October 22, 2024 • 33 mins
I had the pleasure of joining the Market Movers podcast, a go-to spot for transforming businesses into unforgettable brands. In this episode, I dive deep into the intersection of branding, SEO, and link-building, sharing insights on how to make your business more visible, credible, and irresistible to your audience.
As the Founder of SEO Optimizers and a digital marketing expert with over 15 years of experience, I specialize in helping real estate businesses boost their online presence. During the podcast, I share strategies to help real estate professionals leverage SEO for lead generation in a highly competitive marketplace. We cover essential topics like optimizing local map listings, content creation, and the evolving role of AI in digital marketing.
Key Takeaways:
- SEO for Real Estate Agents: Learn how to target niche keywords and specific communities to bypass big competitors like Zillow, focusing on low-competition terms with high buyer intent.
- Local Map Listings Optimization: Discover how to fully complete your Google Business Profile, maintain consistency across various platforms, and build trust through reviews and map embedding.
- Keyword Strategy & Content Planning: I explain the importance of targeting long-tail keywords related to specific amenities or communities, and how to use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find low-competition terms.
- Importance of Backlinks: High-quality, niche-relevant backlinks remain essential for ranking. We discuss how guest posts, podcasts, and digital PR outreach can help boost credibility.
- Utilizing AI for Content: AI tools can enhance content creation, but the right balance between AI and human input is crucial for accuracy and scaling production.
- Future of Real Estate SEO: While AI search platforms are on the rise, traditional SEO techniques still hold strong potential, particularly for transactional queries.
You can connect with me and access special resources, including free SEO training, at SEOOptimizers.com/gift
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Putting keywords in there forGoogle is important, but really,
you gotta write for peoplefirst. Google secondary.
Is SEO a good optionfor everyone.
Or are SEO just a free trafficsource? The more maps you're in,
the more trust Google'sgonna give to you.
And just try to do whatever youcan to get Google to start
trusting you more,because creating a listing does
nothing without trust.
It's been a nightmare journey.
The more specific your promptsare, the better results are.
(00:21):
Walk us through some of yourfavorite strategies.
I feel like if you don'thave backlinks,
you're not gonna rank.
I'll try to stick outside thebox on ways to get niche relayed
websites to give youthat backlink.
Be prepared for whateverhappens,
then be prepared for newplatforms, new search engines.
Get Google to trust you moreand make you hire.
Two, three, four.
Want to attract and convertmore leads?
Want to learn how digital pr,branding and SEO can establish
(00:43):
and build your brand identity?
Welcome to the market moversbuilding brands and links
with Linkify podcast.
We answer these questions andhelp you ramp up your brand
visibility and credibility.
Let's cut through the noise andmake your business the talk of
the town. We're your hosts,Nick and Chris.
Let's get this show on the road.
Welcome to the MarketMovers podcast.
Today we're joined byBrandon Lebowitz,
(01:04):
the founder of SEO Optimizersand a digital marketing expert.
15 years of experience.
Brandon specializes inhelping businesses,
including real estate firms,improve their online visibility
and generate more leads througheffective SEO strategies.
He's here to share his insightson how real estate professionals
can leverage SEO to compete in acrowded online market space,
from local map listings tocontent creation and link
(01:26):
building tactics. Welcome,Brandon.
Thank you for havingme on today.
Hey, Brandon,it's great to have you on.
To kick things off,why don't you tell us a little
bit about yourself and yourbackground in marketing?
Yeah.
My name is Brandon Leibowitz.
I've been involved with digitalmarketing since 2007.
I got my degree in businessmarketing, and after I graduated
from university,my first job was helping the
(01:47):
company out with theirdigital marketing,
which I didn't really know muchabout it back in 2007.
They don't really teachit to you in school,
and the company knew that andtold me, don't worry,
we're new to this as well.
We're gonna learn with you,taking you to classes at
workshops and seminars,and did that for a few months
and just kind of realizedthis is the future.
Everyone's probably gonna have awebsite and SEO is a way to get
(02:08):
free traffic. Social media,email, paid ads,
it all works to get traffic,but SEO is just a free traffic
source. And I thought,who doesn't want free traffic?
So over the years Ifocused on SEO,
working at different advertisingagencies and as a
director of SEO.
And before work or after workon my lunch breaks,
I'd work on my own company andeventually built that up to,
whereas I would quit my job andfocus solely on this and been
(02:29):
doing that ever since.
Awesome.
So you've seen a bit then,I imagine over the years it's
changed all the time.
Well,we know that you do a lot of
work with real estate,so it's a space that we love
personally from a digitalpr perspective.
So we were thinking to try andtake this conversation with
a real estate slant.
If you could tell us if youthink SEO is still is a good
(02:51):
tactic for real estate agents.
As long as people are searchingfor your keywords,
then I would target it.
But with real estate,it could be dominated by Zillow
or these big corporate websites.
So if you're searching for homesfor sale, let's say,
in Paris and everythingis zillow, it might be hard to
break through.
But if you can findunique variations,
(03:12):
like you find like they havedifferent communities,
and if you target thosecommunity names,
like if it's called thegardens in Paris,
then you can target the gardens,which is a townhouse community,
and you focus solely on that andthat will have less competition,
less people are going tobe searching for it.
But the people searching for it,they know they want a townhouse
in this community.
They have that buyer intentversus somebody just saying
(03:35):
home for sale in Paris,it's really vague and can mean
a ton of different things.
So just finding those reallyniche keywords that have low
competition but still have thatbuyer intent are going to be
good keywords to go after.
So we've noticed thatreal estate agents,
because we work with quite a fewand we've talked to others and
they either focus on SEO or theyjust completely ignore it.
(03:55):
We've talked to so many agentswho have said, like,
we don't focus on it at all.
All of our leads come from,you know,
networking or we're buyingthem from Zillow, Trulia,
whatever it is.
Is SEO a good option foreveryone or are there some
situations for atthe firm level,
not the individual agent level?
Where is it?
Is it really the case whereevery firm could be getting
(04:16):
a lot of traffic from SEO?
Yeah,as long as there's search volume
for those keywords.
So if you're in some small townwith a population of 20 people,
then maybe SEO would be the bestbecause unless ultimately people
are searching and trying tobuy a home, but if not,
it might not be the bestviable traffic source.
So it really just comes down toare people searching and is,
are the search results justdominated by these big
(04:37):
corporations? If so,if you're just a startup,
maybe hold off,but if you work for a big
corporation, then go for it.
Target these big corporatekeywords because you're going to
be able to compete with them.
But if you're just a startupor just a one person job,
it's going to be really,really tough to compete
with them.
But it's all just all aboutfinding good keywords that have
that low competition.
And that's where you can usetools like the Google Keyword
planner to help you researchkeywords and find search volume
(04:59):
and see which ones potentiallymight be the best fit for your,
for your audience.
And I imagine as well,because we've worked with some,
with some clients that havelike ranked organically,
they've done some content,they've got some organic
rankings,and then it's been like a light
bulb moment where they'vethought, God,
this is actually like arealistic like lead Gen source.
And then they've started tofocus on it and put more time
(05:22):
and effort into it.
So I think it is interestingthat there may be or there will
be untapped lead gen potentialfor many real estate agents and
firms that have never lookedinto doing this with content,
SEO content.
But those opportunitiesare there.
Can we discuss local maplistings and how they can be
optimized for specificareas then?
(05:42):
Cause obviously this is a keyfocus for many firms.
The map pack,how can that be optimized?
What should they do?
You need to create a listing inGoogle Business profile and make
sure you fill out everythingas much as possible.
If it says write 500 words,write 500 words about
your business,don't write 50 words because
Google feeds off text.
And the more content we puton that on your website,
(06:03):
on Google Business profile,on a YouTube video,
anywhere that podcast,you add more text to
those that content,Google is going to be able to
read it easier andbetter rank it.
So filling out Google Businessprofile as much as possible and
then making sure thatyou build more,
more listings on other maps.
The more maps you're in withconsistent information,
the higher you're gonnarank on Google Maps.
(06:24):
So getting on like Apple Mapsand Bing Maps and MapQuest and
yellow pages and hundredsof other maps.
The more maps you're in,the more trust Google's gonna
give to you and the higher theyrank you on Google
Business profile.
And then trying to getreviews if you can,
trying to make sure your imageshave keywords before you upload
them to Google Business profile.
And just try to make sure youembed that map on your website.
(06:47):
And just try to do whatever youcan to get Google to start
trusting you more becausecreating a listing does
nothing without trust.
And it all goes down to trustwith your website, with maps,
whatever it is you need to buildtrust with Google to get them
to want to rank you.
When you look at where leads arecoming from for real
estate firms,what percentage do you think is
maps versus organic or cominginto the service pages is maps?
(07:11):
The map listings thebiggest driver.
Of leads,if they rank on the maps for
in the top position,then maps will bring more.
Usually because maps are higherup, but it varies.
So if the map is lower,then it might get less traffic
because Google kind ofplays around with it,
but usually it's higher up.
So if it's higher up,people are going to kind of be
drawn into what's at the top.
(07:31):
They usually try to skip overthe ads because they know
it's sponsored ads,but if the maps are higher
than the websites,and the maps are probably going
to get more traction.
Okay, cool.
And do you actually think thendo you have any insight from
the, like the firm level,the real estate agents level,
whether or not all organicleads actually convert,
as well as the leads thatthey're buying in.
(07:52):
So I don't really see whathappens behind the scenes
after they get leads.
I just see if they get phonecalls or emails or people
filling out the form,but once it's past that,
then it's really on them to makesure that they're able to
convert that lead into a newclient or someone buying
a home or selling home,which can be tough.
Buying a home,selling a home is a really
(08:12):
long process.
So it's not like they're justgoing to a website and buying
some shoes or a t shirt where wecould track directly
those conversions.
It's a little bit more indirectwith the realtors,
where it's on them and how goodthey are at finding
homes listings,presenting that to the buyer,
making sure that theyshow up on time.
They do open houses and allthese things that need to be in
place, so it's a little tougher,but usually they say that the
(08:35):
organic gets good results aslong as you target the
right keywords.
But if you're just targetingobscure keywords,
then it's gonna really give youthe wrong type of leads because
traffic is not reallymeans to an end.
You gotta make sure you havetargeted traffic that have
that buying intent.
If you're just targeting randomkeywords just to get traffic,
that's not gonna domuch for you.
But when we're focusing onreally specific keywords in
(08:55):
different communities,different cities, towns,
zip codes,then it comes much more specific
to get better leads that areactually going to want to
hopefully use their services.
But people also shop around whenthey're looking for realtors,
so it's kind of toughto get that one.
Realtor real estate ispretty competitive.
Yeah.
So you just mentioned as wellthat it's a long and arduous
(09:17):
process to buy a house.
I'm currently in the process.
I'm coming towards the tail endof it now of buying and it has
been a nightmare journey.
So I think I'm going to try andstay settled for a while.
But Yeah, okay.
So you mentioned earlier thatcompetitive keywords,
if you're looking at your mainkeywords and you're seeing
Redfin ranking, Trulia Zillow,and then you need to go and find
(09:40):
less competitive keywords.
So can you give some guidance onwhat kind of things to look for?
There's the obvious things,like maybe the individual
neighborhoods.
What kind of strategy do youhave for coming up with a
content plan? Keyword research.
When the big playersdominate the main.
Focus keywords,I would try to find all the
communities around that area andfocus on those because those
(10:00):
really aren't usually toosaturated versus the
bigger city names.
But if you find the communitieswithin the cities,
like there might be a townhousecommunity or a condo community,
and they name it acertain thing.
Or you could go aftercertain niches,
like first time home buyersor something like that.
People that want condos by thebeach, waterfront homes.
So making those longtail keywords,
(10:21):
keywords that are two or morewords are gonna have
less competition,but more buyer intent.
So just trying to look and thinkof as many keywords as possible
and then use tools like thekeyword planner to see
variations, synonyms, plurals,and try to pick and choose which
ones you think are goingto be the best.
But just because the keyword is,has a good search volume,
you still want to search it andmake sure it's not just
dominated by those corporatewebsites.
(10:42):
But let's say you've got, like,a list of, like,
neighborhoods or areasyou could focus on.
How do you create content forall of them and still come
up with something unique?
Or these just simple landingpages? Otherwise, you know,
it would feel like you're justrepeating the same thing
over and over again.
If you're writing for all thesedifferent areas that are
very similar with.
Real estate agents,is actually pretty easy when it
comes down to other niches,like mind SEO,
(11:04):
it's a little tough. Like,how do I write about SEO
in London, in New York,and all this stuff?
But realtors,they make pages for every city,
and then they just list out the.
The fire department,all the emergency things that
people would want to know,the park's population,
the crime rate.
So anything that people wouldwant to know about that city,
you can just add that in andthen put some words about
(11:24):
yourself in there and mix itin and blend it all in.
So real truth,it's actually one of the easiest
ones, but with other industries,it gets a little tricky.
Like, all right, a lawyer.
What do we talk about for alawyer in all these cities that
are going to resonate withpeople that want to
use this lawyer?
Most of them don't careabout all that stuff,
but with realtors, at least,you could definitely put out the
schools, the crime rate,what's walkable,
(11:46):
and you just pull stuff fromWikipedia and just
a general area,and just repurpose all that,
reword it,and make it presentable to a
prospective home buyerin that city.
Something that if you werelooking for a home,
which of course you'redoing right now,
you could try to think like,what am I looking at?
What things are standing outfor me? Am I looking for?
If you have children,then you probably care
about school.
But if you don't have children,then you probably care
(12:07):
about rate or what's.
Is it near a metro system or isit near the ocean, the beach?
Or where is it?
So find these amenities,targeting those and putting
that into the content.
And would you look to do anysort of content type pieces
outside of that?
More like formulaic,generic posts that you need to
(12:28):
have for each community area?
Would you look at doing any sortof different content
style pieces?
If the search intent called forit for a particular keyword,
roundup posts,recommendations of things
to do in certain areas.
Is that part of a good contentstrategy for a real estate firm?
Yeah.
Every keyword search isgoing to be different.
So you have to see what Googleshows on that first page,
(12:49):
and then you have to try toemulate what those websites
are doing.
If everyone is writinga blog post,
then you should probablywrite a blog post.
If everyone is writinga 2000 word article,
then it should probably write2100 words of content
on your page.
So try to do a little bit morethan the competition,
but essentially you shouldcreate pages for every
single city,town community that you
want to target.
(13:09):
And then you should even writeblogs about all those
communities,interlink them all together.
And then you should get thirdparty sites to link out to those
blogs and those community pagesto build that trust up and
get them to rank higher,because creating those pages,
those content plays work.
If you have backlinks,but if you don't have backlinks,
Google's gonna just skip overall that content and say,
all right,we don't believe anything that
(13:30):
you put on this website becausewe just don't trust you.
And we trust Zillow,we trust Trulia,
but we don't trust you.
So all this content is great,but we still need those
trust signals.
You're talking about allthese different areas.
Should you link themin the navigation?
I see a lot of real estateagents and they've got 50
different towns listed.
Their footer is that wide?
(13:52):
It's super wide.
It takes forever toscroll through.
How do you handle the navigationwhen you cover that many things?
Should you avoid listing all ofthem out in your navigation?
If they're important,then I would list them all
out in the navigation.
But if they're not gonna beimportant for most people that
are coming to your website,then you just leave them as
hidden pages and have them aspages that exist on
(14:12):
your website.
They're just not linked fromthe top navigation,
but they need to belinked somewhere.
So you have a page that listsout all your service areas and
then interlinked themfrom there,
but they have to be somewhereon that website. Just,
you don't have to have it at thetop navigation if you don't
wanna cluttered up,especially on mobile,
nobody wants to scroll through50 listings where it's just
scrolling and scrolling.
That top hammergroom navigationjust takes up the whole page.
(14:35):
You do see some big old photos,don't you?
Okay, so in terms of actualcontent production,
then we're doing competitionanalysis.
We're matching search intent andwe're going to try and emulate
what's ranking in the top three.
What are we doing in terms ofcontent optimization tools
such as surfer SEO?
And are you using or having anysuccess with AI in order to
(14:57):
formulate that content?
Google said,we don't care who uses or who
writes the content last year.
So doesn't matter if AIor people write it,
as long as it's accurate andgood for the reader.
I have a lot of writers,unfortunately,
a lot of them are using AI,so it's tough.
And I try to find people thatare opposed to AI to write the
content because I'd still ratherhave people write it because if
(15:19):
you just have AI writethe content,
it's probably gonna be fullof incorrect content.
It's gonna have those AI newstations where if it doesn't
know the answer, it makes it up,it doesn't tell you
it's making it up,which is a little strange.
So it's so sure of itself in it.
Just use it.
Take it with a grain of salt,whatever it puts out there.
It might be accurate,but it also might be completely
off topic.
(15:39):
So you just gotta readthrough and edit it.
So I like to use it like,is it helpline?
Not bad with that.
But in terms of justregular content,
it is not quite there yet,but in a couple years it will
definitely be there.
Where is input?
A couple prompts.
And the more specificyour prompts are,
the better results are.
But even when I get reallyspecific and have a prompt
that's like two pages long,it still does those
AI hallucinations.
(16:00):
It writes really good content,but you stop to go in and
edit it and tweak it.
So it's a good starting point.
But edits made things much,much faster because if you have
50 towns that you wantto write content for,
I have to wait for an articlewriter to write 50 pieces of
content. AI can write it in,in probably 1 minute,
all 50 pieces of content.
It's pretty crazy andit's all original.
It's just not accurate.
(16:21):
So that's where you just gottago in and tweak it and play
around with it and make surethat you're putting out content
that's gonna be useful for thereader. That's, number one,
is putting keywords in therefor Google is important,
but really right for peoplefirst, Google secondary.
Yeah, that's very true.
I think one of the ways we'vebeen using AI is giving in
a lot of source data.
So we load everything in andthen we're having it summarize
or write based off of that.
(16:42):
And then one of the things Ilike to do is when you're not
sure about a stat it's givenyou, you can ask it,
show me exactly where this camefrom and it'll pull
that information.
That helps a lot there.
No,you get an apology at that point
a lot. Where it goes.
Oh, you're correct.
I don't know where I gotthat information from.
It's like I was just makingit up. Sorry,
I got it from google.com dot.
(17:05):
But yeah,if you ask for citations and
sources help that too.
But they could just make it upto you saying like, hey,
we found this Wikipedia page andit might not even exist,
but usually with the sourcesit's a little bit better.
But even then it could stillbe off. Like I say,
write 1000 words of content andit'll write like 500 words or
about write 2000 words and Itell it then like specify how
(17:25):
many words this is and it stillsometimes makes up the word
count. And a little strange,but it's not bad.
It's just it's infancy stage.
It needs a little bit more time.
That's the most baffling thing Ithink when it just doesn't get
the word count right or you saymake a list of 50 items and it
stops at 20 somethingand like that,
that I don't quite understand.
That's pretty funny, Brandon.
(17:46):
Very large real estateagents or multi city,
multi state agencies,could they utilize like a
combination of AI and thenpulling in APIs and doing,
you know,you're talking about like city
schools, numbers, school sizes,districts, that sort of thing,
where you can mass producedcontent with accurate
information being pulled fromvarious different data points.
(18:08):
If you have a programmeror a guy to do that,
then that would be evenbetter in real time,
having it update with thatcontent that would just take it
one step above everyone elsebecause now you don't have to
constantly go in and edit.
If a school shut down orif there's a new park,
you have to add that new parkor if the hospital
change addresses,you have to change that address.
And it can be very,very tedious.
(18:29):
Try to keep up with all that.
So if you could somehow pull itall in and have it auto
update in real time,that would be ideal. Definitely.
Maybe someone will go andimplement that now. We'll see.
Okay, so let's talk about links.
First of all,how important do you feel links
are for SEO in the space?
And then walk us through someof your favorite strategies.
(18:49):
I feel like if you don'thave backlinks,
you're not going to rank.
I don't think I've really everseen a website rank
without backlinks.
Google's algorithm is based offbacklinks and it's still heavily
based off backlinks because theydon't trust what keywords you
put on the website becauseanyone go and can put keywords
on the website and say,I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer.
Google's like,is that really what you are?
Because we don't want to justrank you and find out
(19:11):
you don't exist.
So they want to see otherwebsites talking about you.
And the more websites that arerelated to what you're doing and
have authority thatlink out to you,
the more trust Google isgoing to give to you.
And the higher they're goingto rank you. Google said,
we don't put much emphasison backlinks, but again,
looking at tools and who rankson that first page of Google,
I don't think I've ever seen awebsite that has zero backlinks
ranking on Google,unless it's like some obscure
(19:33):
keyword that has no competition.
Pick a rank.
But if you have any competition,you're going to need to build
some trust up to getGoogle to rank you.
And there's lots of waysto build backlinks.
I like to try looking at mycompetitors backlinks using
tools like ahrefs or mods orSemrush to spy on my competition
and see what keywords are being,what backlinks they're building,
where they're coming from andgoing through one by one,
(19:55):
looking at each backlinkthat seems relevant
and authoritative,not just going after
every backlink,because not all of them are
going to be good backlinks.
And you don't want to buildlow quality backlinks.
It's going to do moreharm than good.
So making sure you build goodquality backlinks and good
quality backlinks, again,really is sites that are niche
related and have authority.
Those are the two things Ireally focus on when building
backlinks really relevancy isnumber one and authority is
(20:18):
very, very important.
But sometimes you might get on areally niche site that's
a brand new website,but you hope in five years that
this website that's really new,it's gonna build into
a bigger brand.
So just because it's smallerdoesn't have a lot of
domain authority.
If it's really relevant,I'd say it still is
a good website.
If it's really relevant anda good real business,
not just a fake PBN or websitethat just popped up to try
(20:41):
to acquire backlinks.
So if you are doing,if you're reverse engineering
competition and you're lookingat link profile,
backlink profile,how are you making a
determination on how thoselinks were earned?
Like whether or not it's a paidniche edit a guest post
via digital pr,how are you coming to the
conclusion for then you to thengo and also try and
get that link?
(21:01):
I don't know if it makessense to go after it.
So if I see someone wrotean article about them,
but it is published in 2010,I might say, all right,
it might be tough to get thisauthor to update this article.
They probably don't even havework there anymore.
So you're not gonna be able toget all the backlinks from
your competition.
And once you've exhaustedthat list,
you might get like 10% ofthem that are good,
and then you have to startbuilding more backlinks
(21:22):
or newer ones.
So I'd look at my othercompetitors,
but then after a while,we've looked at all
the backlinks,you gotta start building
new ones.
And I like to do bloggeroutreach still.
So finding really,really niche related blogs,
not just any random blogs,but targeted websites,
and try to write for these,try to build relationships
with these websites.
Or if I could be a gueston a podcast,
usually if they have a website,they can give you a backlink.
(21:44):
So try to just think outside thebox on ways to get niche related
websites to give youthat backlink.
And it's really all aboutoffering something of value.
If you just ask for a backlink,no one's gonna say yes.
I mean, some people might,but most people are gonna
say no or pay me.
But if you offer value, like,if you're an e commerce website,
you can give out samples.
If you have low ticket products,if you give out samples of
(22:04):
products to influencersthat have a blog,
they have to have a blog.
If they just have an instagram,it's not gonna really
help your SEO,but if they have a blog
and write about it,that will help out.
So just trying to get creativeand think, like,
how can I get other people towant to give me this backlink?
And usually time, like,if you're a real estate agent,
then time is what you'reoffering. So time,
whether it's you're beinga guest on the show.
(22:25):
You're putting content out,writing an article or blog
or some content play.
But usually that's the best way,is some content piece on a third
party, niche related website.
Yeah, that's interesting.
You do have to providesomething of value,
and oftentimes that's money.
They're just asking for money.
But that's an interesting angleof, if you're looking at local,
it could be just the time thatif you're on the podcast or
(22:46):
niche related, I guess,on the podcast or doing other
things like that as a wayto earn the backlinks,
it's really interesting. Okay,so we're seeing a lot of changes
in Google lately. AI overviews.
A lot of thought of maybe sometraffic moving to different
platforms.
What do you think the next fewyears will look like in
the real estate space?
Do you think AI overviews willhave a big impact on real
(23:06):
estate searches?
Do you think any traffic willbe lost to other platforms?
I wish I knew the answer to allthat because it is changing so
quickly. Like every single day,something new is happening,
and we'll have to see whathappens. With chat,
GPT is putting their ownsearch engine out,
so we'll have to see if thattakes traffic away.
But if people are searchingon Google or Chat,
GPT or DuckDuckgo,it doesn't really matter.
(23:27):
As long as they're searchingon a search engine,
then SEO is still goingto be around,
and it's just trying to figureout who your audience is,
where are they and how do I getin front of them at
the right moment?
So you might have toshift a little bit,
but want to see if AItakes traffic away,
because AI is just kind of,I'd say like a featured
snippet where Google,if you search on Google,
they'll kind of give you afeatured snippet giving you the
answer usually at thetop through schema.
(23:48):
And that's not AI,but it's similar to AI where AI
just giving you an answer.
It's a lot longer,more in depth,
but it is similar.
So we'll have to see whathappens if people just realize
Google's kind of been doing thisalready. It's just chat.
GPT is doing it in a log formand gives you the option to just
create a lot of content.
It could code,it can do all these
other things,which I think is really drawing
(24:08):
people into it. It's like, hey,code me schema,
or do code me a wholenew website,
build me a API to import allthat information in and
it'll do it for you.
So we'll have to see for moreinformational content.
I feel like it's going totake that traffic away.
Just like the feature snippetstook traffic away from Wikipedia
and all these platforms,it's going to take a lot of
traffic away from that,but from transactional ones,
(24:30):
I don't think we'll haveto see how that works.
But you can't reallybuy off AI yet.
But I feel like they willincorporate that and incorporate
ads and probably just turn intoanother Google replica or just
with more tools where you canwrite content and use the AI
functionality to have it talk toit and ask it questions and
hopefully give you theanswer right there.
But for transactional,I still feel like it needs
(24:52):
websites because especially fore commerce, for real estate,
I'm not sure how it's gonnawork, but for e commerce,
you're trying to buy tennisshoes and you go to AI and they
just give you one option,you're gonna be like, all right,
how do I know this is thebest shoes? Like,
you're just gonna give me nikes,but I wanna see other
variations.
So those ones might have to havea little thought put into it on
how to lay it out properly andget that user journey to want to
(25:13):
stick with using thosenew platforms.
I think even if AI onlyrecommends one agent,
for example,there's not gonna be the same
for every question.
If your question is about forfirst time home buyers versus
short term rental,going to be different
areas to go after.
So it's going to be interesting,for sure.
I also think it's going to beone of the slower industries to
(25:33):
move to the shift thatwe're already seeing.
So people are using differentplatforms to search.
They're searching for thingsthat we wouldn't have expected
five years ago on placeslike TikTok.
But like you said with e.comwith real estate,
when I was looking for a house,it's Google.
If I'm looking for some healthrelated expertise or services,
it's Google.
I actually looked inthe newspaper.
(25:54):
We have like weekly houselistings in the newspaper.
Believe it or nothing.
Certain habits will take,will be will take longer to
change. Yeah, but it is,it is moving so fast.
Who knows?
That's a very good point.
Yeah,it's interesting to just try
to watch this waving.
I know it's not a trend,it's not gonna just die off,
but you never know becausethings just come and go.
(26:16):
But with AI, I feel like,it's not gonna stop
anytime soon.
It's gonna keep growing andgrowing and growing,
but just have to keep staying ontop of it and just seeing what's
happening next and just try tobe prepared for whatever happens
next. Essentially,just be prepared for new
platforms, new search engines.
But no matter what,they're always going to have to
look at similar signals thatGoogle's looking at because what
else are they going tolook at for trust.
(26:36):
AI can't just read otherwebsites because people are just
using AI to create contentthat is full of incorrect
information.
If they just read that contentand think it's correct,
then it's going to be that loopof just never ending fake
content being put out there.
So they have to look at thosethird party trust signals,
social signals, backlinks,all that stuff to help really
build that trust up and get youto rank on those platforms.
(26:58):
I also think as well,what's fascinating is the people
that are utilizing AIon their own end.
So we've had some guests onwhere they're actually using AI
as much as they possibly canon their own web property.
They're creating AI imagesfor dress, how you shop,
so you can see how youlook in the clothes.
(27:19):
Maybe real estate,like you just said Brandon,
being able to,if that was housed on their
platforms where you could talkto an integrated AI bot and just
ask questions about certainproperties that you've
seen on the website.
So I think the companies thatare able to integrate this
technology on their own platformare going to be able to keep the
customers with them for much,much longer. But yeah,
(27:39):
it's moving so fast.
So we have to just keep watchingthe trends every day. Okay.
I think this,as we're coming towards an end,
Brandon,this would just be a good place
to ask about digital printhead.
For real estate,we found it to be one of the
nicest industries to work in.
Its always a trendingtopic in the news,
(27:59):
from celebrity homes to how canyou make your house sell for
an extra thousand dollars?
What can you do in the garden?
The journalists are alwaystalking about it.
We feel like it's an excellentopportunity for real
estate agents.
Are you seeing real estateagents do digital pr on their
own or utilizing this as alink building strategy?
Not many of them are doingit on their own,
(28:21):
but once I tell them aboutbuilding backlinks,
it's a little trickier. Like,I work with lawyers and they get
written up all thetime in the news.
If they're doing a big case.
So I tell them, hey,you just got written up on
all these news platforms,but now they give
you a backlink.
We need to reach out to them andtry to get these backlinks.
But with real estate agents,they're not really getting
that organic pr.
They kind of have to push and dothat outreach to get that.
(28:42):
Unless they sell like the mostexpensive home or something like
where it's the mostor a unique home,
they might get some pr aboutthat. But in general,
if you're just selling likea condo near the beach,
it's probably not going to gettoo exciting or too much
written up about it.
But you can try to do a pressrelease and distribute that.
But I feel like the PR backlinksdon't really move the needle
like they used to becausethey're just really generic
(29:04):
kind of websites,unless you get on really
good pr websites.
But if you're just going to likePR web and distributing it there
doesn't really havethat same effect.
It might help with localbecause the more name,
address and phone numbernap citations you have,
the higher you're gonna ringon Google Business profile.
So you get listed on all thesethird party sites,
but a lot of them are justrandom and they're all
news websites,so there's no relevancy really.
You're not getting on likea real estate website.
(29:26):
You might get just a reallygeneric kind of website that has
millions of other articles thatare just on a variety of topics.
It could even be like gamblingand pornography.
So mixing with that mightnot be the best.
But if you get real pr,that is really tough to get.
But if you have real websiteslike the Huffington Post or
something like that to writeabout you, that would be a huge,
(29:46):
huge win because those are bigauthoritative websites that
pass on a lot of trust.
But it's all about just tryingto get creative and building
relationships with thesewebsites. If you know people,
editors, writers,that's going to be the best.
So working with like a realpr firm, because SEO,
I feel like we do pr,but it's more for Google
to see the content.
We also want people to see it,but it's people is kind
(30:07):
of secondary.
Google is number one for SEO,just to get Google to trust you
more and rank you higher becauseyou might get published on
the Huffington Post,you might get a ton of traffic
for like a week or two,but after a couple of
months or years,you just kind of get
buried in there.
But that backlink is alwaysgoing to be visible to Google
and that Backlink is alwaysgoing to be sending more trust
signals to your website andhopefully that Backlink will
just bring in more traffic anddefinitely to keep you up
(30:29):
there for your keywords.
We found that there are just somany publications writing
about real estate.
So from realtor.com that'sone we land a lot,
but a lot of in the homerenovation space as well.
They're always asking forrealtors advice and opinion,
like where do you want to investmoney when you're doing
a home remodel?
Does this repay for itself?
Does this repay.
(30:49):
So there's lots of topics outthere and journalists are always
looking for real estate agents,to quote.
That is great using like Haro orany of those websites to just
try to tap into where those newsreporters are and try to get
them to hopefully write aboutyou and give you that good
authoritative backlink.
Always a good thing,but it is tricky.
So just being patient with itand try to get one a month,
(31:10):
that's a huge win,or one every few months
of these big.
It's our data sites that'sdefinitely going to be a good
push on your SEO play.
It is tricky and obviously,you know, that's what we do and
what we do well.
But also for actual like realestate agents listening,
the game now for these inboundrequests from journalists is
they're just looking for whatthese real estate agents
(31:30):
often already have,but may not have like presented
in a way which is quiteeasy for them to do.
So the journalists just want toquote actual real people that
have expertise and credentialsin what it is that they're
looking for.
On platforms like Haro,even journalists directly on
places like LinkedInand Twitter,
they're saying like forHousebeautiful.com comma,
(31:51):
realtor.com, comma,realhomes.com comma,
ideal homes,huge websites looking for a real
estate to give me comments on X,Y and Z.
And if that real estate agentis visible with a LinkedIn,
a website,an about page credentials
clearly demonstrated they'vegot a huge chance,
huge opportunity to get thosemassive links, like you said,
that do move the needle.
So I think that tied in with thecontent strategy that you were
(32:13):
talking about earlier,covering all of those,
that holistic content strategymeans that there is still for
some time to come potential forSEO traffic which can convert
into sales for realestate agents.
There's definitely a lot ofpotential that just try and
piece them all together andfigure out what's going to,
it's really going to hit thehome with that audience best or
your target audience ofpeople searching.
(32:34):
So definitely playaround with it.
Yeah, for sure. All right,Brandon,
I think that's a good place towrap up. Thanks for coming on.
It's been an awesome talk forpeople who want to connect with
you. Where can we send them?
So anyone that wantsto learn more,
I actually created a specialgift for them.
If they go to my websiteat SEO optimizers.com,
that's SEO pt I I zand they can find that gift
(33:01):
there along with my contractinformation and other classes
I've done over the years.
I've done it for freeso they could see,
step by step how to do a lot ofstuff that we've been
talking about today.
Awesome. Well, thank you,Brandon. Thank you so much.
Thank you for havingme on today.
And that wraps up this episodeof market movers and building
brands and links with Linkify.
Big thanks to our parentcompany, Linkify,
(33:22):
the wizards behind turningambitious business businesses
and to stand out brands.
Hit up our website at Linkfi IOand take the first steps towards
brand greatness.
Big shout out to fame for makingthis podcast possible.
Thanks for listening, folks.
Stick around for more insightsin our next episode.
Catch you later.
Putting keywords in there forGoogle is important, but really,
you gotta write for peoplefirst. Google secondary.
Is SEO a good optionfor everyone.
Or are SEO just a free trafficsource? The more maps you're in,
the more trust Google'sgonna give to you.
And just try to do whatever youcan to get Google to start
trusting you more,because creating a listing does
nothing without trust.
It's been a nightmare journey.
The more specific your promptsare, the better results are.
(00:21):
Walk us through some of yourfavorite strategies.
I feel like if you don'thave backlinks,
you're not gonna rank.
I'll try to stick outside thebox on ways to get niche relayed
websites to give youthat backlink.
Be prepared for whateverhappens,
then be prepared for newplatforms, new search engines.
Get Google to trust you moreand make you hire.
Two, three, four.
Want to attract and convertmore leads?
Want to learn how digital pr,branding and SEO can establish
(00:43):
and build your brand identity?
Welcome to the market moversbuilding brands and links
with Linkify podcast.
We answer these questions andhelp you ramp up your brand
visibility and credibility.
Let's cut through the noise andmake your business the talk of
the town. We're your hosts,Nick and Chris.
Let's get this show on the road.
Welcome to the MarketMovers podcast.
Today we're joined byBrandon Lebowitz,
(01:04):
the founder of SEO Optimizersand a digital marketing expert.
15 years of experience.
Brandon specializes inhelping businesses,
including real estate firms,improve their online visibility
and generate more leads througheffective SEO strategies.
He's here to share his insightson how real estate professionals
can leverage SEO to compete in acrowded online market space,
from local map listings tocontent creation and link
(01:26):
building tactics. Welcome,Brandon.
Thank you for havingme on today.
Hey, Brandon,it's great to have you on.
To kick things off,why don't you tell us a little
bit about yourself and yourbackground in marketing?
Yeah.
My name is Brandon Leibowitz.
I've been involved with digitalmarketing since 2007.
I got my degree in businessmarketing, and after I graduated
from university,my first job was helping the
(01:47):
company out with theirdigital marketing,
which I didn't really know muchabout it back in 2007.
They don't really teachit to you in school,
and the company knew that andtold me, don't worry,
we're new to this as well.
We're gonna learn with you,taking you to classes at
workshops and seminars,and did that for a few months
and just kind of realizedthis is the future.
Everyone's probably gonna have awebsite and SEO is a way to get
(02:08):
free traffic. Social media,email, paid ads,
it all works to get traffic,but SEO is just a free traffic
source. And I thought,who doesn't want free traffic?
So over the years Ifocused on SEO,
working at different advertisingagencies and as a
director of SEO.
And before work or after workon my lunch breaks,
I'd work on my own company andeventually built that up to,
whereas I would quit my job andfocus solely on this and been
(02:29):
doing that ever since.
Awesome.
So you've seen a bit then,I imagine over the years it's
changed all the time.
Well,we know that you do a lot of
work with real estate,so it's a space that we love
personally from a digitalpr perspective.
So we were thinking to try andtake this conversation with
a real estate slant.
If you could tell us if youthink SEO is still is a good
(02:51):
tactic for real estate agents.
As long as people are searchingfor your keywords,
then I would target it.
But with real estate,it could be dominated by Zillow
or these big corporate websites.
So if you're searching for homesfor sale, let's say,
in Paris and everythingis zillow, it might be hard to
break through.
But if you can findunique variations,
(03:12):
like you find like they havedifferent communities,
and if you target thosecommunity names,
like if it's called thegardens in Paris,
then you can target the gardens,which is a townhouse community,
and you focus solely on that andthat will have less competition,
less people are going tobe searching for it.
But the people searching for it,they know they want a townhouse
in this community.
They have that buyer intentversus somebody just saying
(03:35):
home for sale in Paris,it's really vague and can mean
a ton of different things.
So just finding those reallyniche keywords that have low
competition but still have thatbuyer intent are going to be
good keywords to go after.
So we've noticed thatreal estate agents,
because we work with quite a fewand we've talked to others and
they either focus on SEO or theyjust completely ignore it.
(03:55):
We've talked to so many agentswho have said, like,
we don't focus on it at all.
All of our leads come from,you know,
networking or we're buyingthem from Zillow, Trulia,
whatever it is.
Is SEO a good option foreveryone or are there some
situations for atthe firm level,
not the individual agent level?
Where is it?
Is it really the case whereevery firm could be getting
(04:16):
a lot of traffic from SEO?
Yeah,as long as there's search volume
for those keywords.
So if you're in some small townwith a population of 20 people,
then maybe SEO would be the bestbecause unless ultimately people
are searching and trying tobuy a home, but if not,
it might not be the bestviable traffic source.
So it really just comes down toare people searching and is,
are the search results justdominated by these big
(04:37):
corporations? If so,if you're just a startup,
maybe hold off,but if you work for a big
corporation, then go for it.
Target these big corporatekeywords because you're going to
be able to compete with them.
But if you're just a startupor just a one person job,
it's going to be really,really tough to compete
with them.
But it's all just all aboutfinding good keywords that have
that low competition.
And that's where you can usetools like the Google Keyword
planner to help you researchkeywords and find search volume
(04:59):
and see which ones potentiallymight be the best fit for your,
for your audience.
And I imagine as well,because we've worked with some,
with some clients that havelike ranked organically,
they've done some content,they've got some organic
rankings,and then it's been like a light
bulb moment where they'vethought, God,
this is actually like arealistic like lead Gen source.
And then they've started tofocus on it and put more time
(05:22):
and effort into it.
So I think it is interestingthat there may be or there will
be untapped lead gen potentialfor many real estate agents and
firms that have never lookedinto doing this with content,
SEO content.
But those opportunitiesare there.
Can we discuss local maplistings and how they can be
optimized for specificareas then?
(05:42):
Cause obviously this is a keyfocus for many firms.
The map pack,how can that be optimized?
What should they do?
You need to create a listing inGoogle Business profile and make
sure you fill out everythingas much as possible.
If it says write 500 words,write 500 words about
your business,don't write 50 words because
Google feeds off text.
And the more content we puton that on your website,
(06:03):
on Google Business profile,on a YouTube video,
anywhere that podcast,you add more text to
those that content,Google is going to be able to
read it easier andbetter rank it.
So filling out Google Businessprofile as much as possible and
then making sure thatyou build more,
more listings on other maps.
The more maps you're in withconsistent information,
the higher you're gonnarank on Google Maps.
(06:24):
So getting on like Apple Mapsand Bing Maps and MapQuest and
yellow pages and hundredsof other maps.
The more maps you're in,the more trust Google's gonna
give to you and the higher theyrank you on Google
Business profile.
And then trying to getreviews if you can,
trying to make sure your imageshave keywords before you upload
them to Google Business profile.
And just try to make sure youembed that map on your website.
(06:47):
And just try to do whatever youcan to get Google to start
trusting you more becausecreating a listing does
nothing without trust.
And it all goes down to trustwith your website, with maps,
whatever it is you need to buildtrust with Google to get them
to want to rank you.
When you look at where leads arecoming from for real
estate firms,what percentage do you think is
maps versus organic or cominginto the service pages is maps?
(07:11):
The map listings thebiggest driver.
Of leads,if they rank on the maps for
in the top position,then maps will bring more.
Usually because maps are higherup, but it varies.
So if the map is lower,then it might get less traffic
because Google kind ofplays around with it,
but usually it's higher up.
So if it's higher up,people are going to kind of be
drawn into what's at the top.
(07:31):
They usually try to skip overthe ads because they know
it's sponsored ads,but if the maps are higher
than the websites,and the maps are probably going
to get more traction.
Okay, cool.
And do you actually think thendo you have any insight from
the, like the firm level,the real estate agents level,
whether or not all organicleads actually convert,
as well as the leads thatthey're buying in.
(07:52):
So I don't really see whathappens behind the scenes
after they get leads.
I just see if they get phonecalls or emails or people
filling out the form,but once it's past that,
then it's really on them to makesure that they're able to
convert that lead into a newclient or someone buying
a home or selling home,which can be tough.
Buying a home,selling a home is a really
(08:12):
long process.
So it's not like they're justgoing to a website and buying
some shoes or a t shirt where wecould track directly
those conversions.
It's a little bit more indirectwith the realtors,
where it's on them and how goodthey are at finding
homes listings,presenting that to the buyer,
making sure that theyshow up on time.
They do open houses and allthese things that need to be in
place, so it's a little tougher,but usually they say that the
(08:35):
organic gets good results aslong as you target the
right keywords.
But if you're just targetingobscure keywords,
then it's gonna really give youthe wrong type of leads because
traffic is not reallymeans to an end.
You gotta make sure you havetargeted traffic that have
that buying intent.
If you're just targeting randomkeywords just to get traffic,
that's not gonna domuch for you.
But when we're focusing onreally specific keywords in
(08:55):
different communities,different cities, towns,
zip codes,then it comes much more specific
to get better leads that areactually going to want to
hopefully use their services.
But people also shop around whenthey're looking for realtors,
so it's kind of toughto get that one.
Realtor real estate ispretty competitive.
Yeah.
So you just mentioned as wellthat it's a long and arduous
(09:17):
process to buy a house.
I'm currently in the process.
I'm coming towards the tail endof it now of buying and it has
been a nightmare journey.
So I think I'm going to try andstay settled for a while.
But Yeah, okay.
So you mentioned earlier thatcompetitive keywords,
if you're looking at your mainkeywords and you're seeing
Redfin ranking, Trulia Zillow,and then you need to go and find
(09:40):
less competitive keywords.
So can you give some guidance onwhat kind of things to look for?
There's the obvious things,like maybe the individual
neighborhoods.
What kind of strategy do youhave for coming up with a
content plan? Keyword research.
When the big playersdominate the main.
Focus keywords,I would try to find all the
communities around that area andfocus on those because those
(10:00):
really aren't usually toosaturated versus the
bigger city names.
But if you find the communitieswithin the cities,
like there might be a townhousecommunity or a condo community,
and they name it acertain thing.
Or you could go aftercertain niches,
like first time home buyersor something like that.
People that want condos by thebeach, waterfront homes.
So making those longtail keywords,
(10:21):
keywords that are two or morewords are gonna have
less competition,but more buyer intent.
So just trying to look and thinkof as many keywords as possible
and then use tools like thekeyword planner to see
variations, synonyms, plurals,and try to pick and choose which
ones you think are goingto be the best.
But just because the keyword is,has a good search volume,
you still want to search it andmake sure it's not just
dominated by those corporatewebsites.
(10:42):
But let's say you've got, like,a list of, like,
neighborhoods or areasyou could focus on.
How do you create content forall of them and still come
up with something unique?
Or these just simple landingpages? Otherwise, you know,
it would feel like you're justrepeating the same thing
over and over again.
If you're writing for all thesedifferent areas that are
very similar with.
Real estate agents,is actually pretty easy when it
comes down to other niches,like mind SEO,
(11:04):
it's a little tough. Like,how do I write about SEO
in London, in New York,and all this stuff?
But realtors,they make pages for every city,
and then they just list out the.
The fire department,all the emergency things that
people would want to know,the park's population,
the crime rate.
So anything that people wouldwant to know about that city,
you can just add that in andthen put some words about
(11:24):
yourself in there and mix itin and blend it all in.
So real truth,it's actually one of the easiest
ones, but with other industries,it gets a little tricky.
Like, all right, a lawyer.
What do we talk about for alawyer in all these cities that
are going to resonate withpeople that want to
use this lawyer?
Most of them don't careabout all that stuff,
but with realtors, at least,you could definitely put out the
schools, the crime rate,what's walkable,
(11:46):
and you just pull stuff fromWikipedia and just
a general area,and just repurpose all that,
reword it,and make it presentable to a
prospective home buyerin that city.
Something that if you werelooking for a home,
which of course you'redoing right now,
you could try to think like,what am I looking at?
What things are standing outfor me? Am I looking for?
If you have children,then you probably care
about school.
But if you don't have children,then you probably care
(12:07):
about rate or what's.
Is it near a metro system or isit near the ocean, the beach?
Or where is it?
So find these amenities,targeting those and putting
that into the content.
And would you look to do anysort of content type pieces
outside of that?
More like formulaic,generic posts that you need to
(12:28):
have for each community area?
Would you look at doing any sortof different content
style pieces?
If the search intent called forit for a particular keyword,
roundup posts,recommendations of things
to do in certain areas.
Is that part of a good contentstrategy for a real estate firm?
Yeah.
Every keyword search isgoing to be different.
So you have to see what Googleshows on that first page,
(12:49):
and then you have to try toemulate what those websites
are doing.
If everyone is writinga blog post,
then you should probablywrite a blog post.
If everyone is writinga 2000 word article,
then it should probably write2100 words of content
on your page.
So try to do a little bit morethan the competition,
but essentially you shouldcreate pages for every
single city,town community that you
want to target.
(13:09):
And then you should even writeblogs about all those
communities,interlink them all together.
And then you should get thirdparty sites to link out to those
blogs and those community pagesto build that trust up and
get them to rank higher,because creating those pages,
those content plays work.
If you have backlinks,but if you don't have backlinks,
Google's gonna just skip overall that content and say,
all right,we don't believe anything that
(13:30):
you put on this website becausewe just don't trust you.
And we trust Zillow,we trust Trulia,
but we don't trust you.
So all this content is great,but we still need those
trust signals.
You're talking about allthese different areas.
Should you link themin the navigation?
I see a lot of real estateagents and they've got 50
different towns listed.
Their footer is that wide?
(13:52):
It's super wide.
It takes forever toscroll through.
How do you handle the navigationwhen you cover that many things?
Should you avoid listing all ofthem out in your navigation?
If they're important,then I would list them all
out in the navigation.
But if they're not gonna beimportant for most people that
are coming to your website,then you just leave them as
hidden pages and have them aspages that exist on
(14:12):
your website.
They're just not linked fromthe top navigation,
but they need to belinked somewhere.
So you have a page that listsout all your service areas and
then interlinked themfrom there,
but they have to be somewhereon that website. Just,
you don't have to have it at thetop navigation if you don't
wanna cluttered up,especially on mobile,
nobody wants to scroll through50 listings where it's just
scrolling and scrolling.
That top hammergroom navigationjust takes up the whole page.
(14:35):
You do see some big old photos,don't you?
Okay, so in terms of actualcontent production,
then we're doing competitionanalysis.
We're matching search intent andwe're going to try and emulate
what's ranking in the top three.
What are we doing in terms ofcontent optimization tools
such as surfer SEO?
And are you using or having anysuccess with AI in order to
(14:57):
formulate that content?
Google said,we don't care who uses or who
writes the content last year.
So doesn't matter if AIor people write it,
as long as it's accurate andgood for the reader.
I have a lot of writers,unfortunately,
a lot of them are using AI,so it's tough.
And I try to find people thatare opposed to AI to write the
content because I'd still ratherhave people write it because if
(15:19):
you just have AI writethe content,
it's probably gonna be fullof incorrect content.
It's gonna have those AI newstations where if it doesn't
know the answer, it makes it up,it doesn't tell you
it's making it up,which is a little strange.
So it's so sure of itself in it.
Just use it.
Take it with a grain of salt,whatever it puts out there.
It might be accurate,but it also might be completely
off topic.
(15:39):
So you just gotta readthrough and edit it.
So I like to use it like,is it helpline?
Not bad with that.
But in terms of justregular content,
it is not quite there yet,but in a couple years it will
definitely be there.
Where is input?
A couple prompts.
And the more specificyour prompts are,
the better results are.
But even when I get reallyspecific and have a prompt
that's like two pages long,it still does those
AI hallucinations.
(16:00):
It writes really good content,but you stop to go in and
edit it and tweak it.
So it's a good starting point.
But edits made things much,much faster because if you have
50 towns that you wantto write content for,
I have to wait for an articlewriter to write 50 pieces of
content. AI can write it in,in probably 1 minute,
all 50 pieces of content.
It's pretty crazy andit's all original.
It's just not accurate.
(16:21):
So that's where you just gottago in and tweak it and play
around with it and make surethat you're putting out content
that's gonna be useful for thereader. That's, number one,
is putting keywords in therefor Google is important,
but really right for peoplefirst, Google secondary.
Yeah, that's very true.
I think one of the ways we'vebeen using AI is giving in
a lot of source data.
So we load everything in andthen we're having it summarize
or write based off of that.
(16:42):
And then one of the things Ilike to do is when you're not
sure about a stat it's givenyou, you can ask it,
show me exactly where this camefrom and it'll pull
that information.
That helps a lot there.
No,you get an apology at that point
a lot. Where it goes.
Oh, you're correct.
I don't know where I gotthat information from.
It's like I was just makingit up. Sorry,
I got it from google.com dot.
(17:05):
But yeah,if you ask for citations and
sources help that too.
But they could just make it upto you saying like, hey,
we found this Wikipedia page andit might not even exist,
but usually with the sourcesit's a little bit better.
But even then it could stillbe off. Like I say,
write 1000 words of content andit'll write like 500 words or
about write 2000 words and Itell it then like specify how
(17:25):
many words this is and it stillsometimes makes up the word
count. And a little strange,but it's not bad.
It's just it's infancy stage.
It needs a little bit more time.
That's the most baffling thing Ithink when it just doesn't get
the word count right or you saymake a list of 50 items and it
stops at 20 somethingand like that,
that I don't quite understand.
That's pretty funny, Brandon.
(17:46):
Very large real estateagents or multi city,
multi state agencies,could they utilize like a
combination of AI and thenpulling in APIs and doing,
you know,you're talking about like city
schools, numbers, school sizes,districts, that sort of thing,
where you can mass producedcontent with accurate
information being pulled fromvarious different data points.
(18:08):
If you have a programmeror a guy to do that,
then that would be evenbetter in real time,
having it update with thatcontent that would just take it
one step above everyone elsebecause now you don't have to
constantly go in and edit.
If a school shut down orif there's a new park,
you have to add that new parkor if the hospital
change addresses,you have to change that address.
And it can be very,very tedious.
(18:29):
Try to keep up with all that.
So if you could somehow pull itall in and have it auto
update in real time,that would be ideal. Definitely.
Maybe someone will go andimplement that now. We'll see.
Okay, so let's talk about links.
First of all,how important do you feel links
are for SEO in the space?
And then walk us through someof your favorite strategies.
(18:49):
I feel like if you don'thave backlinks,
you're not going to rank.
I don't think I've really everseen a website rank
without backlinks.
Google's algorithm is based offbacklinks and it's still heavily
based off backlinks because theydon't trust what keywords you
put on the website becauseanyone go and can put keywords
on the website and say,I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer.
Google's like,is that really what you are?
Because we don't want to justrank you and find out
(19:11):
you don't exist.
So they want to see otherwebsites talking about you.
And the more websites that arerelated to what you're doing and
have authority thatlink out to you,
the more trust Google isgoing to give to you.
And the higher they're goingto rank you. Google said,
we don't put much emphasison backlinks, but again,
looking at tools and who rankson that first page of Google,
I don't think I've ever seen awebsite that has zero backlinks
ranking on Google,unless it's like some obscure
(19:33):
keyword that has no competition.
Pick a rank.
But if you have any competition,you're going to need to build
some trust up to getGoogle to rank you.
And there's lots of waysto build backlinks.
I like to try looking at mycompetitors backlinks using
tools like ahrefs or mods orSemrush to spy on my competition
and see what keywords are being,what backlinks they're building,
where they're coming from andgoing through one by one,
(19:55):
looking at each backlinkthat seems relevant
and authoritative,not just going after
every backlink,because not all of them are
going to be good backlinks.
And you don't want to buildlow quality backlinks.
It's going to do moreharm than good.
So making sure you build goodquality backlinks and good
quality backlinks, again,really is sites that are niche
related and have authority.
Those are the two things Ireally focus on when building
backlinks really relevancy isnumber one and authority is
(20:18):
very, very important.
But sometimes you might get on areally niche site that's
a brand new website,but you hope in five years that
this website that's really new,it's gonna build into
a bigger brand.
So just because it's smallerdoesn't have a lot of
domain authority.
If it's really relevant,I'd say it still is
a good website.
If it's really relevant anda good real business,
not just a fake PBN or websitethat just popped up to try
(20:41):
to acquire backlinks.
So if you are doing,if you're reverse engineering
competition and you're lookingat link profile,
backlink profile,how are you making a
determination on how thoselinks were earned?
Like whether or not it's a paidniche edit a guest post
via digital pr,how are you coming to the
conclusion for then you to thengo and also try and
get that link?
(21:01):
I don't know if it makessense to go after it.
So if I see someone wrotean article about them,
but it is published in 2010,I might say, all right,
it might be tough to get thisauthor to update this article.
They probably don't even havework there anymore.
So you're not gonna be able toget all the backlinks from
your competition.
And once you've exhaustedthat list,
you might get like 10% ofthem that are good,
and then you have to startbuilding more backlinks
(21:22):
or newer ones.
So I'd look at my othercompetitors,
but then after a while,we've looked at all
the backlinks,you gotta start building
new ones.
And I like to do bloggeroutreach still.
So finding really,really niche related blogs,
not just any random blogs,but targeted websites,
and try to write for these,try to build relationships
with these websites.
Or if I could be a gueston a podcast,
usually if they have a website,they can give you a backlink.
(21:44):
So try to just think outside thebox on ways to get niche related
websites to give youthat backlink.
And it's really all aboutoffering something of value.
If you just ask for a backlink,no one's gonna say yes.
I mean, some people might,but most people are gonna
say no or pay me.
But if you offer value, like,if you're an e commerce website,
you can give out samples.
If you have low ticket products,if you give out samples of
(22:04):
products to influencersthat have a blog,
they have to have a blog.
If they just have an instagram,it's not gonna really
help your SEO,but if they have a blog
and write about it,that will help out.
So just trying to get creativeand think, like,
how can I get other people towant to give me this backlink?
And usually time, like,if you're a real estate agent,
then time is what you'reoffering. So time,
whether it's you're beinga guest on the show.
(22:25):
You're putting content out,writing an article or blog
or some content play.
But usually that's the best way,is some content piece on a third
party, niche related website.
Yeah, that's interesting.
You do have to providesomething of value,
and oftentimes that's money.
They're just asking for money.
But that's an interesting angleof, if you're looking at local,
it could be just the time thatif you're on the podcast or
(22:46):
niche related, I guess,on the podcast or doing other
things like that as a wayto earn the backlinks,
it's really interesting. Okay,so we're seeing a lot of changes
in Google lately. AI overviews.
A lot of thought of maybe sometraffic moving to different
platforms.
What do you think the next fewyears will look like in
the real estate space?
Do you think AI overviews willhave a big impact on real
(23:06):
estate searches?
Do you think any traffic willbe lost to other platforms?
I wish I knew the answer to allthat because it is changing so
quickly. Like every single day,something new is happening,
and we'll have to see whathappens. With chat,
GPT is putting their ownsearch engine out,
so we'll have to see if thattakes traffic away.
But if people are searchingon Google or Chat,
GPT or DuckDuckgo,it doesn't really matter.
(23:27):
As long as they're searchingon a search engine,
then SEO is still goingto be around,
and it's just trying to figureout who your audience is,
where are they and how do I getin front of them at
the right moment?
So you might have toshift a little bit,
but want to see if AItakes traffic away,
because AI is just kind of,I'd say like a featured
snippet where Google,if you search on Google,
they'll kind of give you afeatured snippet giving you the
answer usually at thetop through schema.
(23:48):
And that's not AI,but it's similar to AI where AI
just giving you an answer.
It's a lot longer,more in depth,
but it is similar.
So we'll have to see whathappens if people just realize
Google's kind of been doing thisalready. It's just chat.
GPT is doing it in a log formand gives you the option to just
create a lot of content.
It could code,it can do all these
other things,which I think is really drawing
(24:08):
people into it. It's like, hey,code me schema,
or do code me a wholenew website,
build me a API to import allthat information in and
it'll do it for you.
So we'll have to see for moreinformational content.
I feel like it's going totake that traffic away.
Just like the feature snippetstook traffic away from Wikipedia
and all these platforms,it's going to take a lot of
traffic away from that,but from transactional ones,
(24:30):
I don't think we'll haveto see how that works.
But you can't reallybuy off AI yet.
But I feel like they willincorporate that and incorporate
ads and probably just turn intoanother Google replica or just
with more tools where you canwrite content and use the AI
functionality to have it talk toit and ask it questions and
hopefully give you theanswer right there.
But for transactional,I still feel like it needs
(24:52):
websites because especially fore commerce, for real estate,
I'm not sure how it's gonnawork, but for e commerce,
you're trying to buy tennisshoes and you go to AI and they
just give you one option,you're gonna be like, all right,
how do I know this is thebest shoes? Like,
you're just gonna give me nikes,but I wanna see other
variations.
So those ones might have to havea little thought put into it on
how to lay it out properly andget that user journey to want to
(25:13):
stick with using thosenew platforms.
I think even if AI onlyrecommends one agent,
for example,there's not gonna be the same
for every question.
If your question is about forfirst time home buyers versus
short term rental,going to be different
areas to go after.
So it's going to be interesting,for sure.
I also think it's going to beone of the slower industries to
(25:33):
move to the shift thatwe're already seeing.
So people are using differentplatforms to search.
They're searching for thingsthat we wouldn't have expected
five years ago on placeslike TikTok.
But like you said with e.comwith real estate,
when I was looking for a house,it's Google.
If I'm looking for some healthrelated expertise or services,
it's Google.
I actually looked inthe newspaper.
(25:54):
We have like weekly houselistings in the newspaper.
Believe it or nothing.
Certain habits will take,will be will take longer to
change. Yeah, but it is,it is moving so fast.
Who knows?
That's a very good point.
Yeah,it's interesting to just try
to watch this waving.
I know it's not a trend,it's not gonna just die off,
but you never know becausethings just come and go.
(26:16):
But with AI, I feel like,it's not gonna stop
anytime soon.
It's gonna keep growing andgrowing and growing,
but just have to keep staying ontop of it and just seeing what's
happening next and just try tobe prepared for whatever happens
next. Essentially,just be prepared for new
platforms, new search engines.
But no matter what,they're always going to have to
look at similar signals thatGoogle's looking at because what
else are they going tolook at for trust.
(26:36):
AI can't just read otherwebsites because people are just
using AI to create contentthat is full of incorrect
information.
If they just read that contentand think it's correct,
then it's going to be that loopof just never ending fake
content being put out there.
So they have to look at thosethird party trust signals,
social signals, backlinks,all that stuff to help really
build that trust up and get youto rank on those platforms.
(26:58):
I also think as well,what's fascinating is the people
that are utilizing AIon their own end.
So we've had some guests onwhere they're actually using AI
as much as they possibly canon their own web property.
They're creating AI imagesfor dress, how you shop,
so you can see how youlook in the clothes.
(27:19):
Maybe real estate,like you just said Brandon,
being able to,if that was housed on their
platforms where you could talkto an integrated AI bot and just
ask questions about certainproperties that you've
seen on the website.
So I think the companies thatare able to integrate this
technology on their own platformare going to be able to keep the
customers with them for much,much longer. But yeah,
(27:39):
it's moving so fast.
So we have to just keep watchingthe trends every day. Okay.
I think this,as we're coming towards an end,
Brandon,this would just be a good place
to ask about digital printhead.
For real estate,we found it to be one of the
nicest industries to work in.
Its always a trendingtopic in the news,
(27:59):
from celebrity homes to how canyou make your house sell for
an extra thousand dollars?
What can you do in the garden?
The journalists are alwaystalking about it.
We feel like it's an excellentopportunity for real
estate agents.
Are you seeing real estateagents do digital pr on their
own or utilizing this as alink building strategy?
Not many of them are doingit on their own,
(28:21):
but once I tell them aboutbuilding backlinks,
it's a little trickier. Like,I work with lawyers and they get
written up all thetime in the news.
If they're doing a big case.
So I tell them, hey,you just got written up on
all these news platforms,but now they give
you a backlink.
We need to reach out to them andtry to get these backlinks.
But with real estate agents,they're not really getting
that organic pr.
They kind of have to push and dothat outreach to get that.
(28:42):
Unless they sell like the mostexpensive home or something like
where it's the mostor a unique home,
they might get some pr aboutthat. But in general,
if you're just selling likea condo near the beach,
it's probably not going to gettoo exciting or too much
written up about it.
But you can try to do a pressrelease and distribute that.
But I feel like the PR backlinksdon't really move the needle
like they used to becausethey're just really generic
(29:04):
kind of websites,unless you get on really
good pr websites.
But if you're just going to likePR web and distributing it there
doesn't really havethat same effect.
It might help with localbecause the more name,
address and phone numbernap citations you have,
the higher you're gonna ringon Google Business profile.
So you get listed on all thesethird party sites,
but a lot of them are justrandom and they're all
news websites,so there's no relevancy really.
You're not getting on likea real estate website.
(29:26):
You might get just a reallygeneric kind of website that has
millions of other articles thatare just on a variety of topics.
It could even be like gamblingand pornography.
So mixing with that mightnot be the best.
But if you get real pr,that is really tough to get.
But if you have real websiteslike the Huffington Post or
something like that to writeabout you, that would be a huge,
(29:46):
huge win because those are bigauthoritative websites that
pass on a lot of trust.
But it's all about just tryingto get creative and building
relationships with thesewebsites. If you know people,
editors, writers,that's going to be the best.
So working with like a realpr firm, because SEO,
I feel like we do pr,but it's more for Google
to see the content.
We also want people to see it,but it's people is kind
(30:07):
of secondary.
Google is number one for SEO,just to get Google to trust you
more and rank you higher becauseyou might get published on
the Huffington Post,you might get a ton of traffic
for like a week or two,but after a couple of
months or years,you just kind of get
buried in there.
But that backlink is alwaysgoing to be visible to Google
and that Backlink is alwaysgoing to be sending more trust
signals to your website andhopefully that Backlink will
just bring in more traffic anddefinitely to keep you up
(30:29):
there for your keywords.
We found that there are just somany publications writing
about real estate.
So from realtor.com that'sone we land a lot,
but a lot of in the homerenovation space as well.
They're always asking forrealtors advice and opinion,
like where do you want to investmoney when you're doing
a home remodel?
Does this repay for itself?
Does this repay.
(30:49):
So there's lots of topics outthere and journalists are always
looking for real estate agents,to quote.
That is great using like Haro orany of those websites to just
try to tap into where those newsreporters are and try to get
them to hopefully write aboutyou and give you that good
authoritative backlink.
Always a good thing,but it is tricky.
So just being patient with itand try to get one a month,
(31:10):
that's a huge win,or one every few months
of these big.
It's our data sites that'sdefinitely going to be a good
push on your SEO play.
It is tricky and obviously,you know, that's what we do and
what we do well.
But also for actual like realestate agents listening,
the game now for these inboundrequests from journalists is
they're just looking for whatthese real estate agents
(31:30):
often already have,but may not have like presented
in a way which is quiteeasy for them to do.
So the journalists just want toquote actual real people that
have expertise and credentialsin what it is that they're
looking for.
On platforms like Haro,even journalists directly on
places like LinkedInand Twitter,
they're saying like forHousebeautiful.com comma,
(31:51):
realtor.com, comma,realhomes.com comma,
ideal homes,huge websites looking for a real
estate to give me comments on X,Y and Z.
And if that real estate agentis visible with a LinkedIn,
a website,an about page credentials
clearly demonstrated they'vegot a huge chance,
huge opportunity to get thosemassive links, like you said,
that do move the needle.
So I think that tied in with thecontent strategy that you were
(32:13):
talking about earlier,covering all of those,
that holistic content strategymeans that there is still for
some time to come potential forSEO traffic which can convert
into sales for realestate agents.
There's definitely a lot ofpotential that just try and
piece them all together andfigure out what's going to,
it's really going to hit thehome with that audience best or
your target audience ofpeople searching.
(32:34):
So definitely playaround with it.
Yeah, for sure. All right,Brandon,
I think that's a good place towrap up. Thanks for coming on.
It's been an awesome talk forpeople who want to connect with
you. Where can we send them?
So anyone that wantsto learn more,
I actually created a specialgift for them.
If they go to my websiteat SEO optimizers.com,
that's SEO pt I I zand they can find that gift
(33:01):
there along with my contractinformation and other classes
I've done over the years.
I've done it for freeso they could see,
step by step how to do a lot ofstuff that we've been
talking about today.
Awesome. Well, thank you,Brandon. Thank you so much.
Thank you for havingme on today.
And that wraps up this episodeof market movers and building
brands and links with Linkify.
Big thanks to our parentcompany, Linkify,
(33:22):
the wizards behind turningambitious business businesses
and to stand out brands.
Hit up our website at Linkfi IOand take the first steps towards
brand greatness.
Big shout out to fame for makingthis podcast possible.
Thanks for listening, folks.
Stick around for more insightsin our next episode.
Catch you later.
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