How Real Estate Agents Can Beat Zillow, Redfin, and Others on Google

This comment on a Facebook thread caught my eye recently:

"The big guys have spent millions on SEO and we will never compete with them on SEO but there are so many profitable PPC search terms that are so affordable and very little competition."

I can't speak to the PPC aspect of that, it's not my specialty. But based on my experience, and having worked side-by-side with the SEO team at one of "the big guys," I beg to differ with the argument that you and I can't compete with them...and even beat them...at SEO.

Real Estate SEO at the "Big Guy" Level

So we're all on the same page, by "big guys" I'm talking about the Zillows, Redfins, and Realtor.coms of the world. And even HomeLight, where I worked for 3.5 years and watched the SEO team try to do hyperlocal content at scale. (Not easy!)

The portals are really good...nay, they're GREAT...at "homes for sale" SEO. If you want to rank your IDX pages for terms like LOCATION homes for sale or homes for sale in LOCATION, you're gonna have to compete with the portals...and it's gonna take a lot of time and energy. It's not impossible, but in many markets, it won't be easy. That's just the honest-to-God truth.

But there's a universe of keywords where the big portals either aren't competing at all, or they're competing but beatable. Have a look at this:

My wife is still holding off Redfin on this search term. And here's the funny thing: That Redfin page is for Tri-City, Oregon. 😬 Below us are a couple local brokerages -- including one with a great SEO who I'm pretty sure is reads my newsletter -- plus Realtor. com and a couple local news sites.

We may not hold off the portals forever on that term, but that's okay. There's still lots of opportunity out there.

Your Opportunity to Beat the Portals

The portals are great at SEO that's scalable. What I mean by that is, they can optimize their "homes for sale phoenix" content and then apply the same tactics to "homes for sale albany," "homes for sale missoula" and so forth. Easy to do, relatively speaking.

It's much harder to scale the type of content creation that's required to answer searches like

• "is LOCATION a good place to retire"

• "living in LOCATION pros and cons"

• "should i move to LOCATION or LOCATION"

• "is LOCATION expensive to live"

• "moving to LOCATION"

• etc.

You can't scale that because every LOCATION is different. You have to write custom content about the location. Redfin is trying and seeing some success, like this:

That article isn't bad, but it has no local expertise and experience -- two of the elements of E-E-A-T that Google wants to rank highly. (Not familiar with E-E-A-T? Watch this free video from Chapter 1 of my real estate SEO course.) The article is written by someone from Redfin's content marketing team who's also written about Cleveland, Pensacola, and many other cities. And this article, like many others on Redfin's blog, is very generic. It sounds exactly like what you'd get from ChatGPT, and Redfin admits in its editorial guidelines that it's using artificial intelligence to create content.

In some of its other local articles, Redfin is putting an agent's name as the author -- that's better because it implies expertise and experience. But the article content itself is still really generic and doesn't show that agent's experience and expertise.

Getting back to that Boise article: I fully believe that a local Boise-area agent with a strong website could write a terrific article on the pros and cons of living in Boise and eventually take over the top spot from Redfin.

Go Even More Hyperlocal with Your SEO and Content

Another way to beat the big guys is going even deeper into your local community. In addition to (or maybe instead of) "pros and cons of living in boise," you could do a similar article(s), but at the neighborhood level:

• pros and cons of living in north end boise

• what you need to know about living in west boise

• etc.

There's no way the Zillows and Redfins are going to be able to get that hyperlocal.

Content like this is your website's biggest opportunity to compete with and beat the portals. You have experience and expertise that they can't match -- and that's exactly what Google wants to show in its search results.

Don't Forget About Your Google Business Profile

Another area where the portals can't compete is searches like "best realtors in LOCATION" and "LOCATION real estate agents."

Sure, they probably show up in the organic results for terms like those. But they don't show up in the local/map results.

That's why your Google Business Profile is another key piece of beating the portals. So make sure your GBP is claimed, optimized, and updated.

Not sure how to do that? Grab your copy of my Google Business Profile guide for real estate agents today. I'll teach you exactly how to optimize your GBP like the pros do.

Your takeaways: If you're not blogging already, today's the best day to start. You've got to take all that local knowledge you have, all that real estate knowledge, and put it on your website. You've got to answer the questions/searches that buyers and sellers are typing into Google every day. And use your Google Business Profile to show up when buyers and sellers are specifically looking for a local agent. You CAN beat the big guys at SEO. Agents are doing it every day.