SEO
When & How To Use It
One of my favorite questions for new professional acquaintances is, “What’s your favorite innovation from the past six months, and why?”
I like this question for a few reasons:
- It gives me a sense of where the person focuses and where we might be able to collaborate.
- The “why” tells me whether they understand the thing or if they are just following the trends.
- Innovation can mean many things, and understanding what the person finds innovative is helpful in framing other marketing concepts.
Automation almost always comes up. PPC marketers are spoiled for choice on ways to automate their workflows, such as:
- Bidding: Using native strategies or building their own rules and scripts.
- Creative: Fully delegating control or leveraging built-in A/B testing.
- Audiences: Owning targeting/exclusions or opting into machine learning choices through broad match and Performance Max (PMax).
- Channels: Directly choosing budget and creative allocation vs. allowing for algorithms to make those calls.
This article will not pass judgment on which automation options you might choose to opt into. Rather, it will outline the mechanics of each, as well as how to make them work.
Automation In Bidding
Bidding arguably is one of the few things that should always be automated.
How advertisers automate is where there’s room for different paths to profit:
- Native bidding strategies such as Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value, Target Impression Share, and Maximize Clicks.
- Automated rules based on key metrics that adjust bids based on predefined criteria.
- Bid adjustments using levers like device, location, and audiences to bid up or down.
Native Bidding
If you opt for native bidding, it’s vital that you trust your conversion tracking. Ad networks use conversions as the main guiding light to know whether to invest or pull back.
While it’s true that Max Clicks and Target Impression Share don’t need conversion tracking data to function, it’s still vital that you’re feeding in the right data.
A common mistake people make is including too many conversion actions as primary. This usually results in double counting or including steps on the journey that aren’t worth feeding into the algorithm.
Another common mistake is setting a target that isn’t attainable. If the target cost per acquisition (TCPA) or target return on ad spend (TROAS) don’t match the budget and auction prices, you’ll likely underspend or flood your campaign with bad leads.
Automated Rules
Rules and scripts are helpful when you have enough data to know what your bids should be. They typically need larger budgets to help compensate for being on manual bidding (and forfeiting the native bid signals).
The most common signals are:
- Changes in performance: CTR, CPA, conversion rate, CPC.
- Desired/undesired groups of people: audiences, locations, times of day, and devices.
- Predefined dates/events.
While these do require healthy data, the biggest pitfall for rules/scripts is the human element.
If the input is incorrect, it might hurt the campaign.
Bid Adjustments
This used to be my favorite way to automate bids: set a conservative manual bid and go aggressive on the bid adjustments.
Bid adjustments could be used to direct budget away from, or towards, desired prospects and give the user the most control.
However, with the improvements to native bid adjustments, it’s harder to justify using these. If you are planning on running a purely manual campaign, these are a must.
Which To Use?
If you trust your conversion tracking, there’s no reason not to use native bidding.
Native bidding pulls in signals advertisers aren’t able to access and usually outperforms human-governed automation.
Max Conversions with a TCPA goal and Max Conversion Value without a goal beat “manual” bidding’s 6.8% conversion rate.
However, if you aren’t able to put in accurate conversion value data or set realistic TCPA goals, going manual with rules, scripts, or bid adjustments will serve better.
Creative Automation
When asked, many will say they prefer human creative over automatically created text, display, and video ads.
The human mind is supposed to be better at coming up with the right content for the right audience.
However, what may go unnoticed is that the lion’s share of auto-generated ads come from human creative. i.e., the text, tone, and images will be borrowed from the advertiser’s site, existing ads, or social channels.
Creative falls into these categories:
Responsive ads and PMax ads all fundamentally follow the same objective: Take the content the advertiser provides and find the best combination for those assets.
Marketers can choose whether to allow full learning or to help it along by pinning creative to desired locations.
It can be tempting to pin all assets to recreate Expanded Text Ads. However, as this Optmyzr study shows, you’ll get a higher conversion rate by allowing for some freedom in the learning.
Visual creative (static display images and videos) are a bit tougher.
Brand style guidelines can make auto-generated ads a no-go. Be sure all creatives work with the templates, and if they don’t, consider uploading a fully contained ad.
Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) are powerful; however, much of their utility has been absorbed into PMax. Part of their power is leveraging the well-SEOed nature of a site to help Google know which landing pages relate to a query.
Headlines are derived from the language on the landing page.
When To Use Auto-Generated Creative?
Currently, it’s not a question of “when” – almost all creative has automation baked into it, to a certain extent.
The main choices to make are whether to fully delegate creative control or partner with the machine.
Assets (formerly known as extensions) should almost never be automated. This is because you want to use them to their fullest: highlighting high-value services, and amplifying ad messages.
Audience Automation
Audiences are the beating heart of PPC campaigns and the main lever advertisers have at their disposal.
However, the privacy-first web has restricted which audiences we can use, and even saw the depreciation of some of them.
Marketers access audiences through the following:
- Direct targets: Native or first-party audiences.
- Broad match: Leveraging the baked-in audiences.
- PMax: Built-in audiences or human-crafted audience signals.
- Smart/Auto bidding: Baked in audiences which influence increases/decreases in bids.
Choosing to opt into any of the automated audiences (i.e., any that a human doesn’t actively choose) depends entirely on how much you trust your conversion tracking.
It’s also important that your creative matches the audience you’re targeting. As a general rule of thumb, opting into automated audiences means manually excluding audiences you don’t want (provided there are no restrictions).
Manually choosing audiences (particularly opting into audience signals for PMax) invites room for human error. This is why it’s important to use data to inform your choices.
Consider building custom search intent audiences based on your top converting search terms (as opposed to the keywords themselves).
When To Use Automated Audiences
Unless you’re in a restricted industry, it almost always makes sense to have some manual influence on the audiences. This influence can be exclusions or outright targets.
However, as broad match, smart bidding, and PMax have evolved, it’s worth testing the baked-in audiences.
At best, they thrive, and you’re able to benefit from leaning into the ad platform’s toys.
At worst, you have data to harvest and can be proactive in future exclusions and ad creative choices.
Automation Ad Channels
This is one of the biggest areas for contention with marketers. Marketing channels are a strategic choice, and delegating this level of strategy can cause understandable uneasiness.
However, depending on how the human interacts with the automation, it can still be a net positive experience.
Automating ad channels boils down to the following:
- PMax: Combining all Google ad channels into a single campaign.
- Search with Display Expansion: Google and Microsoft options to have search and display share the same budget.
- Search and Search Partners: Traditional search engine results page (SERP) and select partners for ads.
Sometimes PMax can outperform campaigns with more controls in place. This is usually due to the following being true:
- Conversion values are in play.
- Ad creatives represent all placements.
- There are other standalone campaigns for the PMax campaign to learn from.
Many marketers default to search first, and not all prospects want to consume information that way.
Additionally, by the time the person is searching for the thing, they usually have a “shortlist” of brands they’re interested in.
PMax enables brands to access visual placements and top-of-funnel interactions without carving out a separate budget for it.
It is important to have account-wide negative keywords and placement exclusions for any automated channel campaigns.
Manual campaigns can be effective – they just tend to require advertisers to pay a premium for each placement and are limited to the channels the advertiser opts into.
When To Automate Marketing Channels
The biggest deciding factors will be budget and conversion data.
If you trust your conversions (and are able to include conversion values), automated marketing makes a ton of sense. The human marketer puts safeguards in place via negative keywords, audiences, and placements.
If you don’t trust your conversion tracking and budgets are restricted, you’ll want to be specific about where marketing dollars are invested.
It’s important to note that image extensions (available on both Google and Microsoft) are a valid answer to multi-channel campaigns that need more control.
If you are under strict brand standards and/or have to report on all channel ROI, that might be a more feasible solution for you.
Final Takeaways
Automation is ultimately a net positive for digital marketers.
How much folks engage with it depends on which tasks are core competencies and which are struggles.
The more a brand trusts its data, the easier it is to lean into automation.
More resources:
Featured Image: /Shutterstock
SEO
An In-Depth Guide For Businesses
Social media marketing is all about being where your audience is.
If your target audience is active on a platform, then you should be, too. And if you’re looking to speak to a younger demographic, Snapchat can be a powerful marketing tool for your business.
Snapchat is the fifth largest social media network in the world – but it’s one of the most misunderstood (and underestimated) by marketers.
So, if you’re concerned about missing the boat on this platform, you’re not alone. You’re also not out of touch – you just need a comprehensive guide to get started. And you’re in the right place.
In this updated guide to Snapchat marketing, we’ll provide you with a deep dive into the multimedia messaging platform, explain who’s using it, and give you the strategies you need to add it effectively to your marketing mix.
Why Use Snapchat For Marketing? (Is It Still Relevant?)
Successful marketers focus on grasping every opportunity to reach potential customers – and Snapchat continues to offer unique opportunities.
As of 2024, Snapchat boasts over 406 million active daily users, with more than 80% of them being 34 or younger. The platform reaches 90% of the 13-24-year-old population worldwide and 75% of 13-34-year-olds in over 25 countries.
This makes it an ideal platform for targeting Millennials, Gen Z, and, increasingly, Gen Alpha.
While it might not have the massive user base of Facebook or YouTube, it drives impressive engagement. According to recent data, the average Snapchat user opens the app over 40 times per day and spends about 30+ minutes daily on the platform – which means people interact with their social circles on Snapchat more than any other social network.
Yet, when it comes to marketing, Snapchat is a relatively untapped territory. While every brand seems to have a Facebook and Instagram presence these days, comparatively few have a foothold on Snapchat. And that just means more opportunity for your brand.
The boon of Snapchat is how it’s optimized for authenticity. Given the ephemeral nature of the app and the more unfiltered style of content approach, brands can use the platform to connect with their audience in ways that feel genuine and immediate – which is more valuable than ever.
And, as if all of this wasn’t enough, Snapchat has established itself as a competitive force in the social commerce market. With its augmented reality (AR) shopping experiences, you’re able to build immersive shopping experiences for users through the app – something most other platforms can’t compete with.
By now, it should be crystal clear why Snapchat could be a strong addition to your marketing strategy. So, how do you get started? Let’s break it down.
How Does Snapchat Work? A Brief Overview
If your social media experience is primarily with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or X (Twitter), Snapchat’s interface may initially feel like a whole new world.
Snapchat’s design is unique – it’s built for spontaneity, exclusivity, and in-the-moment content creation. When you open the app, it goes directly to the camera, making it super easy for you to capture and share videos and photos (called “Snaps”) in just a few seconds.
You can then edit these Snaps using a variety of filters, stickers, and AR Lenses before sending them directly to your chosen friends or adding to your “Story,” which remains viewable for 24 hours. There’s also a newer Spotlight feature, similar to TikTok, for sharing short-form videos with wider audiences.
The app offers a host of other features, including a Snap Map, an AI-powered chatbot, and disappearing direct messages. Long story short: There are a bunch of innovative and creative ways for brands to engage with audiences on Snapchat.
What Brands Are Best Suited To Snapchat Marketing?
Let me be clear: Snapchat isn’t for every brand. There’s a reason why it’s less frequented than some other social media platforms. That said, if your target audience includes younger consumers, it’s absolutely worth considering.
Brands that are best suited to Snapchat are those that present a youthful image and tone and prioritize authenticity, “realness,” and creativity. If your brand image is highly professional or you have red tape around your marketing efforts, you should likely look elsewhere.
Lifestyle brands, fashion labels, beauty products, entertainment companies, and tech startups – these are the kinds of companies that typically see success on the app.
But really, the opportunity exists for any type of brand that is interested in using Snapchat’s tools to create immersive, engaging content that resonates with the platform’s users.
How To Get the Right “Tone Of Voice” For Snapchat
I mentioned tone above – and on Snapchat, tone of voice is a big deal. The platform itself is playful and casual, so you’re not likely to find success using an overly formal or professional tone.
Instead, your brand should focus on having a genuine conversation with users and infusing your content with humor.
Here are some tips for nailing the Snapchat tone of voice:
- Keep it light: People go to Snapchat to be entertained. Leave your hard sales pitch at the door.
- Prioritize authenticity: It’s a place to show the human side of your brand, whether it’s through user-generated content or behind-the-scenes Snaps.
- Engage, engage, engage: Snapchat has a ton of interactive tools for engaging directly with users, like polls, Q&As, and more. Put them to use!
How To Create A Snapchat Strategy For Business
So, you want to create a successful Snapchat strategy. You can just start posting content sporadically, right? Wrong.
You need to start by understanding your brand’s goals and audience, and then determining the type of content that will best help you reach those people on Snapchat specifically. Here are some steps you can take to start building your Snapchat strategy:
- Decide what you want to achieve on the platform. Maybe it’s brand awareness, community building, or increasing sales – once you know your goals, you can build your content approach around them.
- Know your audience. As with any kind of marketing strategy, this is crucial.
- Experiment and be creative. Try your hand with some of Snapchat’s different tools (like Bitmoji, AR Lenses, filters, etc.) to create content that resonates with your audience. Don’t just choose one type of content and settle – you can (and should) experiment with a variety of Snaps, Stories, and Spotlight videos.
- Be consistent. All great marketers know that consistency is key – and it’s the same story on Snapchat.
- Keep a good balance. Of course, you want to sell your brand to users, but don’t go all in on self-promotional content. Make sure you’re balancing organic, engaging storytelling with talking about yourself.
- Learn (and follow) Snapchat best practices. This is a no-brainer. Spend time on the platform to find what works, and see how you can adopt it in your own strategy.
Types Of Content That Work Best On Snapchat
Snapchat is all about driving engagement. What does that look like in action? Here are some examples of content approaches that work particularly well on the platform.
1. Sneak Peeks & Teasers
Launching a new product or service? Snapchat is a great place to drive excitement by giving your audience teasers or sneak peeks at what’s to come.
You might think about dropping hints about the product, sharing a quick glimpse, or some other behind-the-scenes moments to encourage anticipation among your Snapchat followers.
Warner Bros., for example, has used teaser content to promote its upcoming movie releases.
2. Behind-The-Scenes Content
Speaking of behind-the-scenes, this type of content is tailor-made for Snapchat.
Showing your audience what goes on behind the curtain at your brand is a clever way to create a sense of exclusivity and make people feel like insiders.
3. User-Generated Content (UGC)
You’ve heard about user-generated content – well, Snapchat is a place where UGC really thrives. Consider prompting your followers to create their own Snaps that feature your products or brand, and then share them along with a custom hashtag. Then, you can amplify the strongest ones in your own Stories.
UGC is proven to be a highly effective way to generate social proof, increase brand loyalty, and build a stronger social community.
Javy Coffee is one example of a brand that leveraged UGC by featuring real customer testimonials and stories about how they enjoy the coffee concentrate. This helped the company create relatable ads that resonated with its audience.
4. Interactive Content
One thing that separates Snapchat from most other social media platforms is its interactivity. And brands have plenty of opportunities to get in on the action!
Try devising interactive moments for your followers, whether it’s a simple poll, a challenge, or a unique AR Lens. These allow users to really get involved and have a fun experience with your brand – and can lead to new UGC for you, as well.
For example, e.l.f. Cosmetics used AR Lenses combined with Bitmoji to allow users to virtually try on makeup, creating a highly interactive experience for its audience.
5. Exclusive Offers
Want to really impress your Snapchat followers? Reward them. From promo codes to exclusive discounts or early bird access to new products, there is no shortage of ways to treat your audience.
It’s great for them but beneficial for you, too. It gives people a reason to keep engaging with your content and following your brand.
Advertising On Snapchat
While organic content is at the heart of Snapchat, the platform also offers some unique and powerful paid advertising options. The company also rolled out a new ad platform update in August 2024 that provides enhanced analytics, improved targeting, and more.
1. Snapchat Ads
Served to users in between user-generated content, these are full-screen, vertical video ads. They’re not dissimilar to Instagram Stories, and can include interactive elements such as having a user swipe up to visit a website.
The Salvation Army’s Snapchat Ads featured videos depicting real-life stories of individuals impacted by its services, emphasizing themes of hope and transformation. These ads connected emotionally with viewers and included a swipe-up option to learn more or donate, making the content both impactful and actionable.
2. Sponsored AR Lenses
One of Snapchat’s unique offerings is its custom AR Lenses, which brands can create for users to experience.
You can create Lenses that allow users to virtually “try on” products, for example, put people in a humorous visual setting or even have them play games. At times, they can even respond to users’ movements or the environment around them.
These can be hyper-engaging and drive a lot of interactions – like Volkswagen did when it used an AR Lens to enable people to experience its ID.3 electric vehicle virtually. Using the Lens, people could place a virtual model of the car in their environment, explore its features, and even change the color.
3. Filters
These are static overlays that you can apply to your Snaps once they’re created – and brands are able to design their own to delight Snapchat users. These are typically non-interactive but are fun visual enhancements that enable people to add some creative flair to their content.
Post Consumer Brands created its own custom Snapchat Filter to promote its Honeycomb cereal – and it was very sweet!
4. Dynamic Ads
Snapchat’s Dynamic Ads enable brands to automatically create and deliver personalized ads to users based on their behavior and interactions with your company. For example, if a user visits your website and looks at a specific hat, Snapchat might serve them an ad for that product.
If you work for an ecommerce company, these might be particularly interesting to you, as you can automate ad creation based on your product catalog – so you don’t need to lift a finger.
Fashion brand Free People has used Dynamic Ads to automate personalized ads for users, ensuring that those who viewed specific items on its website were later served ads featuring those exact products on Snapchat. It resulted in a 396% increase in demand.
5. Commercials
These are non-skippable Snapchat video ads that usually appear within the platform’s premium content, like Snap Originals.
They’re short – three to six seconds for a Standard Commercial and up to 180 seconds for an Extended Play Commercial (though users can skip after the first 6 seconds) – and are optimized for high visibility.
They typically focus more on storytelling than some of the other ads on the network.
Let’s Get Snapping!
Yes, Snapchat is still an effective marketing platform for reaching younger audiences – but you must be mindful about your strategy and approach.
With its unique blend of high engagement, unique creative tools, and loyal audience, Snapchat offers brands a variety of ways to connect with their target consumers.
Hopefully, this guide has given you the insights and inspiration you need to build a successful Snapchat marketing strategy in 2024.
Now, it’s time to put these ideas into action and start Snapping your way to success.
More resources:
Featured Image: Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock
SEO
6 Things You Can Do to Compete With Big Sites
Zillow, Trulia, Redfin. These names appear in almost every conversation about buying, selling, or renting property. This is not because people are particularly interested in these platforms but because they’ve become the default starting point for most property searches.
The best illustration of this is that out of over 4.5M keywords that Zillow ranks for, bringing them an estimated 32.7M visits from search, the top keyword is “zillow”. And did you know that’s a more popular search term than “houses for sale” or even “apartments”?
You might think there’s really nothing left for realtors and agencies. But here’s the twist: their niche focus is their secret weapon. These local experts can outshine the big names, proving that sometimes, being small is the biggest advantage.
This is where SEO comes in. SEO (search engine optimization) for real estate involves strategies to boost your visibility in Google’s organic search results. This visibility brings free, consistent traffic that grows as you create more optimized content.
The opportunity for boutique, small, and medium real estate businesses lies in four key areas:
- Hyperlocal keyword targeting.
- Long-tail keywords with high intent.
- Local link building.
- Exceptional customer service that fuels positive reviews, boosting your local search rankings.
In other words, you need to do SEO better where it counts.
In this article, I’ll share strategies and tips from SEO experts in the real estate sector, along with insights from high-performing niche sites. Our focus is exclusively on SEO, so we won’t cover search ads or listing your business on aggregators, as you’re likely already doing those.
SEO for real estate faces a few specific challenges. It’s good to know them to understand how to shape your strategy.
Big sites dominate the share of voice. National real estate portals and aggregators often outrank smaller agencies. They’ve got tons of backlinks, tons of well-ranking pages fueled by inventory from practically every possible source, and they are well-optimized for Google. It just so happens that all of that is called authority, which Google likes to promote in search engine result pages (SERPs).
A huge challenge is figuring out where big competitors leave content gaps and missed keyword opportunities. Big real estate platforms dominate the market, so you need to dig deep into what they aren’t addressing.
Both local and national competition. Big sites will appear in both national and local search results. Moreover, chances are on the local level, you’ll be competing with local players who already started investing in SEO.
Our biggest SEO challenge is standing out in local searches amidst fierce competition because we are battling local real estate investors and also national companies.
Real estate SEO is incredibly local. Unlike other industries, where a broad audience can be targeted, real estate businesses must rank well in specific cities or neighborhoods. This means you’re not just competing with the big-name RE platforms but also with other local agencies, making it even harder to stand out.
Serving both sides of the market. As a real estate agent, you’re practically a one-person marketplace serving both sellers and buyers.
Each agent has different ambitions, so they need to ensure their SEO strategy aligns with their overall business goals.
Many topics within real estate will count as Your Money or Your Life (YMYL). In recent years, Google has recognized that certain subjects, including real estate, require higher standards of trustworthiness.
Any content should go through multiple fact checks before publication, and each data point should be well sourced with an external link where possible as this will aid authority.
Now, let’s see what we can do about those challenges.
A well-optimized Google Business Profile (GBP) is crucial to outrank aggregators and local competition. As you probably already know, this free listing appears in Google Search and Maps.
I won’t go into the basics of GBP profiles. I’m sure most of you already have one, and if not, you can get up to speed with our full guide for beginners.
What I’d like to emphasize here is two things.
A GBP is one of your best bets to outrank both big sites and local competitors. I can’t even cite a specific expert here because they’ve all said the same thing. That’s because the so-called map pack featuring GBPs often shows on top of regular organic results.
A GBP is your answer to big brands. They have the marketing budgets, the authority on Google, and brand awareness. A GBP gives you a strong local presence backed by reviews and the effort you take to make the profile stand out.
You have to keep in mind that the profile is not just something that people will see only once, and only if they find it through Google. Even if they discover you in other ways, they will circle back to the GBP to see if you can be trusted.
Secondly, there are a few things that can make or break a GBP:
- Listing each branch separately.
- Giving people reasons to leave a positive review.
- Showing who you are and how you work in the photos feed.
Make sure you list branches separately. This is important because Google ranks GBPs based on the distance of the searcher or the location used in the query to the business (among a few other things). So if you want to be visible in all of the cities or neighborhoods where you have a physical address, make sure to list them separately.
Reviews are one of the most impactful ranking factors for GBPs. Virtually everything about them counts: how many are there, what’s the overall ranking, are they fresh, do you respond to them, etc.. Google pretty much reads them just as a potential client would.
Obviously, the goal is to get as many positive reviews as possible. But here’s the tip: not all of them need to come from actual real estate transactions. You can receive excellent reviews by just being helpful.
Next, list ALL your services. By listing all services, you increase your chances of appearing in a wider range of relevant searches. Example below:
Finally, consider adding photos of your team and client interactions. This isn’t about Google rankings — it’s all about how people think. Photos of your team and happy customers help new clients feel like they know who they’re trusting with their biggest assets. Most GBPs just show normal real estate photos. Just make sure to ask for their permission first.
I’ve gathered a few examples of photo feeds that stood out in my research. Photos like these draw attention yet don’t require much effort to make.
Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search engines to find what they’re looking for. In SEO, you use keywords as topics for your content so that when someone uses the keywords, they can find your content.
The keyword strategy should focus on niching down if you’re a small or medium-sized real estate business (or you’re working for such a client). Keywords with high search volume are usually harder to rank for. Plus, these big keywords often relate to the national market, not your local area. They’re less likely to bring you leads from nearby customers.
Use the niche market to your advantage and focus on using long-tail keywords with low to medium competition. Rather than looking to target broader terms like “real estate” or “investment property UK”, target more specific phrases like “luxury homes in Manchester” or “affordable property in york”.
A huge challenge is figuring out where big competitors leave content gaps and missed keyword opportunities. Big real estate platforms dominate the market, so you need to dig deep into what they aren’t addressing.
Tools like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer show what words people use when looking for real estate to buy or an agent to help them sell. Let’s look at how you can use this tool to find the best types of keywords.
Local and hyperlocal real estate keywords
Local and hyperlocal keywords are search terms that are highly specific to a particular geographic location or small community. These keywords typically include:
- Neighborhood names.
- Street names.
- Local landmarks.
- Local attractions.
- Zip codes or postal codes.
- Specific districts within a city.
- Names of local businesses or institutions.
- City comparison (e.g., Portland vs. Austin).
Rather than targeting neighborhood key terms alone, you should also hit landmarks, popular streets, and more. Build expertise and authority through neighborhood-specific landing pages with unique local content. You sacrifice some volume, but you attract highly qualified traffic and increase your chances of showing up at the top of the right search results pages.
To find your keywords in Keywords Explorer:
- Type in broad terms related to the area you operate. For example, in Las Vegas that could be “las vegas, arts district, charleston heights, fremont street, green valley, henderson, los prados, sumerlin, twin lakes, unlv”.
- Go to the Matching terms report.
- In the Include filter add types of the real estate you offer. For example “real estate, house, condo, homes, properties”. Make sure to use the Any mode.
From that point, you can use additional filters to refine results. For example, to find low to medium-difficulty keywords set the KD filter to Max 30.
As you browse through the keywords, add them to a list.
Here are some examples I found:
Questions and real estate buying/selling terminology
Answers to popular questions and terminology allow you to attract customers seeking information first, show off your relevant listings, and get people to contact you for more details.
You can use these same seed keywords to find questions that buyers and sellers are asking. All you need to do is use the Questions tab:
For example, here’s a page explaining some of the basic terms. It generates an estimated 795 organic visits each month.
Local guides
These keywords include a geographic location and offer insights about the local area, like neighborhoods, restaurants, bars, attractions, or real estate market trends.
For instance, Live Love Santa Cruz, a boutique real estate, targets various keywords related to local services and attractions. I’ve listed some keywords where she ranks in the top 10: sushi, beaches, surfboard services; you get the idea. It’s practically a local guide’s blog attached to a real estate business.
To find these keywords, you can again use the standard set of locations and these modifier keywords: “best, things, top-rated, event*, guide, list, tips, map, information, resource, transportation, park*, recreation, shopping”. You can add your own or ask AI to expand this list.
Sidenote.
The asterisk acts as a wildcard for modifier keywords. It will automatically include all the words that start with “park.”
Since these keywords can have irregular structures, it’s a good idea to use competitive keyword research.
To do this, type in “blogs about [local area]” or “[local area] blogs” in Google. If you’re an Ahrefs user, you can use the toolbar to reveal SEO data for each site. Choose sites with the most traffic (ST) and click the KW link.
This will show you the keywords the site ranks for — your new source of content inspiration.
Unique features and buying scenarios
Brandy Hastings from SmartSites and Ally Dyck from seoplus+ mentioned a specific subset of keywords: properties with unique features and specific buying scenarios. For instance “pet-friendly apartments in [suburb]” or “townhomes for sale with low HOA fees”. These keywords typically have low search volume, but they’re high in intent.
Here are some of the ideas you can use for keyword modifiers: “for, near, with, buyer, close to, invest, relocate, retire, in”. Use them with seed keywords related to the type of realty you offer.
- Type in types of real estate as seed keywords.
- Open Matching terms report.
- Set the following filters. Include: add the modifier words mentioned above. Optional filters for finding easier keywords: KD up to 30, Lowest DR Up to 40 in top 10.
- Open the Cluster by terms tab.
From there, look for the areas you serve and browse keyword ideas.
Don’t expect to get leads from every organic visit — it’s a very important thing to understand with this source of traffic.
Real estate decisions take time, and users are often at different stages of their journey. Your goal should be to engage visitors and guide them toward taking the logical next step rather than pushing for an immediate conversion.
I like to think holistically about the different stages someone may be at as they’re researching an area or neighborhood. Informational guides can be really useful for the earlier stages as people are just learning about a place and determining if it’s a good fit. Things like neighborhood overviews, school profiles, guides to local amenities. Then as people start narrowing down their search, more transactional pages optimized for queries like “homes for sale in Neighborhood X” can be effective.
Here’s a simple example of this concept. One of the pages that generates the most traffic for Hudsons Property is a guide to renting and buying a home in London. Each guide links to other relevant content on the site, including London areas.
The visitor can learn not only how to buy or rent but also where. The area guides take them a step further in their buyer’s journey, providing a form to inquire about real estate options.
And that is the whole idea. Each page needs to deliver a logical next step for the visitor to get in touch.
Here are some other ways real estate sites try to engage visitors.
Highlight selected real estate in a neighborhood guide. Even if someone is not ready to buy yet, pictures of nice homes will likely draw them in.
Get Calendly and integrate it with your site. This will give people a quick and easy way to contact you, without back-and-forth with setting up meeting dates.
Encourage contact by making a special offer, such as a free valuation.
Keep main contact options visible at all times. You can include them in a floating menu bar. Simple yet effective. It reduces the time to find contact details and demonstrates your openness.
Within seconds, visitors form lasting impressions about your credibility and professionalism. If they feel something is off, they will leave.
Establishing trust isn’t just about appealing to human psychology — it’s also a critical factor in Google’s ranking algorithm, built into the EEAT concept.
EEAT is how Google’s systems are trained to determine a page’s credibility. The acronym stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, with the last element being the most important.
It basically means that a website exhibiting strong EEAT signals is more likely to rank well in search results because Google aims to provide users with credible and reliable information.
Here are some ways you can cater to potential customers and Google.
Getting a TLS certificate is an absolute must. This protects sensitive information, like login credentials and personal details, from being intercepted by malicious actors. It also displays a padlock icon in the browser’s address bar, visually signaling to users that the website is secure.
On Dana Fitzpatrick’s site, I found these few hundred pixels that clearly establish this realtor’s credibility. It features impressive performance data, a compelling testimonial, and a series of recognitions highlighting her experience.
On Nathan Sherman’s site, I found this:
And I couldn’t agree more — these sold properties acts as strong testimonials. They’re not just a list of past transactions; they’re a visual showcase of an agency’s success story.
Moreover, they catch your eye, because not every agency keeps their sold properties in a visible spot on their site. I know it caught my attention when I first saw this after looking at dozens of real estate sites.
Here’s a real estate business that went the extra mile, although with very simple means. Room Real Estate captured the family business spirit in a short video. This video introduces the visitor to two generations who have worked hard for their success.
There’s going to be a lot of visual content on your site, so make sure the images are compressed and the code is optimized. This will keep your site fast which, again, matters both to visitors and Google.
Real estate websites often rely heavily on images and virtual tours, which can slow down site speed if not optimized properly. In one case, we improved a client’s site speed by compressing images and restructuring their code, which led to a significant boost in their search rankings.
Mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor and a must-have if you want your visitors to stick around. Photos of houses and apartments look better on a big screen, but many of your visitors will use a smartphone instead.
To illustrate, here’s the mobile vs desktop distribution looks on most real estate-related keywords I’ve seen so far.
It’s very easy to test your site for these factors. You can use free tools such as our Webmaster Tools. The tool will show you affected pages, tips on how to fix them, and whether the changes you implemented worked.
That said, fixing those things will require some technical skills. So unless you’re a realtor by day and a web developer by night, you might want to get someone to help you.
Backlinks, also known as inbound or incoming links, are links from one website to another. Search engines like Google see these links as votes of trust.
Link building is one of the pillars of SEO as more backlinks from unique domains can improve your search rankings.
There are many tactics to get backlinks, so you need to choose wisely. Based on expert opinions and an analysis of high-performing real estate sites, here’s where you can get quality backlinks:
- Directories.
- Press.
- Podcasts, shows, and public speaking.
- Local organizations, schols, and events.
- Your terminology and data pages.
Let’s look at them in more detail.
1. Directories
Directories are organized listings of websites, typically categorized by topic, industry, or location. For example, Circa is a niche directory for old house listings. They also feature agents and brokers.
Getting your site on a directory is pretty simple. Depending on where you’re listing, you might just add your info yourself, fill out a form and wait for approval, or “pay to play”.
A quick search of online directories or business listings will give you enough sites to keep you busy for a few hours (for example this list from HubSpot). On top of that, I’d recommend you also check out our advanced guide to this type of link building and find some hidden gems.
2. Press
Backlinks from the press come from providing journalists and bloggers a reason to mention you, and therefore, link to you.
For instance, you can offer expertise like Michael Bondi.
Or get your listings featured like Berkshire Property Agents.
You will find lots of requests from journalists requests on HARO, Help a B2B Writer, and similar sites.
Consider reaching out to local press outlets with real estate-focused story ideas. For example, you could propose an article exploring ‘Why there’s a surge of homes for sale in [specific area]’. Alternatively, offer your expertise to journalists working on real estate-related pieces.
If you have a bit more budget, you can hire a PR or link building agency to seek out the right opportunities.
3. Podcasts, shows and public speaking
These events often list speakers or participants on their websites, providing an opportunity for valuable backlinks from reputable sources.
Whenever you get a chance to appear on a show, conference, or lecture, ask for a link back to your site.
4. Local organizations, schools and events
Local organizations, schools, and events often link to sponsors, businesses that are involved in charities or community initiatives, and helpful resources.
These backlinks might need a bit more effort but the benefits of networking will likely surpass SEO. Here are a few ideas to try:
- Join local business associations and chambers of commerce.
- Reach out to local schools and offer to participate in career days or provide educational resources about real estate.
- Sponsor local sports teams or cultural events.
- Volunteer for community service projects or organize charity events.
- Create and share valuable content about the local real estate market, homebuying tips, or neighborhood guides.
- Offer free workshops or seminars on real estate topics for community members.
- Partner with local non-profits for fundraising initiatives.
- Offer internship opportunities to local students interested in real estate.
5. Terminology and data pages
Citing data and facts is one of the most popular reasons to link. Become the source, and you might earn lots of links this way passively.
To get an idea of what kind of resources earn links in real estate, you can look at competitors’ sites in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. Just paste their domain and go to the Best by links report.
Tip
Before investing time in link building, I strongly encourage you to read our beginner’s guide. Learn how to tell good links from links that are less likely to give you a boost, and which practices could possibly hurt your site.
Final thoughts
I’d like to leave you with two more tips.
I’ve seen many realtors create video content for YouTube, including virtual property tours, and neighborhood showcases. However, just a few of my sources mentioned this strategy. For inspiration, check out Brad McCallum’s channel. To find keywords for YouTube SEO, you can use tools like vidIQ.
Finally, I want to quickly discuss your KPIs. Since buyer’s journey in this business can be quite long, a good idea would be to track the correlation between SEO metrics and closed deals. To crunch the numbers, simply ask ChatGPT.
We measure the ROI of SEO from the number of quality leads that are generated by our website and then correlate them with closed deals, giving a clear picture of how organic search is contributing to our bottom line.
Got questions or comments? Send me a message on LinkedIn.
SEO
8 SEO Hiring Managers Share Their #1 Interview Question
Are you frantically Googling “SEO interview questions” because you’ve got an upcoming interview like… tomorrow? If so, don’t panic—I’ve got you covered.
As research for this article, I’ve asked eight top hiring managers to share the #1 SEO interview question they’re asking candidates right now, so you can understand what types of questions hiring managers are asking.
The hiring managers I talked to came from a range of different backgrounds: agency, in-house, and enterprise businesses.
It’s impossible to prepare for every question ahead of the interview, but it’s important to put yourself in their shoes and diligently do your research.
At a minimum, you should consider:
- What’s important to them and their business?
- Why should they hire you?
- Can you demonstrate a thorough understanding of SEO and bring the receipts to prove it?
Ok, that’s enough from me—let’s see what the hiring managers had to say.
This question comes from Sam Page, Director of SEO, Slack:
A competitor has implemented a new SEO strategy. How do you analyze their strategy and when do you consider implementing something similar?
How to answer
Here’s how Sam would answer this question:
I look at how the competitor uses the strategy to grow keywords, traffic, or engagement. If it makes sense and falls within best practices, I would consider implementing something similar (ideally, finding a way to improve upon it).
I analyze the success of their strategy with SEO tools like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Page Speed Insights (I am open to other tool ideas like GTMetrix).
I also want to consider whether the strategy is appropriate for our customer base.
Tip
As Sam mentioned, you can use Ahrefs to help with this.
I’d suggest checking out the Content changes filter in Site Explorer’s Overview to understand whether the content changes you or your competitors have made have had a positive or negative impact. You can use this information to help inform your SEO and content strategy.
This question came from Jimisha Thakrar, Head of Organic Performance at MG OMD:
“How would you handle a situation where someone in leadership wants immediate SEO results?”
How to answer
Jimisha gave an example of how to answer:
SEO is a long-term strategy, but I understand the pressure for quick wins. In these situations, I would focus on setting clear expectations early on within the business by showing realistic timelines for SEO impact and comparing it to other channels like paid search.
It’s also important to realize how key resource for implementation is going to be and that this is also going to have an impact. There are things you can do, such as identify low-hanging fruit that can provide quicker results, such as optimizing underperforming pages that are ranking on page 2 or fixing technical SEO issues that are limiting visibility (resource dependent).
Next, if leadership is eager for quick traffic due to seasonality/campaign deadlines, I would suggest they leverage paid channels for immediate impact while building on the SEO with a hybrid approach, combining short-term paid search with longer-term SEO efforts. This approach could provide the immediate visibility they seek while SEO efforts lay the groundwork for sustainable, organic traffic growth.
Finally, I would communicate the importance of patience and long-term investment in SEO, perhaps showing examples of how it contributes to sustainable traffic and revenue growth over time and work with them to focus on developing a robust SEO strategy that ensures long-term visibility.
Tip
SEO is usually a long-term marketing strategy, as Jimisha says, and you need to communicate this clearly to stakeholders, but there are a few things you can do to accelerate your SEO results.
Check out my article on Quick SEO, for eight ways to accelerate your results from months to days.
The next question comes courtesy of Fabrizio Ballarini, Organic Growth at Wise:
If you could create any page you want on your current website, what would you create?
How to answer
Often, candidates are blocked by resources and buy-in from stakeholders. I want to assess what they would do if given the freedom to execute.
Sidenote.
In my opinion, it sounds like Fabrizio is keen to find independent, creative thinkers with this type of question. This is a good example of where it is useful to have a personal website so you can say, “This is what I would do—and this is what I have done on my website.”
Even if the website is still relatively small, if the quality of the pages you mention is good, it may catch the attention of the hiring manager.
This question came from Itamar Blauer, Senior SEO Director at StudioHawk:
What do you think the most significant Google update has been in the past two years, and why?
How to answer
Itamar said he’s looking for three things when asking this question:
Firstly, I want to understand whether the candidate keeps up to date with the SEO industry and search landscape.
Secondly, I want to see how the candidate can prioritize and be critical.
Lastly, I want to get an insight into how the candidate sees different SEO areas and their significance.
I’d look for answers around the various Helpful Content Updates over the past year or so, as these have been fairly significant. Mentions of broad core algorithm updates are also fine but (generally) not as significant.
Tip
To answer this, you need to make sure you’re very extremely familiar with all the latest Google algorithm updates and be able to critically evaluate their significance.
You can use Ahrefs’ Site Explorer Google updates overlay to see whether updates correlate to traffic increases or decreases for the website you’re analyzing.
Here’s the question Daniel Foley Carter, Director at SEO Stack, likes to ask candidates:
How would you perform SEO testing, and why is it so important?
How to answer
This is how Daniel would like a prospective candidate to answer it:
SEO testing is important within an SEO strategy because there are so many nuances to ranking and ranking factors that we have to find that “happy medium” by testing.
Testing allows us to scratch under the surface of what our pages need to have in respect of content (including information priority, content coverage, depth, and quality of information) alongside traditional things such as tech compliance, internal & external anchors, and more.
Effectively, testing allows us to find out what’s right on a case-by-case basis – as typically, each page on a domain will be aimed at different queries where, ultimately, ranking factors are likely to vary.
Therefore, sequential and persistent testing would allow us to find what works best to establish rank and drive revenue/traffic.
Tip
You can monitor your performance of SEO tests using the Portfolios feature in Ahrefs.
This question comes from Rachel Walton, Head of SEO at Quirky Digital:
How do you prioritize which SEO work should be completed first?
How to answer
Here’s why Rachel likes asking this question, and what she’s looking for in an answer:
I love this question because the candidate will reveal a lot about both their soft skills (time and resource management) and their hard skills (specific SEO red flags) in the answer.
Candidates who interpret this as a question about their soft skills will often talk about prioritizing work that has the highest impact for the lowest resource input, or they might talk about using the first month to complete work that they know is the most important to the client.
The candidates who approach the question with an answer about their hard skills will usually talk through some key issues that they like to ensure are resolved quickly, such as poor information architecture (IA), poor technical setup, and indexing issues.
I’m always impressed with candidates who demonstrate their understanding of what foundations a client needs to perform well – this usually indicates that they have a great combination of both soft and hard skills.
For example, they realize that it’s going to be a lot easier for us to manage cannibalization issues before we move on to producing new content to save ourselves the hassle of needing to amend tons of internal linking later down the line when we cull useless or duplicated content.
This kind of response shows me that the candidate understands SEO concepts, is a forward thinker, and likely has some practical experience of messing it up once or twice and needing to rectify their mistakes — because the best growth often comes from getting it wrong, but learning from it!
Next up, here’s a question from David Schulhof, Director of Digital at PHA Group:
What should be the main priority for brands investing in SEO today, and why?
How to answer
Here’s why David likes this question and how he expects someone to answer it:
I like this broad question because it highlights what area of SEO the person is focused on and how open-minded they are to the broader SEO spectrum.
It usually ignites a good discussion and talking points to explore experience and knowledge further and also leads to lots of follow up questions.
As with any interview question, I want to hear validation for detail behind the answer, why they think it’s a priority, and how that could vary for different clients.
I would usually follow up with specific sectors or types of brands to see if the answer would change.
Our final (and very big) question comes from Philip Gamble, Head of SEO at Zenith:
What do you think the impact of AI Overviews will be on SEO as a channel?
How to answer
Philip provides an example answer below but interestingly suggests that there isn’t a right answer here.
The question is there to test the candidate’s general understanding of SEO and explore their ability to justify their SEO opinions and communicate them succinctly—essential for working agency-side.
At the moment, AI Overviews have not had a significant impact on most of my clients.
Their presence is fairly minimal compared to the early beta, and I see them predominantly on the upper funnel informational terms, mostly longer question queries.
I’ve seen a few useful AI Overviews, for example, when searching for a grammar-related question. Still, in a few cases, they just seem to duplicate information already in featured snippets. I’ve also seen some examples where the generated result wasn’t helpful.
Final thoughts
If you want to ace the interview, you need to get into the brain of the hiring manager. This is often easier said than done. As you can see from this post, every hiring manager is looking for something slightly different. You can only do this by understanding what’s important to them—and by understanding who they’re looking for.
Are you an SEO hiring manager and want to contribute to this article? If so, share your favorite SEO interview questions here or contact me on LinkedIn.
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