GEO courseModule 4 of 10: Who You AreLesson 4.3
Proof You’re Real: Registrations, Memberships, Your Team and Knowledge Panels
The public evidence that your agency is a real, regulated, accountable business run by real people: your Companies House entry, redress scheme and client money protection memberships, named team members with honest bios, and Google's knowledge panel or Business Profile.
Why it matters
A tenant asking AI "is this agency regulated?" gets a vague answer if your memberships only exist as logos in an image, or not at all.
The evidence
Evidence: Practitioner view
What must be displayed comes from consumer law and scheme codes (official). That AI treats named people and memberships as trust evidence is plausible, and unproven.
Do this first
Check your memberships appear as text, with exact scheme names, within two clicks of your homepage.
01What it is
A swimming teacher’s certificate on the wall. You trust it more if you can check it with whoever issued it, and if the teacher’s name is on it.
Think of it like
A recipe from a named chef with a restaurant you can visit, compared with a recipe pinned to a noticeboard by nobody.
02Why it matters
To the people searching
Landlords look for client money protection before handing over rent. Tenants want to know who they can complain to. Sellers look up the company before signing. All of them increasingly ask AI to check for them.
buyers
Like knowing who will show them round, and that the firm exists.
tenants
Want to know who they can complain to.
sellers
Look the company up before signing a contract, and choose people more than brands.
landlords
Look for client money protection and a redress scheme before anything else.
To Google, Bing and AI
Evidence: Practitioner viewGoogle's AI guidance asks for content with first-hand experience and a real point of view. Microsoft says claims should be factual, consistent and verifiable. Both point to named people and checkable memberships, though no AI tool says it checks them. One thing is certain: if your memberships only appear inside logo images, a crawler reading the page code may not see them at all. Google's knowledge panel is mostly for well-known organisations: Google tells local businesses to manage their presence through their Business Profile instead, so for most agents, the Business Profile is the panel.
An agent example
A lettings agency lists "member of a redress scheme" in small print on one fees page. A tenant asks an AI assistant whether the agency is regulated and gets a vague answer. The agency adds an "Our memberships" section to its fact sheet, with each scheme's exact name and a link to the scheme's own member search, and signs its landlord guide "Priya Shah, Lettings Manager, 12 years in the area, reviewed 3 October 2026".
03Your turn
Check yours, then fix it
- 1Find your memberships on your site. Are the scheme names written as text, or only as logos?
- 2Can a visitor find them within two clicks of the homepage?
- 3Check each scheme's own register or member search lists you under the same name.
- 1Compare your company name, number and registered office on Companies House with your website footer and About page.
- 2Ask an AI: "Is [agency] a registered company, and where?" and check the answer against the register.
- 1Open your team page. Does each bio say more than name and title: real photo, experience, areas, qualifications?
- 2Open your top five guides. Is there a named author or reviewer, and a date?
- 3Ask an AI: "Who are the lettings experts at [agency] in [town]?" Are the people real, current and correctly named?
- 1Search your exact agency name in Google.
- 2Note whether a knowledge panel, a Business Profile box, or neither appears, and any wrong detail.
- 3Search your name on Wikipedia and Wikidata. If there's an entry, is it you or a namesake?
- 1In plain text, on your fact sheet or About page: redress scheme, client money protection (lettings), professional body, anti-money-laundering supervision, ICO registration.
- 2Use each scheme's exact name, and link to its official member search where it has one.
- 3Give logos alt text naming the scheme, and repeat the name in text nearby.
- 4Put the redress and client money protection details beside your lettings fee list too (lesson 6.5).
- 1Remove any expired or unauthorised logo today.
- 2Check your profiles and email signatures as well as the website.
- 1Write real bios: name, role, years in the area, specialism, qualifications, areas covered, a human detail.
- 2Add a byline and "reviewed on" date to every guide, linking to an author page.
- 3Use the same name and job title on your team page, LinkedIn and Business Profile.
- 4Get consent for photos and bios, and remove leavers the same week.
- 5Never invent credentials or use stock photos as "our team".
- 1If a panel appears for your agency, use "Claim this knowledge panel" and suggest corrections with supporting links.
- 2If none appears, don't chase one: make sure your Business Profile is complete instead.
- 3Don't create or edit a Wikipedia page about your own firm. Wikipedia's rules exclude self-written pages, press releases and local coverage alone.
Rewrite this team member's bio as a genuine 80-word paragraph using only these facts: [name, role, years in the area, specialism, qualifications, areas covered]. Don't add anything I haven't given you.
Then: Ask your compliance adviser or professional body for a checklist of what you must display. It varies with what you do and which schemes you belong to.
04Keep it up
Review memberships and bios every six months, and the same week anyone joins or leaves.
That's lesson 4.3
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