebook, LinkedIn, then directories such as Yell.
- 2Claim and update old listings, and ask for duplicates to be removed.
- 3Update profiles from the fact sheet, never the other way round.
- 1Give every branch its own page with its own address, phone, hours, team and areas.
- 2Don't put every branch's phone number in one footer block: machines can't tell which goes with which office.
- 3Check each branch has its own Business Profile, linking to its own branch page.
Turn these notes into a plain-text agency fact sheet with these headings: Who we are, Where we are, What we do, Areas we cover, Our fees, Memberships, Our team, Reviews, How to complain, Last reviewed. Use only the facts I give you. Where a fact is missing, write [MISSING] instead of guessing. Notes: [paste]
Then: Put one named person in charge of the fact sheet and master details. When anything changes (a move, new hours, new fees), they change the fact sheet first, then every profile, the same day.
04Keep it up
Review the fact sheet and re-run the AI identity test quarterly, and after any move, rebrand, new branch or fee change.
That's lesson 4.1
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