Episode 298 Mail-Right Show Special Guest Isaiah Colton
The 298th edition of Mail Right Show features Isaiah Colton, a successful entrepreneur who grew his firm through brokerage referrals. Isaiah has assisted thousands of sales professionals and small business owners across the country in developing solid sales and marketing skills through effective database cultivation, the use of digital marketing and technology, and the discovery of more effective ways to generate listing opportunities to scale their business faster. He’s here to discuss hyper-local SEO, the things a real estate agent should know, as well as how to position himself at the top of his local search. He’ll also give insights into the significant shakeup occurring in lead generation because of the move Zillow is making right now and how agents may capitalize on it from a digital marketing standpoint.
Hyper-Local SEO vs. Broad SEO
Being at the top of the search results page indicates that you’ve already reached a large number of people. There were multiple ways to cheat the algorithm, and it used to be relatively easy to get in the top search results. However, Google has altered its algorithms to prevent these exploits, and real estate keywords are now more competitive than ever. Since Trulia and Zillow entered the fray, they’ve dominated Google’s real estate search results. It’s unpleasant, but understanding this enables us to develop a more effective plan.
Successful real estate websites leverage the power of SEO to allow them to compete with the industry behemoths such as Trulia and Zillow. They do this by doing what these big companies cannot, and that is Hyper-local SEO. Broad SEO or typical SEO creates a site with high domain authority and has content pages that outperform its competitors. If you’re building a site today, it’s impossible to compete using standard SEO strategies against Zillow or Trulia. However, when it comes to targeting Hyperlocal keyword searches, you can do this, and it is something I personally use for my clients to help them get in the top search results in this area.
Localized Content Strategy
To do this, you need to focus on a particular city or county that you service and gear all of your SEO signals to that specific location. Create detailed neighborhood and community pages for your area. This type of content is impossible for larger companies to replicate due to its size. However, for a realtor that only does business in one particular area, it’s doable to create a website that features all the top neighborhoods, condos, and real estate submarkets in your area. The only thing you need is to invest enough time and resources to build out the content pages.
A good example is one of our clients, Dean Short, who built many content pages targeting Cabo San Lucas. That market is one of the most competitive real estate markets in the region. Their site is dominating many real estate hyper-local results, which has earned them tremendous ROI from their initial investment. Check out their website at https://caborealestateservices.com/.
Google Business Page
Whether you have one or just building one, you need a Google Business Page if you’re planning to do Hyper-local SEO. Google created a pay-per-call hyper-local search system that is doing wonders for local realtors. Search terms that fall in this category include realtors near realtors or me in X city. Using paid Google Ads that target these keywords with your Google Business Profile is a great way to get in front of interested home buyers or sellers fast.
Having a Google Business Page also enables you to get online reviews from previous clients. Like other business pages such as restaurants or stores, your realtor’s business page works the same way. People can leave 5-star reviews on your profile which helps your overall SEO rating. In InboundREM, we leverage your Google Business Page by incorporating the reviews you get from them into your website, helping you synergize both platforms effectively.
Youtube Videos
If you’ve been following me for a long time, you’ll know that I’m a huge advocate of YouTube Videos for realtors. If you’re planning on targeting Hyperlocal search terms such as Homes for Sale in X Neighborhood in Y City, then you need to leverage the power of YouTube. The YouTube and Google Search algorithm works hand-in-hand. If you create video content that targets specific hyper-local keywords and you have web pages that do the same thing, and you set it up, so both of them are linked together, you get a recipe for success! One of our clients, Bret Wallace, leverages this strategy so well that he’s been getting excellent results in his own market. Check out his neighborhood pages to get insight on how to build your own neighborhood tour videos here: https://homesoffortbend.com/.
